When forced to pick an album that I would have to / get to take with me to a desert island, I need to pick Tame Impala’s 2015 album, Currents. The album that introduced me to my love of psychedelic rock/pop. Introduced me to my love of head-banging, droned-out melodies that you can listen to over and over again, for infinity… hence why I’m bringing it to my secret paradise island. While it has roots in my musical personality, it also instantly brings me back to very specific points in my life. I’ve taken this record with me all over the world: Thailand, Denver, New Zealand, and Chicago. And for that reason, it is at the top of my “Desert Island” packing list.
Year: 2015. Location: Denver, CO
Music taste is a key factor in whether or not someone will be a best friend of mine… no, it’s not everything. But I can pretty much instantly connect with people who appreciate music. This memory is about how Currents brought my friend, Quinn, and I together and solidified a bond we’ll have for the rest of our lives. In this case, it wasn’t even a song, but a music video. Lying in my dorm room bed, hungover, scrolling through YouTube, we stumbled upon the video for “The Less I Know The Better”. A song preaching “ignorance is bliss” in which the main character finds out the girl he loves is with another man… named Trevor… played in the video by a (somehow sexy?) gorilla. The video is expertly created, showcasing psychedelic graphic design, something Quinn and I both appreciate. What in “The Moment” (see track 3 on the album) seemed like something small, this connection from a music video prompted a friendship based on music and art with someone I cherish very much.
Year: 2016. Location: Pai, Thailand.
The following summer I went on a part-service, part-vacation trip to Thailand with a group of DU students. None of us knew each other before the trip, and it turned out to be an eclectic mix of personalities that bonded super quickly. The first two weeks of the trip, we were living in a village right outside of Pai, way up in the North of the country. Away from the other travelers, living on the floor of a concrete building, amongst Thai natives and Burmese immigrants. It was quiet here. And it was here, living and breathing the same air as the same 10 individuals for 14 days, where I found out I was an introvert. No, that doesn’t mean I’m antisocial or whatever… but it means I need alone time to recharge and be around people all day. The only way I could find alone time was lying under my mosquito net, headphones plugged in, listening to the songs I had saved on Spotify. The album that I found most comforting? Currents by Tame Impala. I must have listened to this album 20 times during those two weeks. The song that I played on repeat was “Yes I’m Changing”. A song that, to this day, still brings me right back to my cot in Thailand. A song whose bridge, filled with the sounds of traffic and beeping cars made my Thai village seem a little more like home.
I changed a lot on that month-long trip. I discovered my introverted-ness as well as a strong wanderlust to travel the world. This song is a perfect reminder of that growth and all growth to come.
Another version of myself I think I found, at last/
And I can’t always hide away…
There’s a world out there and it’s calling my name
I also have to mention that I played “Eventually” as I was DJing during a day of construction on a building in the neighborhood and our host, Manop, thought his speaker was broken since the song starts with the sound of a scratchy, broken record. Hahahaha.
Year: 2017, Location: Dunedin, New Zealand
This is yet another story of making a life-long best friend because of Tame Impala. Last year, I studied abroad in the South Island of New Zealand. It was the most amazing five months of my life and I made the strongest friendships I have ever had. One of those was with a girl named Jess from Michigan. We got set up to share a car together before even meeting and it was fate. After getting the car (which we named Elton after TheElton John), we became fast friends. It was on our Spring Break roadie around the South Island that we discovered all we had in common… in particular a completely in sync music taste. Both of our favorite band? Tame Impala. After finding this out, we basically didn’t stop blasting Currents, and the rest of their repertoire, for the remaining months of our time in NZ. And we got all our friends hooked as well. Each of our “abroad” playlists had at least 3 Tame songs on it. “Cause I’m a Man” was a popular one for us as well as “Yes I’m Changing”, a reminder that we were all going through this period of growth together.
Year: 2018, Location: Denver, CO
Transitions are hard. An especially hard time in my life was transitioning from the dream that was New Zealand back to reality and my life at the University of Denver. Not only was it the whole “going to class” thing or not having the complete freedom to party and travel at any moment, but I was also going through a break-up of sorts with someone I met there. It was difficult, it was painful, and it certainly messed with my head. Retrospectively, it was probably a big reason that transition back to real-life was so unmanageable.
For this part of my story, I have to bend the rules of the assignment a little bit to include the “B-Sides & Remixes” release of Currents that Tame Impala released two years after their original release of the album. Though released in 2017, I discovered it in February of 2018. In the midst of my melodramatic, post-abroad depression (the one that focused around that special person), I found the track “List of People (To Try And Forget About)”. Perfect, right? In that moment, I felt like Kevin Parker was speaking directly to me. Like he wrote that song to tell me he understood what I was going through but also to move the f**k on.
Now I gotta add you to my list of people to try and forget about/
Now I gotta add yours to my list of faces to try and not think about…It was obviously an illusion ’cause there’s never been so much I’ve been wrong about/
And I don’t want to spend all my days thinking of the one I can’t live without
While the entire Currents album was about a breakup, “List of People” came at just the right time for me. A time when I needed Kevin Parker’s lonely angst more than ever.
Year: 2018, Location: Chicago, Illinois
Finally, we reach the culmination of my story with Currents. This one takes place on July 20, 2018 at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. The day I finally got to see my “Desert Island Disk” performed live. A memory I get to relive every time I listen to the album. This memory is shared with all my best friends from New Zealand who travelled to my hometown to attendthe festival together and, let’s be honest, to see Tame Impala. This includes Jess, who, some would say, I wouldn’t be best friends with if it wasn’t for Tame Impala. And the performance was everything I wished for. The God that is Kevin Parker rocked the stage for an hour and twenty minutes of pure bliss. In my hometown. On my favorite weekend of the year. With my favorite people on Earth. It was perfection and it will go down in history.
It is for all these reasons and all these memories that I will absolutely need to take Currents with me to my desert island. I will need “Yes I’m Changing” to remind me of my trip to Thailand and of how much I grew. I will need “The Less I Know The Better” to remind me of my friendship with my roommate Quinn. I will need “List of People” to remind me of the hard times that make me human. And I will need “Cause I’m A Man” to remind me of jamming in New Zealand with my best friends. I’m sure I’ll be lonely but this record will remind me of how great my life was before getting lost on my island… or exiled… or maybe I escaped an apocalypse…
What's That Smell? 