Dorothea Paas - Don't talk put yr head on my shoulder

Like, okay, so duh, objectively, the Beach Boys' one is perfect. Maybe the most perfect song? About a certain kind of thing, at least. It's the national anthem of that one kind of lonely full-in-love lush pause, it's swaying alone and it's infinite, bright hush, a whole season filling a song. You settle, it lifts you, that whole effortless swell like sky in it. You don't need me to tell you about it.

But here's the thing: does a national anthem ever actually sound like the country it's sung for? Just because you kiss someone in the elevator doesn't mean the whole building catches fire. Just because you woke up with your fingertips ringing like a struck tuning fork doesn't mean there's a chorus of bells every time you press them down on the keyboard. If we all went around giving off light all the time we'd be schools of fish, not cities, and no one would get anything done for the glow of us. Stuff scatters on across the boring icy whatever - streetcar, caffeine, toothpaste, papercuts - and you still have to walk around in your dumb body, slipping a little where someone forgot to salt the sidewalk. You can be the place where the whole world converges, but nobody gets to know it just from looking at you; you still have to pick up frozen peas on the way home. One bright edge of the memory can glance while you're in line - belt buckle, collarbone - but then it's time for you to pay, so you do. Dissolve a little, but no coming apart. You just take your receipt and you leave, ringing home against the minor dusk. A walking echo, maybe, but still walking.

[Doro Paas is perfect; find her here.]