One of the most powerful moments of acting I’ve ever seen came in an episode of The Nevers. Specifically, Laura Donnelly as Amalia True, in the song translation scene (potential spoilers, but you’ve had plenty of time to watch it by now):
Context would probably help there, but I’ll instead encourage you to watch the show (the scene above appears in season one, episode four: ‘Undertaking’); it’s (so far) a lovely piece of fiction with a wonderful cast and crew. Out of context, though, watching the sadness build behind a steely stone gaze, only to break free – but even then only within the confines of True’s controlled exterior… I was watching live and it punched me in the gut, and I think I might have immediately texted a friend in Boston to tell her to watch the show based purely on this scene, and the way it affected me. And then, the next week, during the recap (‘Previously on…’), they showed the scene, completely free of context, and it still got me. Again.
(There’s a similar moment in, of all places, Mythic Quest — I guess it’s technically the first season, but it’s the pandemic episode “Quarantine”. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it.)
Duran Duran’s Ordinary World, off the self-titled 1993 album (commonly known as ‘The Wedding Album’), is one of the most affecting songs I’ve ever heard. Simon Le Bon write the lyric as a message to his best friend, who had passed away some years before, and you can absolutely hear both the determination to accept the loss and move forward as well as the lingering grief that Le Bon carries (“Where is my friend when I need you most? (Gone away)”). The first time I heard it — and I was somehow a huge Duran Duran fan in the midst of listening primarily to guitar heroes and prog metal — it registered with me as a song that would resonate in my heart for a long time, and I was right.
I’ve been a George Lynch fan since the early ’80s — it’s less embarrassing than it probably should be that I was really into Dokken for a while — and got really excited when it was announced that he and Jeff Pilson (Dokken’s bassist and currently also playing with Foreigner) would be releasing an album of cover tunes that they both dug. The disc is a mixed bag for me — Tracy Chapman’s One of Us is a nice reinvention, while I could go the rest of my life without hearing Champagne Supernova quite happily — but it’s Ordinary World that stands out to me. There’s the obvious — one of my favorite songs combined with slick hair metal production (It’s BIG! It’s heavy! It’s cinematic!) — but it’s the solo that kills me. I mean — kills.
Look, what Lynch does to the main riff — the first guitar break, after the second chorus — I kinda hate. It’s a personal opinion (as all things music are, y’know), but the noisier take on one of the most identifiable ‘pop guitar riffs’ just hits wrong for me. I get that. But then, after the repeats of “Any world is my world,” when the lead guitar kicks in at 4:30… the first time I heard this, I was frozen, speechless, and probably got that weird creeping chill at the base of my skull that I get every now and then.
It’s that same feeling that I pull from The Nevers moment, when that mask you wear starts to crack, when your internalization and validation and rationalization of your sadness stops working so well — when the waters create too much pressure, and the control is no longer possible, suddenly, if only for a brief moment.
(BTW, There’s another surprisingly (if you’re me, or know my musical tastes) great cover of the tunes by The Pierces at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZACv6qObR0s)