Straylight Run - Straylight Run
existentialism on prom night
First off apologies for my absence, I’ve been moving and doing a few writing projects outside of Be My Escape- it’s good to be back though. :)
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When the sun came up
We were sleeping in
Sunk inside our blankets
Sprawled across the bed
And we were dreaming
I was never really that big into philosophy. I still don’t have a truly deep or expansive understanding of it. I was always drawn to the more solid realms of history, politics and economics. Philosophy is a more mercurial entity. But I have friends that do.
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Straylight Run were born out of the infamous social garbage-fire that was the Taking Back Sunday-Brand New axis. A legendary scene-soap-opera Emo MySpace mess. So hopefully I can the who what when and where roughly right:
John Nolan was the lead guitarist of Taking Back Sunday, whose sister Michelle DaRosa at one point dated the band’s lead singer Adam Lazzara. Adam had originally joined the band as their bassist, replacing previous founding member Jesse Lacey in 2000. Lacey was a longtime friend of Nolan, until Nolan slept with Lacey’s girlfriend. This fallout and feud resulted in Lacey’s new band Brand New, and Taking Back Sunday writing jabs at each other (Seventy Times Seven and There’s No I In Team). A few years later around 2002-2003 Adam had moved up to lead singer and was dating Michelle, John Nolan’s sister. At this point Lacey and Nolan had seemingly reconciled behind the scenes.
At this time Adam had a serious alcohol problem, and in his reckless behaviors he ended up cheating on Michelle. This incensed not just Nolan- but also Lacey who would seemingly go on to write Alright I Believe You But My Tommy Gun Don’t “I am all you've ever wanted/ What all the other boys all promised” as a satirical swipe at Lazzara’s increasing ego.
Adam apparently apologised to Nolan for his indiscretion at the time- but Nolan later heard through the grapevine that it was all fake and Adam didn’t really care. Nolan quit Taking Back Sunday. Taking bassist Shaun Cooper with him.
In a poetic circle the two would form a new band Straylight Run- alongside Michelle. Thus making them a kind of third-camp in the strange three-way standoff at the middle of the Long Island scene.
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There is a lot more to say on Jesse Lacey, which I am working on.
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Aside from their kind of ridiculous backstory Straylight Run are notable within the 00s Emo/Pop Punk scene for two reasons. The most up-front being their heavy use of piano. The instrument is still something of a novelty when it comes to Pop Punk, Emo and even Rock music in general. Whenever its present it tends to either be for a specific “piano ballad” song, or it tends to warp the entire band around itself- becoming the singular defining feature of the artist. Contemporaries Something Corporate, who blended sunny, gooey Pop Punk with bright melodic piano and a dollop of Konstantin-angst, being a brilliant example. And like Something Corporate the piano in Straylight Run absoloutely justifies itself, elevating the band way above any kind of gimmick “Emo with a Piano” and more into a kind of Pop-tinged Indie-rock. Broadminded and soulful.
Straylight Run are also notable for Michelle being a member. As I discussed during my Paramore article, the Pop Punk and Emo scene of the 00s was female-fan dominated, but male-artist-centric. Straylight bucked this trend a couple of years earlier than Paramore, being one of the most high profile bands to feature a female member. No she wasn’t the powerhouse of charisma and performance that Hayley Williams is and was, to be honest almost no one is. And not everyone has to be that. But she was a noteworthy female presence within a scene where that was still a rarity. And again, while it would be unfair on the band to reduce their importance down to this- progressive gender balance- it does need to be stated and accepted.
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The band’s opus Existentialism on Prom Night is one of the greatest songs of the scene, maybe of the decade. A sweeping baroque lament to the small moments of intimacy and joy that come from friendship, relationships and above all music. The wanderlust of being young and discovering so many new precious things in mundane and simple circumstances. Throwing yourself into a moment of joy from a song, wrapped in blankets and worn jeans, together with the people you like and love. The piano riffs along cradling the joint vocal melodies of Nolan and Michelle, as the rest of the band shuffle a night-time beat behind them. It’s a song that should only be played at the end of the night.
We're glad for what we've got
Done with what we've lost
Our whole lives laid out
Right in front of us
Apparently Nolan was working on the song with Taking Back Sunday before his departure. And I’m glad he took it with him. It’s not a Taking Back Sunday song, and it benefits immensely from Michelle’s warm feminine vocals. The interplay of the male and female voice is really what takes this song to another level- bringing to mind a thousand conversations, broken hearts and lost friendships between the sexes. It’s a little jewel of a song.
Released in October of 2004, it was one of those songs that started to hint that Emo music could be something more. More experiential, blended, quieter and sensitive. Not in the sense of being sad at a girl, or being very vocal about your emotions. There was plenty of that already. But sensitive to embrace and embody more nuanced, almost unsure emotions. Abstract and dream-like, grainy and vintage like its levitating bed album cover. Maybe even a bit, fashionable.
I love the title too. Is it pretentious? Invoking such a grand strand of philosophy as Existentialism in the title? But I had friends who were reading their first Jean Paul Satre and Camus around the time they found the song. The burgeoning of “adult” intellect, or what you think that is, alongside the high school prom, MSN flirting and awkward teen dates. Being aware of how big the adult world is, and trying to stumble your way into it. That was reality, it can’t be pretentious when its just life.
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Existentialism on Prom Night is of those tracks that found its way to my friendgroup almost at random through Limewire or PureVolume, and then got passed around because it was just so new- and so different. It stuck like glue and was one of the tracks I had lodged in my little WinAmp MP3 player for years.
I know these feelings of insecurity, angst and wonder are actually quite common in Emo, especially older “real Emo” - but in packaging that angst for the nascent MySpace generation so effectively they did something amazing. The YouTube comments on the song are full of people lamenting the past, reliving the past, embracing the past, talking of burying dead friends and returning to the song to begin anew.
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One of my friends learnt the song on piano almost 20 years ago at this point and is still able to bring it out at the end of the night when things are winding down. I can always identify it from like the first two notes.
Sing like you think no one's listening
You would kill for this
Just a little bit
Just a little bit
You would, you would
Sing me something soft
Sad and delicate
Or loud and out of key
Sing me anything