I can always find a song by Erasure to fit my mood, no matter how I feel, no matter where in time I am, no matter what is happening around me.  Whether it be “Chains of Love” when defiantly in love, “Oh L’Amour” when longing for loves lost, “Blue Savannah” when longing for home, “Chorus” when I’m mad at people and the world at large for so many reasons…

“Chorus”…  Sitting here listening to it now, tears come to my eyes.  You see, it’s not just that I can find an Erasure song to fit any mood, it’s also that I have listened to them for so long that each and every song now immediately bares the emotions and memories of so many histories.  It’s like watching a movie, only it’s not just the story that’s on exhibition.  It’s also not someone else up there on the screen — it’s me, my every thought and feeling exposed, some like raw nerves, others like soothing warmth on a cold day, while others echo enticement and excitement.

In the end the journey is draining.  Like a whirlwind of experiences rolled into only minutes, the end of the song snaps me back to reality, as if I had only dozed momentarily before being startled awake.  Yet there are more memories to be had.  The CD continues on to the next track and my mind ushers forth an entirely new set of feelings and recollections.  “Love To Hate You”…

Another journey, rapid and stirring, a visit to another time and place…

I’m crazy flowing over with ideas
A thousand ways to woo a lover so sincere?

The quest.  We’ve all been there.  Don’t lie.  That for which all humans have yearned throughout history.

For every Casanova that appears
My sense of hesitation disappears

We so easily fall into predicaments when our search is so entirely overriding.  We are blind to truth, we are so desperate to find what we are seeking that we are willing to see it in places we would not otherwise look.  We do this because we feel we need beyond all other things, that life cannot be complete when one is without it.

And the lovers that you sent for me
Didn’t come with any satisfaction guarantee

Need I say more?

But then the song changes.  Already?  I thought it had only just started and…  It’s “Am I Right?” playing now.  My mind continues generating this memorialized menagerie unabated.

But it’s over as quickly as it began.  And now I find myself hunting down “The Circus” in near panic.  I am besieged by the sudden relative applicability of the song.  Then I find it; now it’s filling the air with its rhythmic beat and circus-like accompaniment.

Call it new technology and they use it to burn and they show no concern
Work for their prosperity while the big wheels turn, now it’s too late to learn

The rich get richer while stepping on the little guy.  May I never be remembered thus.  And yet here we stand holding upon our broken backs and tired shoulders those who know just the right people to get somewhere.  There appears to be very little need for other skills, so it’s either knowing someone or knowing someone.

And it’s a shame that you’re so afraid
Just a worker waiting in the pouring rain

We keep going, and we keep taking it from the man.  Why?  Someone has to pay the bills.  More importantly, someone has to buy all the possessions we want.  It’s no more complicated than that.  And we suffer it upon ourselves and upon our children.  We suffer it upon the world around us.  We consume.  We need money to buy that which we consume, so we work.

Most upsetting is that we have been so conditioned by such existences that we now bear an emotionally cold and seemingly out of touch world for those who come after.  We distance ourselves from everything and everyone.  It becomes far too comfortable to watch uncaringly as the world drifts by.

Tempers fray so easily in desperate despair, is there anyone who cares?
Just another tragedy, just a personal affair in a room somewhere

Is it?  Does it have to be?

[this part of our program is brought to you by Erasure]