“Well you told me one time that you’d be somebody, that you weren’t working just to survive / but you’re working so hard that you don’t even know you’re alive.”
The stop-and-smell-the-roses message undoubtedly rang true when it was first performed in Phantom of Paradise back in 1974—a practically pastoral time before there was even a 24-hour news cycle let alone Twitter—but it feels bone-chillingly pertinent in 2015. As we stay locked into a productivity matrix compounded by affective and digital labor in an effort to negate wage work with equal and opposite “meaningful work,” we let off-brand experiences fall by the wayside. Crutchfield’s clear voice sings about “pipe dreams” that “become obsessions” and laments how the hustle can get in the way of “simple feeling”, assuring an aspirational friend or bae that even if they’re not maxing out their use value, they’ll always be verified to her.
“Special to Me” is available on Father/Daughter‘s Faux Real II compilation.
