One of the most powerful things about music is that it is the soundtrack of our lives. Fellow music fanatic Sharon Hepworth started a music challenge on Twitter for the month of July. Each day, fans around the world will select a song from their life and describe what it means to us. These are my songs. #SoundtrackToYourLife
Day 10
It’s hard for me to find a song that has been more entangled with my life than this one. It’s a song that played on the dance floor at a club that I started going to during my senior year of high school. Fridays were alternative rock nights – and that’s when I begged my friends to go. Not Saturdays or Thursdays, Friday night was the night. That dance floor felt like freedom, especially when “The Perfect Kiss” came on. I also can’t separate the song from my first relationship. My girlfriend loved singing to it, grooving to it, and dancing to it. “The Perfect Kiss” is undoubtedly a key part of my life’s soundtrack.
One of my favorite New Order anthems, the song contains some of the band’s most iconic moments. It all starts, of course, with Hooky’s trademark bass line that skids and skirts along the upper octaves like it’s the lead guitar. Then there’s Gillian’s shimmery synth chords that wash over you like a tsunami. And then we have the unforgettable percussion. Ahh, those electronic drums. No drum kit here. The dance-infused drum machine wasn’t just keeping time, it created a brand new groove defined largely by those hand clapping moments for the New Order faithful. “The Perfect Kiss” is, just, irresistible.
“Now I know the perfect kiss is the kiss of death.”