Moving to New York by the Wombats is a high-energy melancholic song. There is the tone of someone who's just about had it up to here with problems, but it is a victory in that voice, of someone who can see what he must do.
There's a kind of glamor in being one of the troubled ones and moving to New York, but it takes a certain cool that knows not to wear a fannypack and be too outwardly excited. It's more, like, disaffected casual mention. People used to go to NY as a promised land of opportunity and hope. The person in the song adds an interesting layer to the way things evolve and illusions shift. But the song’s voice says it more than once, droppin' the fact in a chorus like a mantra, which reminds me of the strong attachment with location that people in NYC get, identity & consciousness itself coalescing in the city.
On the grander scale, a lot of people with restlessness in them have been pulled to the anonymizing fellowship with other insomniacs, artists, prostitutes, businessmen and vibrant immigrant food and culture, ah, the sounds the smells the tastes. NY City at its best is the most endearing duality of human conditions–people living with desire in the face of death, a cognitive awareness on one hand, that you're a little fish in a big pond, not only in the city but the cosmos themselves. On the other hand, the reaction to that, is having a huge, never-ending, indulgent, luxurious, extravagant, bawdy party. Kwame Anthony Appiah is a scholar of Cosmopolitanism (he believes that people from many different cultures can live together with mutual respect). It was from Kwame Appiah that I realized the root of Cosmopolitan, is Universe-City.
NY City is a Universe City and artists find relief in the 24/hour LIFE. An adroit ending to a meditation about this sweet little tune by the Wombats.
You can hear what I mean and enjoy the song at Songza, a made in NY start-up that has a cool feature for mood/atmosphere/style that generates a sort of-radio of suggestions, you can play and rate.
link to Songza http://songza.fm/ & lyrics:
I've just had the craziest week,
Like a party bag of lies, booze and then deceit.
And I don't know why I want to voice this out loud,
It's therapeutic somehow.
So I'm moving to New York cos I've got problems with my sleep,
And we're not the same and I will wear that on my sleeve.
So I'm moving to New York cos I've got issues with my sleep,
Looks like Christmas came early, Christmas came early for me.
I put one foot forward and ended up thirty yards back.
And am I losing touch or am I just completely off the track?
And I don't know why I want to voice this out loud,
It's therapeutic somehow.
So I'm moving to New York cos I've got problems with my sleep,
And we're not the same and I will wear that on my sleeve.
So I'm moving to New York cos I've got issues with my sleep,
Looks like Christmas came early, Christmas came early for me.
So I'm moving to New York cos I've got problems with my sleep,
And we're not the same and I will wear that on my sleeve.
So I'm moving to New York cos I've got issues with my sleep,
Looks like Christmas came early, Christmas came early for me