I am well aware that there are many more popular New Order songs, included amongst those "True Faith," "Blue Monday," "Bizarre Love Triangle," and several others, but as a teenager that had fallen madly in love with Depeche Mode in 1989, it wasn't until 1990 when I started looking to some of their peers for similar music.
As it was their most recent release, I started with Technique and though the opening track, "Fine Time," really grabbed my attention, the first time I heard "Round & Round" it really spoke to me.
Again, I was creating my own sense of self, as one does during their teenage years. And though the song is more about a relationship falling apart, which was angst and sadness enough to sway my adolescent heart, it was the lyrics shared here that made me take note:
This spoke to my identity.the picture you seeis no portrait of meIt's too real to be shown
to someone I don't knowand it's driving me wildit makes me act like a child
I have always been a large dude, which is a euphemism for the fact that yes, I was, and am, fat. I've struggled with my weight my entire life. I was no different from many teens during their formative years, far too critical of how I looked, unhappy with how I looked in the mirror. Yeah, it was me, but also, it wasn't me. It didn't align with who I thought I was, but it was the very real representation of who I was physically. The two were incongruent. Sometimes, they still are.
But that idea that a portrait, a picture, is "too real," wow, that really spoke to me.
There are the ways that we see ourselves, and there are the pictures that don't necessarily agree with that perception; as a young person learning who they are, that can be jarring. Even now, it sometimes disturbs me.
I don't know that New Order intended that interpretation of their lyrics, but that's kind of the awesome thing about music: there is the intent of the artist(s), but there is also how the audience translates those same lyrics to their own life.
I love that.
Enjoy!
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