“Tell Me If You Wanna Go Home” by Keira Knightly, Wednesday, January 25, 2023 (warning: strong language)
The 2013 film Begin Again stars Keira Knghtley, Mark Ruffalo, Maroon 5’s Adam Levine. The film tells the story of a heartbroken English singer-songwriter, Gretta James (Knightley), betrayed by her boyfriend, David Kohl (Levine), when he becomes a superstar and cheats on her while on tour. Gretta processes the breakup by recording an album dealing with the end of the relationship. But beyond the theme of heartbreak, the film deals with the state of the music industry. Without spoiling the ending, Gretta sticks it to the joint-stock capitalist record label in a very satisfying way.
HELL, JUST THROW ME. I want to talk about my admiration for the film, and I’m sure I will. But today I’m pissed off, and it has to deal with he subject of this song. So I’m going to rant instead. I’m in America righ now, specifically Anytown, USA where there’s no god damn Internet. My parents don’t have Internet and I’m going though withdrawals. Fortunately, I have mobile data but the fucking cellphone companies are greedier than Korean cellphone companies charge for using a hotspot. After paying an obscene amount of money for limited data and 5 gb of mobile hotspot data, I found out that my hotspot won’t work—the in-store service rep says that it’s probably the e-sim. There might be a few other options, but for tonight, I’m hunched over my phone typing on a Bluetooth keyboard.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO KILL SO KIND. I feel especially shitty about how I treated my mom after I came back to the car after meeting with the sales rep. After explaining the situation, I said of course they couldn’t solve the problem. She said, “You’re alway like this when you come home. It’s only three weeks.” I said that I needed the internet on my computer because I had stuff to prepare for work. I was so annoyed with her that she couldn’t understand that I need the internet and that not having it is ruining my time at home. She made me sound like I was an ungrateful child. But that’s just it. I felt like an ungrateful child. With the emphasis on being a child—at the whim of whatever or whoever could offer me a ride. No fucking respect for my autonomy, that I write every day or that I use my computer constantly for anything. I always thought about “Tell Me If You Wanna Go Home” as a song about wanting to go back to a simpler time, like when every day your parents had a plan for much of your free time. But today, I’m realizing that going back to that time is impossible and super uncomfortable.
Film version:
Soundtrack version:
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