Album: Foxheads Stalk This Land
Year: 1987.
While Foxheads Stalk This Land came out in 1987, I didn’t buy it until 1988, which is why my memories of listening to it revolve around the apartment at Wishon & McKinley during the dread summer of 1988.
That summer was those times in my life where it felt like everything was crashing around me, and the Wishon & McKinley apartment was the first time in my life I’d ever lived alone, so music felt like it was pretty much all I had.
Thus, my love for “In Spite of These Times.”
An anthemic break-up song, “In Spite of These Times” instantly kicks in with a plethora of liquid guitars spinning around each other in a frenzy while the rhythm section is playing one of those 80s indie dance beats that Miss Alans or Smiths fans would instantly recognize.
That was all pretty cool, but it was the huge pleading chorus that got me:
From your window
I asked the sky
‘When can you fit me in?’
Promise me that you’ll never forget in spite of these times
Promise me that you’ll never forget in spite of these times
The lines the ended that chorus resonated with me so much: everything seemed to be ending, but I didn’t want it all to go away forever regardless of whatever I was currently feeling. It was also a cousin of (and bookend to) R.E.M.’s “lift your arms up to the sky and ask the sky and ask the sky don’t fall on me.”
And in the end, when Andrew Burnett pleaded one last time:
Don’t let it slip through your hands
Don’t let it slip through your hands
Don’t let it slip through your hands
Don’t let it slip through your fingers
I couldn’t help but hope that it meant that everything bad was temporary and that we’d all remember the good times, not the bad ones. (Which is, of course, what basically happened.)
Video for “In Spite of These Times”