10/14: Subdivisions

A love letter to the moment I discovered my favorite band.

Growing up it all seems so one-sided:
Opinions all provided,
The future pre-decided,
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone.
Nowhere is the dreamer
Or the misfit so alone.

I still remember the first time I heard Rush. The local rock radio station (DC101) was running one of their weekly “Two for Tuesday” afternoons, and I sat at the ready, fingers eagerly pressed to my boombox, waiting for the Journey set that the DJ had promised. You see, I’d just heard this wild track called “Wheel in the Sky,” and I needed it for my latest mixtape. It was, in my preeteen mind, a matter of life and death.

That’s when I heard it: a few tics on the cymbal, one-two-three, just like a metronome; followed by some quick, clever guitar notes. Excited, I smashed that RECORD button like my life depended on it.

Except what I heard wasn’t “Wheel in the Sky” at all—it was the opening to “Dreamline.” I listened, confused at first because this wasn’t how I remembered “Wheel in the Sky” going at all… yet, actually, this song was pretty rad too. Actually, more than rad. Maybe it was even better than “Wheel in the Sky,” which seventh grade Lara didn’t think was possible.

Then the next song began to play. Synthesizers. Heavy, driving synthesizers, screaming from my boombox like the Phantom of the Opera’s organ. I’d never heard anything like it. And, yes, I know that Today!Lara isn’t as much of a Minimoog fan but twelve-year-old me was utterly entranced.

Sprawling on the fringes of the city, in geometric order, an insulated border… The song was, incredibly, about my life. My preteen angst and isolation, my disillusionment with the cookie-cutter suburbs, my longing for something bigger and brighter. Somehow this band I’d never heard of, with the song that somehow was better than Journey, had written a song just for me. My world was never the same.

I wore that mixtape out.