The Kiss

Christmas of 2000, I was living in Athens, GA... I had a very unattractive, yet happy house to live in... (unattractive because it was painted teal with pink and white trim, and had a brown and black velour couch with peacock and turkey feathers, happy because i loved it, and the couch was SO comfortable...but I love my bordello red happiness much more...).

'Twas the mutt and myself scampering through the open design loft apartment (no, get that NYC loft image out of your head and think a living room with a ladder going up to a glorified shelf where my mattress was), and the Gap Christmas commercials for that season started playing. And one of them stopped me in my tracks. There was a soundstage with fake snow swirling about and two improbably lovely people walking toward each other and culminating in a kiss. Whatever. The arresting thing was the song that was playing.

I emailed numerous people in the Gap hierarchy, and finally someone told me that the commercial was called "The Kiss" featuring "The Shining" by Badly Drawn Boy. From their album (with possibly the best album title ever) The Hour of the Bewilderbeast. And I went right away to the local record store (dang, I miss Athens for its AMAZING live music and music stores) and realized I had no money to justify buying a new cd... a state I have been in many, many times.

Last night, a full 4+ years later, scuttling around the amazon site, I found this:

Free Legal Download of Badly Drawn Boy's "The Shining" from The Hour of the Bewilderbeast.

And, yes, it's every bit as amazing as it was then.

Update: Okay, I can't seem to let this go. This song makes me so happy. Not because it's a peppy happy song, but because it's the muted sort of joy tinged with just enough sadness that you remember not to take it for granted. And the muted joy that makes you smile behind your hand with your eyes closed briefly. Like The Little Prince's love of sunsets when he is sad.

It's even making the fact that I've been stuffing folders for the past 3 hours more tolerable.