Samuel Breen
It’s alleged that when you’re young the world is a lot simpler. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. That kind of thing. It’s much more conceivable that life is so bewildering at that age we can seldom assess what is going on around us. Our minds retaining only the most extreme scenarios of synthesis: tears, joy, fear, laughter, etc. When you’re ten all music melts into one. To distinguish between obnoxious rocknroll and sultry RnB is quite the challenge to a sonic debutante, leaving subtle nuances beyond comprehension. At that age, for instance, you might overlook the camp-ness required to reenact last night’s Corrie in the playground. Much like attending a Savage Garden concert and knowing almost all the words.
‘Truly Madly Deeply’ may have registered with me first but it was the b-side, ‘I Want You’, that captured my imagination. Practicing the faux-macho rapping endlessly, connecting to the lyrics, breaking them up and trying to draw more meaning would reveal them to be anything other than a trite, esoteric, and synthetic concoction. Today I need to “imagine doubt’s complete absence” to appreciate the unadulterated sincerity of, “sweet like a chic of cherry cola.” A task worth undertaking. But beyond such gaudiness the seductive pattern in Darren Hayes’ delivery above the Prince funk template disarms any reservations. There’s sugary industrialism and a Madchester-lite guitar loop to open the track, with sultry synth chords creating an ambiguous tempo through the verse. The slower chorus give the track an unease - perhaps a symptom of its b-side status. All the same, I love it.
I’d later discover that the absurdity in the lyrics and the delirious pace with which they’re delivered capture coital pleasures - the mind racing at blistering pace. But that would be a decade later when sex would be more than mere nervous fumbling, when I’d come to love savage gardens [AHEM! - Popfessions eds]. At the age of twelve, stood with a dozen friends in Manchester’s Nynex (now Evening News) Arena little did I know I was peering down the barrel of adolescence and all its trappings. My curiousness into the meaning of the song would not be explained for years to come but intuitively they must have connected. For this was the first moment music connected with me, when it began its fermentation.
