Floating Fire

Song: "If There's a Rocket Tie Me to It"
Artist: Snow Patrol
Album: A Hundred Million Suns (Deluxe Version)
Year: 2008
From: Dundee, Ireland

The beginning of this song puts me in some sort of beautiful trance. Like the end of an intense yoga session and you rise like you've just awakened for life. Or as if you're seeing space for the first time, floating next to stars. Gary Lightbody's slight obsession with space and time travel may have something to do with this peaceful opener, which builds like the sun rises. It's mysterious like a little alien but as welcoming as a southern mother. A GREAT album opener.

Two years after Eyes Open, Snow Patrol hasn't changed their tone or tune, and that's why I love them. Eyes Open was an entire album full of goodies. Love songs and travel songs and songs I could listen to twenty times and never get bored. It was a stellar album to listen to on dark roads, formfitting to the convenient lyrics: "headlights on dark roads". Waving hand outside of the glass VW window (thanks, Trudy) against the wind; part of me was flying. Eyes Open climaxed almost as good as Kid A, and that's saying a lot. The songs were best one after another, instead of lingering singles. The radio decided to ignore this, of course, and played "Chasing Cars" so much I wanted to barf. On their new album consistent melodies and rhythms thread to the past, such as, "Lifeboats", and "Please Just Take These Photos from Me".

"If There's a Rocket Tie Me to It" begins: "Two weeks like a surplus reprieve/ I found a hair the length of yours on my sleeve/ I wound it round and round my fingers so tight/ it turned to purple and our pulse formed inside/ and I knew the beat 'cause it matched your beat/ I still remember it from our chest to chest and feet to feet."

Alright. Clear intimacy. But I don't feel like I'm invading. Gary loved it so much he is inviting us to hear his heart beat-enter drummer. His orgasm is on fire; primitive and volatile, wild in nature and space. Can you be wild in space? I don't know, I think you would just float, but maybe past pluto it's possible.

Gary seems to only remember "a pulse, a pulse", must have been some intense one on one sessions. Both bed and studio. I want to know how my pulse differs from someone elses. They all feel the same, but what is the attraction to a specific pulse? It's the love behind the blood. The face behind the veins.

Jump to: 3:11 on the track. "Whoa whoa whoa" the band repeats. Something as surprised them. Something is happening. The trees move, the pulse is all around them. I wonder if they took any drugs while recording? It's as if their senses are heightened and everything is glorified. The lights seem brighter, the trains seem faster. Snow Patrol is hungry for the pulse of life/nature/humans. Have you ever seen things pulse? Besides a wrist or neck. How about grass or pillows or colors? How about a page in a book, fluttering like eagle wings? Have you seen fire come to life? Everything pulsing comes to life like Grimm stories, guiding your own pulse by your immediate surroundings. Everything is one, organic, and flowing with the pulse of energy glowing in the world like Sigur Ros' orbs. My favorite lyrics, "I break you don't, I was always set to self destruct though ". His sacrifice, his submission and admittance. It's like silk against rock, water running along marble. The structure will never be worn thin, his voice carries too far to be intimidated or pushed away. You can't shrug or sway to this song, you have to smile. I would die to see this song live. This is one of my "favorite bands" I've never seen live. Hello Santa, it's Ash.



Someone in this band wants to fly out of the solar system.