"A Certain Romance"  by the Arctic Monkeys

Last summer, I became briefly involved with a girl for about three months.  She, however, is not the subject of this article.  I mention her only because she introduced me to a band called the Arctic Monkeys.  I won't go into details, because the article on Wikipedia  does an excellent job.  To put it simply, the Arctic Monkeys are an indie band out of the United Kingdom, headed by Alex Turner on lead vocals and guitar, Jamie Cook on guitar, Nick O'Malley on bass, and Matt Helders on drums.

I listened to a few of their songs, most notably "Fake Tales of San Francisco" and their hit single, "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor," and promptly decided that I was not a fan of their music.

This sentiment continued through the fall semester, but as coincidence would have it, I kept running into music by the Monkeys.  On my second day at my college radio station, I happened upon a CD with the words "ARCTIC MONKEYS" scribbled hastily across the cover.  I looked at it a moment, thought of that girl from the summer, and ten minutes later, had the song "A Certain Romance" playing over the radio waves.

Later that day, after I finished up on the radio, went to my class, and wrote a paper, I decided to look up some more of their music.  I revisited "Fake Tales" and "Dancefloor," slightly more impressed with the music this time.  Regardless though, aside from that one track "A Certain Romance," none of the Monkeys' music felt like something I could really get into.

Time marched on and I listened to other music, mostly Death Metal -- thanks to my roommate, and I usually put the Arctic Monkeys out of my mind.  More than once, I played them to wake up in order to read the news at the radio station, but my encounters were occasional, at best.

I forget how it happened, but one day in March I suddenly found a bunch of their music that I really liked.  Songs like "Mardy Bum" and "When the Sun Goes Down" were all songs that I could listen to over and over.  I even found a preview of their new album on Myspace, and listened to that several times.

I was impressed.

And then a funny thing happened.  I went back and listened to "A Certain Romance" again, and immersed myself in the music.  Instead of using it as background noise while writing a paper or doing my homework, I actually listened to it.

And the more I listened to their music, the more I began to relate with it, as though it narrated a certain part of my life.  "A Certain Romance," for example, seemed to define my life at Emerson College, and more specifically, my disdain for life at Emerson College.  In reality, my interpretation couldn't be further from the truth (the track's actually about Turner's disdain for the UK indie scene), but  that didn't make any difference to me.

That was, until this this music video came out and people saw a bunch of rampaging clowns.  Suddenly, the circus kid's claim that an obscure indie band was narrating the story of his life--didn't seem so farfetched after all.

I'm now waiting for them to write a song about lobster bisque.

About the author: Jack Lepiarz is 19, goes to school in Boston, and is a big Yankees fan.

He works as a freelance circus performer cracking whips, throwing knives, and injuring himself.  He drives a Honda Civic, likes listening to the Arctic Monkeys, and his favorite word is bisque.



He holds himself in very high esteem.

Email: Jackwuzhere42@aol.com

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