Firetoowwweeerrrr - The Max Levine Ensemble

Verisimilitude is a good word to use when you want to sound smart. It means having the quality of realism. The feel of truth. You know, when shit is more real than reality.

This song has a memory tied to it: a silent drive from Rockville toCollege Park. It was the beginning of a confusing summer, when I had just started “seeing” (read: “fucking”) my current boyfriend. I remember speeding down the beltway, feeling sick. I put my feet up on the dash and just focused on my hangover. It was the worst. I was in the car with a man four years older than me and I was in pain and the AC was broken and all of a sudden we had nothing to say to each other after talking all night and and and and — what the fuck was I doing?

Then he put on Max Levine Ensemble. When this song played, it an unspoken thing between us, like yeah, I have all my non-commital bullshit and my anxieties, but I keep thinking about you, because you’re cool.

i thought about you today on the metro terminal,
and what we talked about.
it seems like you’re into hanging out,
so we’ve at least got that much going,
and that’s something we got.
you know I thought about you today,
through all the duck and cover,
this condition that has got me screaming:
ONE MORE TIME I’LL STAY IN BY MYSELF,
HOLD ON, BUT THIS TIME I’LL HOLD OFF.
but then I thought about you.

and i thought:
we could take out the bridge this summer.
or we could climb up the firetower.

We talked about Spoonboy and cool house shows and then we were back in College Park, where I worked up the courage to have the “what are we?” talk, and we decided on “nothing, really” and I was like “ok” but quietly decided we were going to climb the firetower this summer. Because like, you know, how fucking perfect.

The funny thing is, it didn’t really happen like that. Yeah, there was the quiet drive and the hangover and the talk. But the Max Levine Ensemble was on my iPod and I hadn’t given it a listen yet. And we were driving in his old car, so I can’t possibly remember starting at the gray dash of his new Hyundai. We didn’t even listen to OK, Smartypants. We listened to Chach Rules. So I didn’t hear the drums and the horns and Spoonboy suddenly go “I THOUGHT ABOUT YOU TODAY” on the way back from Rockville. I heard — well, I don’t remember what I heard, my point is it doesn’t matter what I heard, because of that word I mentioned earlier, verisimilitude.

This association is more real to me than a lot of things. It rings true because of what the rest of the summer was, and what it finally became. I made up this memory later, listening to TMLE over and over again, in order to make up for lying about knowing the band. Which was a obviously a good decision, because they fucking rule, and I’ve made up many more memories centered around their immature/over-sincere lyrics since.

- - - - - - -

Anyway. My name’s Charlotte and I tumbl over here. This is my last.fm if you want to preview the mish-mosh of music I’ll be rambling about.