Is It like today?

Didn't understand much what he saw

There are enchanted songs that can take you back to an exact point in history. A sort of bewildering time tunnel that culminates with you being in the exact spot where the song first affected you. For better or for worse.

Is It Like Today? by World Party is one of those songs.

It was 1993. I was a deeply dejected 16 year old coming to the end of my hated senior school career. There was nothing for me in senior school. Just bad tasting memories that I keep locked away and never return to. I was sat on a bench in Bushey Heath High Street near the Spa supermarket. Depressed. If memory serves I was either doing mock GCSEs or the real thing, but either way I’d walked up the high street from my school to escape for a bit and sit on a bench. I was fed up. I was so close to being out, but also so far, as I had to wade through all this academic bullshit first - a sort of Andy Dufresne crawl to freedom. I had my Walkman on, and a carefully selected mix-tape playing, and as I sat and thought about how sad I felt, and how I’d like to have been at home, or literally anywhere else, it happened. The song came on.

It was unsettling, but in a good way. It awakened something. I was downloaded Tron-like into it. Soaking it all up. The true magic of music in the fullest of effects.

There are time that the mind is able to properly focus and concentrate on what is happening, and for some reason on that day, in that moment I was able to imbibe every single molecule of it like some sort of Hulk villain. The song and I became indelibly fixed to that moment in time, like one of those strange, carved balls from Minority Report. As soon as that bass-line moves into place, and that G chord rings out, I’m back on that bench thinking about life, the universe, and how much I hate school.

That bench today (not me sitting there)

I’d first heard it on a Saturday morning show somewhere. I have vague memories of the band being on and interviewed about it, but something about it stuck with me. Not only does it have beautiful and powerful melody - and the loveliest of choruses, it also tells a wonderful story (“A little precis of Bertrand Russell’s history of western philosphy in four verses” as Karl Wallinger later put it) that really spoke to me in that moment. It has such dramatic heft, such relevance and leaves such marks. The story of how we got here as a race, the cost of the journey, and what could we possibly want next. As lyrics go, it’s a behemoth when you look at it written down:

Many years ago
He looked out through a glassless window
All that he could see was Babylon
Beautiful green fields and dreams
And learn to measure the stars
But there was a worry in his heart

He said
How could it come to this?
I'm really worried about living
How could it come to this?
Yeah, I really wanna know about this

Is it like today?
Uh, uh-uh

Then there came a day
Moved out 'cross the Mediterranean
Came to rest on isles and the Greek young men
And with their silver beards they laughed
At the unknown of the universe
They could just sit and guess God's name

But they said
How could it come to this?
We're really worried about living
How could it come to this?
Yeah, we really want to know about this

Is it like today?
Oh, oh-oh

Then there followed days of kings
Empires and revolution
Blood just looks the same
When you open the veins
But sometimes it was faith, power or reason as the cornerstone
But the furrowed brow has never left his face

He said
How could it come to this?
We're really living in a landslide
How could it come to this?
Yeah we really wanna know about this

Is it like today?
Oh, oh-oh

Then there came a day
Man packed up, flew off from the planet
He went to the moon (to the moon)
To the moon (to the moon)
Now he's out in space, hey, fixing all the problems
He comes face to face with God

He says
How could it come to this
I'm really worried 'bout my creation
How did it come to this
You're really killing me you know

It isn't just today
Oh, oh-oh
Is it like today?
Eh? Ah
Is it like today?
Oh, bang
Ooh

Many years ago
He looked out through a glassless window
Didn't understand much what he saw

Karl Wallinger has just died, and with him he takes the secret formula. I never met him, but I’d have love to have told him how much that song improved my life in that moment, and how it still moves me to this day.

He was a wonderful song writer, and judging by the outpouring I saw on Twitter, he will be greatly missed.