"In the Cold" by Acceptance, Wednesday, October 20, 2021
October or November in the northern hemisphere are the coldest times of the year. At least they feel that way. Sure, January or February might have the lowest temperature, but you've been training through December for how to dress for those cold months. But these days, the cold and warm shifts are getting more dramatic. That's what happened last Friday. It was summer weather--sweating at work, wearing shorts in the evening. Then suddenly sweater weather with frigid mornings and chilly evenings after the early sunset. I love this time of year. I love not being covered in sweat. While "In the Cold" is not about those cozy, autumn feelings, the sad look back at failed relationships in this song isn't depressing to me. The guitar tones add hope to melancholy lyrics, making this song almost empowering.
THE WORDS, THEY TAKE THEIR MEANING. While "In the Cold" is a mid-album track that had very little potential to become a single, I feel that this song best encapsulates the "cooling" of interest Columbia Records had with the band. I've talked about the anti-piracy CD recall that took the band's record from the shelves. But there were more problems. Columbia Records signed Acceptance based on their incredible live energy. For rock bands, though, the label made most of its money through ballads. Hence, Phantoms starts out as a pop-rock album that eventually becomes a rock record. The podcasters on Finding Emo give many examples of rock bands needing a rock radio song before their pop ballad. Even the band Hoobastank's "The Reason," whom Columbia was trying to capitalize on, didn't release that song first. The Fray didn't lead with "How to Save a Life" or "Look After You." Yellowcard didn't lead with "Only One." Releasing a rock radio single first would establish the core fans of the band. The pop ballad would bring their girlfriends on board. And yes, the song "Different" might have been the biggest money-maker--like "Only One" or "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," the shortcut of skipping straight to the ballad made longterm, local band fans think that the band had completely sold out. On its release, Phantoms would seem like a pop album and would be lost in the anti-piracy/spyware shuffle. Maybe a song like "This Conversation Is Over" or "Permanent" on alternative radio would have helped the band survive. If it were super successful, "In the Cold" could have been a fourth single? Of course that didn't happen, and Phantoms remains a cult classic.
I REMEMBER THE CHILL THAT CAME OVER. This is the third pick from Phantoms, which is the most I've picked from an album this year, but I believe I picked four songs from Mike Mains and the Branches' When We Were in Love last year. "In the Cold" is about looking back on a relationship that didn't work out, but it gives me these autumn memories. I think about the frosty mornings, camping in the mountains over the weekend with my Pathfinder club. Pathfinders is the Seventh-day Adventist alternative to Boy and Girl Scouts. I think about friendships that I had that were everything before we all grew apart. The boys in the tent determined that sleeping in your underwear in the sleeping bag to use your body heat to stay warm through the night and one boy said that he was actually sleeping commando. There was the early morning scramble to put on layer upon layer of clothes and a smokey fleece zip-down sweater. You either were on breakfast duty, which meant getting the water or trying not to burn the pancakes or mess duty, which meant washing the syrupy plates in the warm-to-lukewarm water. Then there was always a fear among the boys about the showering situation. You never knew what the showering situation was at the campground, and the wrong kind of shower situation might make you gay. To avoid this, you had to go at different times of the day, ask a friend to stand guard while you shower at the end, or just not shower. After a clean up of the campsite or a shower, we were ready to start learning orienteering in the woods and other skills that would help us survive the end of times. Mostly, the camping trips were a time of ungodly conversations--making fun of weirder, more conservative kids, rebelling against one particularly tyrannical leader, sex and puberty, and music and movies--all while learning how to tie knots (I failed so many times). Wasn't our Pathfinder group the worst?
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