Interpol
“C’Mere”
3 minutes, 11 seconds
It’s always too late to be locked inside yourself. It’s something that the band Interpol innately understands — they’ve recorded what amounts to a two-chord opera (or operetta, given the pop single length) in “C’Mere,” with undeniable allure. If I hadn’t known it to be Interpol, I’d have said Joy Division headed to 1970s Germany, backed by The Rosenbergs and Jesus and Mary Chain, with a magic microphone hewn from Jim Morrison’s headstone. (At times, that headstone seems wrapped around itself, tube-like, and singer Paul Banks shouts through it as a megaphone.)
We are right there with them through spellbinding lyrics like “Now season with health / Two lovers walk on Lakeside Mile / Try pleasing with stealth, rodeo.” Each stanza is a journey. “C’Mere” tells of hope springing eternal — each high-energy strum as alive as Frankenstein’s monster after a fresh jolt of electricity. Imagine murderer Phil Spector’s wall of sound stripped bare, and replaced with liquid oxygen rockets. This is music to live to, that doesn’t stand in the way with a message, or out of the way without one. (White Stripes, are you paying attention?)
I’ll be honest. I don’t know what it means to season something with health.
But I want to.
I doubt Interpol minds the images it conjures even in the mind of a relative layman such as myself — a young turk, nose-piercing in its box, hidden from parents’ judgmental eyes, tear-streaked after losing his first love, re-entering the kitchen of the self and stirring the pot with renewed vigor. Tenderly. Tastefully.
The Ramones are looking down from heaven and smiling upon Interpol. Now it’s your turn.