In a scene in After Life, Ricky Gervais’s character Tony Johnson is in the car as his brother-in-law drives, and he’s looking for music to play. He pulls out a CD, identifies the artist, and starts mocking his brother-in-law.
“Lighthouse Family?!?” he asks incredulously. He’s tempted to throw the disc out the window as he does several others.
Immediately I think, “I’ve listened to them. Or at least I’ve heard of them.” I hit “Pause” and sit staring at the screen. “Who was that group? How do I know them?” I wonder. I pull out my phone, load Spotify, search “Lighthouse Family,” play the first song that appeared, and in an instant, I know something is about to change.
When you’re close to tears remember
Someday it’ll all be over
One day we’re gonna get so high
The singer begins, accompanied by some light strings, a piano, and an organ.
“I’ve heard this, I think.”
The second line begins and the bass and drums enter:
Though it’s darker than December
What’s ahead is a different color
One day we’re gonna get so high.
“I’ve heard this! I know I’ve heard this — countless times, it seems.” But I can’t place it. Then the pre-chorus begins:
And at
The end of the day remember the days
When we were close to the edge
And wonder how we made it through the night
The end of the day remember the way
We stayed so close till the end
We’ll remember it was me and you
“This seems so very familiar!” But I still can’t place where I’d heard it. It feels like hearing a line from a film, knowing I’ve seen the film, but not even being able to remember the scene, the title, the actor. I familiar void.
When the chorus enters, though, I know. I remember where I’ve heard this song. I remember why I’ve heard it so many times.
‘Cause we are gonna be
Forever you and me
You will
Always keep me flying high
In the sky of love
“My God! It’s that song!”
In 1997, just a year after I’d moved to Poland, this song had just been about everywhere. On the radio. Playing in passing cars. At bars. At discos (i.e., Polish discos — dance places). Everywhere. And I always hated that song — so saccharine. Admittedly, the guy’s voice is gold, but the song itself? So empty. So vapid.
Yet I sit here listening to it, suddenly transported by a song I haven’t heard in over twenty years, a song I have thankfully and mercifully forgotten in probably just as long, and I feel such a longing to go back to that time for just one evening, just one beer, just one song. This song. It’s a song I hate and now, thanks to Ricky Gervais’s After Life, I love in that syrupy way that only nostalgia can inspire.