184. Song No. 2,754: “Down Side of Me,” CHVRCHES
Every Eye Open, 2015

I honestly don’t remember who or what made me download CHVCHES’ debut album The Bones of What You Believe, nor do I recall why the wholly underrated anthem of self-reclamation and summoning the willpower to walk away that is “Lungs” struck such a chord with me. CHVRCHES is not a band I find my way to terribly often, but that song alone was enough to make me download their sophomore record, Every Open Eye. Which I like enough, sure, but also don’t listen to all that often.

“Down Side of Me” didn’t grab me like “Lungs,” so it never got to enjoy a play count that handily quadruples that of its album-mates. This one won me over with an illuminated fragment of phrasing here, an irresistible bar or two there until it got my attention. It sounded different every time as I heard more of the lyrics, first snippets of lines then morphing, completed verses as I absorbed more and more of an increasingly familiar song.

I still have no idea what the hell the lyrics were originally “supposed” to be about, which, apparently, is fine since their deconstruction is directly tied to their framework: When a version of this song appeared on a compilation in support of Planned Parenthood, CHVRCHES’ singer Lauren Mayberry said the recontextualization gave its lyrics a new interpretation that demands accountability and support from a government that expects citizens’ trust in it. From a song that the internet wants to be about a relationship’s post-mortem scrutiny or maybe having faith in the future comes a tangible reminder that a lyrical reading doesn’t have to be prescriptive, and that maybe the whole point is finding meaning in a song not from within itself but how it fills an external space of any one person’s situation while occupying that corporeal space with all the previous experiences that individual brings to any shared moment.