Daily Jam - The Killing Moon

I am a man out of time. I move along, dreamlike in a blue and green world, a past that doesn’t actually belong to me, and I feel at home. Or there are hazy, yellow shades, like fading old pictures placing me firmly in a past that does belong to me, and I still feel at home. I am alive in different times, different years, different decades and places, living both false memories and real ones, melancholy and yearning, a little homesick, but trying not to look back. I am a man out of time. Or, at least that’s how I feel when listening to Echo and The Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon.”

From the English band’s 1984 album Ocean Rain, “The Killing Moon” nibbled away at my childhood psyche, working and caressing its way into me through bits and pieces picked up on MTV, overhead speakers in record stores, and the music collections of older kids and cooler siblings, finally staking its claim to my heart in my adolescence as I finally began to pay attention and discover everything that came before. As a pop music obsessed teenager, I tracked all of my favorite artists’ inspirations and forebears, digging through the first wave with as much curiosity and glee as I did current releases. I’m pretty sure I found the song on some 120 Minutes compilation CD that I picked up in a dollar bin somewhere, featuring an array of classic and amazing songs from REM, Morrissey, and so many more, but “The Killing Moon” struck a nerve and continues to reverberate through my soul.

It’s kind of hard to believe the song is now 40 years old, as it always just feels to be a part of whatever era I’m currently residing in. Listening to it, I’m a teen in the 1980’s, or some stylized, cinematic version thereof, sitting in a soft lit bedroom and fading away, an aesthetic sticking to my brain that makes my heart ache for something unattainable. OR I’m myself in my own memories of 1990’s west Texas, the light and sound and smell still feeling so real and so fresh, but gradually blurring and dissipating as my years move on. OR it’s right now, and I’m sitting in front of a computer screen, writing a music column, and feeling nostalgic for events both real and imagined…

…just like it’s always been. Just like it always will be. The loop continues. I am a man out of time.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.