240. Song No. 3,600: “Fred Astaire,” Jukebox the Ghost
Off to the Races, 2018

I feel like any mix I throw together, whether it’s keeping the long-gone tradition of The Summer Burn alive or just cobbling together a few hours of background noise for houseguests, is naked and incomplete without either “Colorful” or this song, easily my two favorite tracks from the absolutely stellar Off to the Races—an entire album that’s just about as joyous and vibrant and enthusiastic as the band itself—and just generally two of the most emotionally free and fucking happy contemporary songs both your heart and earballs can find comforting, uptempo refuge in.

But the problem with the Very Important Bands you share with Very Important People is that changes in those personal relationships indelibly impact those musical relationships. (I feel like linking to every time I’ve referenced this unwelcome phenomenon would be more excessive than illustrative, so I won’t belabor the point and choke this with self-referential portals.) And because I am still grappling with BFF now living on the entirely other coast and keep feeling like it’s a thing that happened to me rather than the thing that’s best for her, there’s still some sting in Jukebox the Ghost, a band we’ve seen together countless times comprising a trio of dudes who clearly, exuberantly love what they do, which is writing very happy songs about less-than-happy things (e.g.: the end of the world, and often), or the exact colliding worlds that appeals to everything I am and love in my escapism.

Jukebox is so good, though, and songs like “Fred Astaire” are the kind of music warding off the ugliness of the world for a little while, positively teeming with mutually lovesick adoration for the things that make the one you love so uniquely them and so perfectly yours, all powered by the goofy mania of falling wildly in love with the person you can’t imagine traveling through life without, idiosyncratic foibles and all.

For a record that’s a testament to love—love for a person, love of others, loving what you do, love for life—it’s a bit of a challenge for one or two tracks to emerge as the embodiment of that full-heartedness. But this one, where the narrator sees himself in his beloved’s enchanted eyes where he can do no wrong despite wading through the ebullient befuddlement of someone still unsure of how he got so lucky in love, gets me every time.