Every Song I Love — 15. Life Without Buildings : The Leanover
Every Song I Love is a series where I try to write about every song that I love, or die trying. Sometimes I’ll explain why I love them, sometimes I’ll tell the stories behind how I fell in love with them, sometimes I’ll do both. Most importantly, I hope you love them too.
This is a lightly edited version of a blog I first published back in 20 21
To explain why I felt the way I felt when a song I loved deeply went viral, I first have to explain why I loved it so much. When my wife and I first met, over 15 years ago, we lived hundreds of miles apart, so only saw each other at weekends. We used to send each other mix CDs in the post, which dates our courtship pretty effectively (ten years earlier it would have been mixtapes, ten years later, Spotify playlists I guess).
For the first mix CD for my wife, I spent an awfully long time thinking about the tracklist, especially the opening track. Music was hugely important to both of our lives, and we had in fact met at a music festival, so it felt like the first piece of music I actively chose for her to hear had to not only be a great song, but also a statement of some sort.
I pondered and pondered, but nothing seemed quite right. Some songs seemed too obvious, some too obscure. Some didn’t fit with her taste, as much as I understood it at the time. After far too long spent thinking about this ‘The Leanover’ by Life Without Buildings suddenly popped into my mind. I doubt I would have named it as one of my favourite songs at the time, but it had clearly been percolating away at the back of my mind.
I listened back to it and it just seemed right. A semi-spoken stream of consciousness, somewhere between indie-rock and post-punk. In some ways it said nothing, but it seemed to mean everything. Not a love song by any means, but deeply beautiful and heartfelt. It felt right for her to hear this song and think of me.
So, The Leanover had a special place in my heart from that day on. I listened to it often and thought about it even more, but it wasn’t a song that anyone else seemed to be thinking about. I never heard it on the radio, or mentioned in media, or talked about on social media. Life Without Buildings had only put out a single album and then split up within a year, and they seemed to me to be mainly forgotten.
Then, one day back in January 2021, I was on Twitter (RIP) and a random account I had followed because they liked an article I had written about Broadcast tweeted something about Life Without Buildings blowing up on TikTok. It was weird to see their name mentioned even, but the context made me think it was some kind of obscure joke.
I mean, wasn’t TikTok that social media site where young people lip-synched to pop songs? Surely Life Without Buildings would be the last band to be found here? But a quick Google found this Guardian article, which confirmed that indeed, The Leanover was the latest viral sensation on the platform, after having been shared by Beabadoobee, one of those modern singers they have nowadays.
I watched clip and after clip in amazement, of teenagers mouthing along to the opening bars of The Leanover, whilst performing make up tutorials, or trying on outfits, or travelling on trains.
At one time, I’m not sure if I would have enjoyed a deeply beloved but obscure song becoming popular in this way. I defined my personality too much by my love of music, and knowing about great songs that not many other people knew about was weirdly important to me. If one of those songs suddenly became popular, it felt like something being taken from me.
Fortunately though, I grew up in the end. I realised that music knowledge was no substitute for an actual personality. I realised that music giving people joy could only be a good thing. And if it was music I loved too, then so much the better. Watching these TikToks, I felt strangely emotional. I loved that these kids were getting so much joy from an obscure record that was released before many of them were even born. I love that my favourite song might now be the favourite song of someone young enough to be my child, and most of all I love that great music never dies, it always finds a way.
Originally published at http://markjwray.com on July 18, 2024.
