VK Lynne Takes Us Back To "1983"

We talk of fossils trapped in amber as being 'frozen in time', but the reality is that nothing can stop the flow of time. Despite our best efforts, everything we have built is slowly decaying, only surviving because of the effort we put into maintaining our history as our present as our future. When we step away, the sands of time begin to erode the landscape as the wind throws the grit against the sheen of our rose-colored memories. The past is only as we remember it, because it cannot survive immured into the present day.

Change is gradual, so much so we don't notice it when we are faced with the increments on a daily basis. It's only when we haven't seen someone, or something, for a long stretch of time that we realize the effect time has taken on everything we once loved. That is true of the faces of the people in our lives, and for the skyline backdrop of our hometowns. When we are there to watch each coat of paint and new construction, we hardly notice how little remains of our past.

That is the phenomenon VK Lynne is dealing with this month, as the latest song from "The Spider Queen" deals with returning home to realize the home you left no longer exists. The towns and people might have the same name as they used to, but nothing remains trapped in that amber. VK sings of wanting to remember the way she felt in 1983, when she was able to be more carefree and optimistic about what the future would hold. She recalls the days of singing along to MTV, dreaming of everything that could be. Returning to the site of those memories is not a hug from a familiar friend, but rather an exercise in excavating the layers that have built up over the course of our lives.

Her song is built from acoustic guitar chords, where the bright tone of new strings is much the same as the lilt people put into their voices when they no longer wish to speak ill of what has since passed. If it's impolite to speak critically to people's faces, and you can't speak ill of the dead, it creates a cycle in which we can only talk of ourselves as being happy in the present, because to say otherwise would be an admission we have not moved forward. It's an unhealthy state, but our mental gymnastics are not known for keeping us in the best shape.

What we can hear in VK's voice is a weariness that longing for the past is known to be futile. We are no longer those people, and driving down Main Street will only remind us of how little is left from the days we fondly remember. When we talk of needing a change of scenery, it neglects that our current scenery is changing, just sometimes not for the better. Not if our black clouds are staining the walls, dimming the street lights, and making the place feel colder than it used to.

As the last chorus rolls around, VK sings how it was that brief period of happiness in 1983 that led to her picking up a guitar, because even then it was evident that the sky was not in fact the limit, but rather an illusion seen through the glass we press our faces up against. Music was the source of joy then, and it is the source of therapy now. It is the act of writing and singing these songs that lets us tell the stories of our lives, that lets us find a voice we don't always feel comfortable using. Music is a safe space, a security blanket, and the way we define ourselves and our lives.

For VK Lynne, 1983 was a year that pointed her toward the future. For me, 1983 was the beginning of time. That means it is a confluence of happenstance, and one of those knots in the thread of time where paths cross in ways we will only understand later. If VK Lynne was forged then, that's one good thing the 1980s has given us.

"1983" releases tomorrow. Pre-save it here.