Song Investigation: New Slang, The Shins

This song transports me to a very specific time in my life. I fall in love with it again every time I hear it, and I laugh at myself because it doesn’t matter how many times I hear this song, I still don’t know all of the words. This is highly unusual for me. I make it a point to know the words to songs. More of my brain matter is occupied by song lyrics than maybe anything else. But I cannot understand what James Mercer, the lead singer, is singing. I’m not sure why I’ve never looked them up. I can’t understand the lyrics in most songs by the Shins really. Mercer’s a little mumbly. But I get the gist of the songs, and the words aren’t really the point. It’s not the type of music you sing along with. 

The specific time in life I’m transported to is early junior year of college, fall 2003. A boy I met while working as a camp counselor the previous summer took me to see Garden State. I’m sure the movie would be disappointing now that I’m older, so I’ll never watch it again. I don’t even remember the plot. But throughout the movie, I commented on the music and how great it all was (still true), and he, the boy who took me to see it, went out and bought me the soundtrack. He definitely put more effort into that dating situation than I did, and then he ended up dumping me because I wasn’t Christian enough. Good call on his part, though at the time it stung. 

Anyway, the situationship didn’t last, but the soundtrack did. If you recall, manic-pixie-dreamgirl Natalie Portman told Zach Braff to listen to this song (THIS SONG) because it would change his life. If she had been speaking to me, she would’ve been right. “New Slang” by The Shins ended up being a gateway to all things indie music, and I sought out more music like this, leading me to meet more people who enjoyed indie music, and that’s how I met my husband. 

The song has it all, in terms of early 2000s indie tropes. It starts with jangly tambourines accompanying acoustic guitar strumming. It’s immediately rhythmic, without using any percussion other than the tambourine face (the not jangly part, whatever that’s called). Above the rhythm and guitar is some ghostly “ooohh”ing. Guitars layer over each other and then James Mercer starts to sing. His voice is comforting, like a friend. It’s not beautiful. I mean, he carries a tune and sings well, but the quality of his voice that keeps me coming back to this song and this band is not beauty but warmth. A mumbly warmth. 

If I close my eyes, listening to “New Slang,” I am in my college apartment in the spring of 2004. I’m lying on my bed, on a blue and green quilted set from Bed, Bath and Beyond. I feel sun in my face, coming in my second story window. I’m pleasantly sore from morning practice and tired but not exhausted. I’m content. I’m doing well in classes though I have no thought as to where those classes will lead, career-wise. Everything is done in the moment. Anxiety about the future is let go for the time being, as if dwelling on it won’t solve anything, even if some dwelling may have been helpful. 

The song forever crystallized the time period - early, aimless college days, filled with short term goals but no long term ones. Finishing the season, the semester, getting A’s, winning the race, those were the only goals that mattered. The song has preserved my 19 year old mind, keeping her safe for me to visit on occasion. Thankfully, when the song is over, I can leave and come back to my life in which I plan ahead and think through decisions with a little more than a gut feeling to guide me. 

Somehow entire lifetimes could be lived within the confines of a song. These memories are reminders to me about the temporary nature of each moment, that when I was young especially, I thought that if I was doing something, then that’s what I did, or maybe that’s who I was. Each moment, each temporary routine became part of my identity in too deep a way because I didn’t really know who I was or who I wanted to become. It was easy to move from group to group, activity to activity, because I wasn’t rooted. 

I’ve spent so much time thinking about identity because I tried so many different ones over the years. I tumbled along and arrived Here, wondering how I did it, trying to mold some meaning out of the clay of my past. Even though I tend to fixate on the How, I’m coming to realize it doesn’t matter as much as the What. This is where I am now. I learned from each stage, so what if I didn’t try so hard to move away from past identities?

I’m grateful for these song time machines, each one transporting me to a version of myself I’ve lost touch with, for better or worse. Being young, childless, and carefree can never happen for me again, but I can inhabit her for a moment and maybe bring a piece of her mindset back with me into the present. This rooted version of myself sometimes longs for the tumbleweed days, forgetting all of the uncertainty that came along with it. The flexibility of those days, the ability to take things in stride, the willingness to face the New with excitement instead of anxiety, those are traits I want. Imagining my 19-year-old self lying on that quilt, eyes lidded but facing into the sunshine streaming in my window, the world a haze of golden light, I remember the hopefulness of living in the moment and hold a bit of that in my heart, keeping it with me always.