WHAT MOVES ME

As a kid in my Oxford classroom, back in the late 70s, I was studying the effects of glaciation on eastern Ontario for my Geography A Level. And so it makes sense to me that when I moved unexpectedly to Canada the next year, I found comfort in the eskers and drumlins north of Kingston, the erratics scattered like thick-skulled trolls in bereft farmers’ fields, the grass scraped over like a sickly scab. I also listened to an awful lot of The Clash and The Undertones, The Cure and Echo & The Bunnymen. These bands kept me going.

I saw Echo & The Bunnymen play at the old Masonic Temple on Yonge Street in Toronto. This was 1982, maybe? The lead singer, Ian McCulloch, thought he was something special, and he was right. He also thought his band would be bigger than U2 and, in the early days at least, it was neck and neck.

Their second album, Heaven Up Here, might be their best. NME made it their record of the year, is how I remember it, and I wore that record out and then bought another copy. That second one was lost in a basement flood out in Harrowsmith (long story) and so now I own a third.

I came across this version of one of their very best songs while texting tonight with a friend, swapping reminiscences about Roxy Music and Natalie Merchant, Belle and Sebastian. The drums here race like a horse over those icy fields I leaned on as a lost teenager. And McCulloch is out there giving Jim Morrison a good run for his money. Music, I have long realized,  moves me still, more than anything save a good book, a perfect short poem, only these days it’s on way dodgier knees.