“Walking Downtown” by Copeland, Friday, December 16, 2022

 

This week, Copeland announced that they would be touring to celebrate the twentieth anniversary for their debut record, Beneath Medicine Tree. Copeland's sound has changed a lot from the indie nineties-rock inspired band to digging deeper music school band mates (particularly frontman Aaron Marsh's) classical, jazz, and broadway influences. Before all of that, though, we have a song cycle about a young man affected by his grandmother's death, pinning over a girlfriend--Paula--even named on the record. Some consider Beneath Medicine Tree an indie classic, while others consider it an immature effort for a band with much greater potential. 

THERE ARE BIRDS SINGING ON LAMPPOSTS. My sister and I fall on different sides of this debate. Back when I was going through my Copeland binge on their first three records, I liked their first two records best, while my sister liked their second two better. She admired the musical theater experimentation on Eat, Sleep, Repeat, while I was keen to the small-town America sound of Beneath Medicine Tree. We both loved "Coffee," though. The sappy pre-Owl City opener, which declares, "She said that I was the brightest little firefly in her jar" may have listeners rolling their eyes, but they should know that they are in for the sappiest, unapologetic  teenage emo record. Then the the album breaks into electric as it plays a religious trope about how pain "tests the strong ones" leaving the "beautiful." This is a song about the hospitalization of both Marsh's grandmother and his ex-girlfriend Paula. Many songs play on the sentimental, and today's song, "Walking Downtown," is one of them. 

THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT ALL YOUR CRYING'S FOR. "Walking Downtown" is kind of the anthem of young. It's the song that my sister and I debated about the album, mainly because "Walking Downtown" was the hit. The song calls on the experience of being a young person being drawn to the sights of an ordinary downtown area--the movie theater, the restaurants, the coffee shops. It's like cruising in American Graffiti, teenage energy in the feeling of attraction to the opposite (or same) sex as you wander among your friends downtown. You seem to have found a new revelation in the streetlights and signboards, and everything about this night seemhes right.  "Walking Downtown' is about this feeling of youth. You feel invisible, though you're not. Many fall in these moments to drunken stupor, but tonight you're invincible. The Christmas lights downtown add to this feeling of being forever young. Someday you'll feel old, raising children looking at this marvelous sight, but tonight you are young. That's what "Walking Downtown" is all about, that night that you are young just for one more night.


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