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by Jeff Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ · Book · Biographical · #1399999
My primary Writing.com blog.
#951981 added February 14, 2019 at 1:38pm
Restrictions: None
It's Not Living If It's Not With You
DAY 8

"It's Not Living If It's Not With You"
by The 1975




I've been dragging my feet on starting my blog entries for this week because the idea of blogging about my "Current Playlist" both means that I'd have to narrow down my current playlist to just seven songs, and because my current playlist has a lot of stuff on it that's not particularly meaningful to me, but rather just catchy tunes that I seem to be gravitating toward at the moment. In the end, I just decided to randomly pick seven and do my usual "a little bit of research about the song and a little about how/where/why I found it" spiel.

I had never heard of The 1975 until I came across this song on a random "Pop Hits" station on Apple Music. I got a free subscription to the music service after finding a super-old gift card that was only available for use on the iTunes store. When I went to validate it, Apple was like, "You could load $100 onto your iTunes account (I don't really purchase music anymore since we have Amazon Music and Spotify), OR you can try Apple Music for a whole year!" I opted for the latter to see if I liked it any better than Amazon Music or Spotify.

Anyway, I think this song is pretty catchy, and I love the refrain "It's not living if it's not with you." That's totally the kind of line that hooks me when it comes to sappy romantic pop songs. Apparently The 1975 is an English pop-rock band that's been around since 2002, but they didn't seem to get anything more than local attention until recently (2014 or so). Leadman Matty Healy has described the band's influences as a mix of the Talking Heads, My Bloody Valentine, Michael Jackson, and the filmmaker John Hughes... which is actually a pretty apt description.

This song is supposedly inspired by Matty Healy's experiences with addiction to and recovery from heroin and benzodiazepines, and was a way for him to address his feelings and experiences in a healthy way. And not that I like to make a habit of disagreeing with artists on the meaning of their word, but the main chorus/refrain from the song is:

And all I do is sit and think about you
If I knew what you'd do
Collapse my veins wearing beautiful shoes
It's not living if it's not with you


I don't know about you, but singing about collapsed veins "wearing beautiful shoes" sure seems like it might actually be a song about a fairly intense foot/footwear fetish. But maybe that's just me. *Laugh*

On a side note, their album names are fantastic. After their 2013 self-titled release, their subsequent three albums are 2016's I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It, 2018's A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, and the forthcoming Notes on a Conditional Form later this year.

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Written for "The Soundtrack of Your LifeOpen in new Window.

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