News

Valentine To A Song: "Looks Just Like The Sun" By Broken Social Scene

12:00 p.m. · March 8, 2011 · by Dave Toropov

Valentine To A Song is a recurring post on Prefix where writers share a personal story about a song that has played an important role in their lives. This is a space where we remember why we love music.

A few summers ago in the middle of a night in June, I was walking through an empty baseball field towards a bonfire. Some of the people at this party I knew, most of them I didn’t, but when I found a picnic table to sit on and looked over to my right, there was a girl sitting on a table a few yards away that stole all of my attention. My memory’s not that great now, but I remember starting a conversation or two with her, trying my best to come off as cool and collected when really I was a total jittery mess. I couldn’t even see her face that clearly, the fire only gave a vague outline as to what she actually looked like, but her short brown hair and old blue sweatshirt made her look carefree, and I loved how the fire lit her up when she smiled. I couldn’t see much, I was scared, but I knew that was something wonderful was happening to me.

We walked back to the parking lot behind the field together, probably talking about nothing like you do when you're flirting in code, and when we started opening the doors to our cars I swallowed some nerves and asked her for her phone number. She didn’t give it to me, but she smiled again, and told me to follow her.

We got into our cars, and on the road that night the tail lights of her Civic were the only things keeping me from being lost in the woods. I had no idea where she was taking me or what was going to happen, but to ease myself I turned to music, and when my car stereo came on “Looks Just Like The Sun” drifted out of the speakers. The singer was in love, or maybe I just wanted him to be, emotionally high running off endorphins but trying to remain calm, singing over an acoustic guitar building up tension and letting it go and then building it back up again and releasing it. The background ladies came in with the harmonies at the 2:30 mark, and that was it. That’s what falling in love sounded like to me. The girl and I only ended up dating for a few months, it was over before it really even started, but for me this song will always remind me of that blizzard of hormones and impossible expectations in that night. On the road at midnight, young and chasing a girl with a warm smile, and being happy. That was perfect.