Taylor Goldsmith carried the chorus for this song in his head for more than a year before it gave rise to the rest of the song. The memory of a friend popping into his head and he thinks of him as if frozen in the amber of his youthful memories. The song is a blessing and a prayer, a wish for his friend, but also for himself, that the friend has stayed true to that person the singer knew and not felt the ravages that life can bring.
The songcraft is exquisite. He sees the friend in his mind’s eye and hopes he’s still wearing the hat that reads, “Let’s party.” There is the wish, “I hope your brother’s El Camino runs forever.” It is not the banal car, not a pickup truck, not a Dodge Dart or Dodge Charger, all of which would have changed the meaning of the song. The specificity makes it universal.
The melancholy comes from knowing the reality that our favorite bands do not stay together, that the hat is long gone. The lovers on Keats’ Grecian urn may be forever on the verge of the kiss, but we humans keep tumbling forward. That twenty-year-old wearing the flop of black hair and ready with another one liner may make us smile, but he’s sixty-six now and has the scars to prove it.
Maybe we should make this a standard way of saying goodbye or signing off a letter or email, “May all your favorite bands stay together.”
#Songoftheday #Spreadinghappiness #Dawes #favoritebands
YouTube: https://youtu.be/I74C2hClAsA?si=uz5uBfvjvFqYYYtd
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/2Nw1JvXxRt7XWIzkmxCyXq?si=9cbd7de8f6f74d0d