“childhood bedroom” by Ben Platt, Sunday, August 15, 2021

Ben Platt is a musician-actor who has played roles in Pitch Perfect, Ricki and the Flash, and stars in the Netflix original series The Politician. He stars in the upcoming film Dear Evan Hansen directed by Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Wonder, Jericho). The film is an adaptation of the broadway play in which Platt also starred and won a Tony Award for best leading role actor. At 23, Platt was the youngest actor have won this award. On Friday, Platt released his second solo pop record, Reverie. "Childhood bedroom" is the second track on Reverie, and deals with a similar theme to Dear Evan Hanson--anxiety. In "childhood bedroom," Platt escapes his worries by mentally transporting himself to his past, a time when he feels secure. 

BAREFOOT ON MY DARK BLUE CARPET, TEMPORARY FREEDOM WITHIN THESE WALLS. He had had a happy childhood, a room full of hand-me-down stuffed animals, a few Hess Trucks, Matchbox cars, and Legos, which he shared with Jess until he was about seven years old. Playtime usually consisted of Hot Wheels and Barbies, playing house or school. But when he played with Legos, Allan's imagination ran wild. He built the perfect home--a two story house with a pool outside--just like in the movies and PBS shows he watched. He would grow up and make money to buy this Lego house life. His children would have every new Lego set they wanted. How would he afford this life? By being an actor/movie maker. Outside, in the forest behind his house, Allan acted out these movies. The plots were similar to whatever Disney movie he had watched recently and Jurassic Park--there were always a few lines from Jurassic Park. On the swings, he imagined taking off in a plane. The slide was running away from the villain. The naughty parts, well, they took place in the playhouse his dad had built, away from his mother's eye. He'd imagine being tied up, like in the movies, by some brute--a man with broad shoulders and disproportionately small legs. Tying himself up in the dirty tree house, made Allan feel something strange, a feeling he couldn't describe. It started with a cold rush and turned into a cold sweat. It wasn't fear because he knew he controlled the narrative. This made him, the hero of this someday Disney Adventure, to add more intensity. More rope? More hot breath from the unshaven villain with a cleft chin? Perhaps a stroke to the chest?

Three-disc changer Sony stereo system
Source: Wikimedia Commons.

A LOOPHOLE WHEN I NEED TO ESCAPE. When Allan was ten years old, his family moved from the trailer in New York to a rented house in North Carolina. The backwoods behind the house also allowed for movie making fantasies, but he was growing up and at the age of thirteen guitar practice and thoughts of being a rockstar started replace his dreams. Spending hours next to his Sony stereo, he'd sit with his guitar figuring out how to play songs. It started out with CCM radio. Allan really wanted to be next Michael W. Smith. He was so handsome and loved by everyone in the Christian music scene. He played piano and guitar and composed music. He had a scruffy beard and a voice that would rasp at just the right part of the song. He eventually grew out of CCM and started playing classic rock and then current pop and rock songs--early 2000s Goo Goo Dolls and Red Hot Chili Peppers, and then Christian hard rock like P.O.D. But his music teacher pushed him to play older songs--classical to mid-20th century songs. She said that's where the money in music is. The hours he spent in his room making music, dreaming of the rock band he would one day form, would be just like the hours spent imagining the movies he would make. The hours of imagination in childhood didn't translate to commitment in a dream, so they were discarded back into the deck, never to be dealt back.

Read “​childhood bedroom” by Ben Platt on Genius