This maudlin career has come to an end
It took me a while to fall in love with Camera Obscura. It didn’t happen in a day or three days or four months. It was a slow romance, one that began in early 2008 with me casually listening as they came up on shuffle. I knew I sort of had a crush when I heard “Razzle Dazzle Rose,” and the lyrics to “Books Written For Girls” were cute enough. I liked the band enough to recommend them to friends, but still things progressed at a casual pace. Only recently has my relationship with Camera Obscura blossomed into a full-blown, obsessive, head-over-heels love affair.
Their newest album, My Maudlin Career, came out earlier this year. It’s a breakup album. Tracy Anne Campbell presumably went through a breakup with someone named or not named James, and then she wrote some songs about it. Some really fucking good songs, including one called “James.” It’s no coincidence that this album solidified my devotion to Camera Obscura. I can’t remember, in the past, ever needing/relating to music so much to get me through difficult times as I have these past few months. Let’s face it: everything on My Maudlin Career pretty much resonated with me. I can’t stop listening to it. I’ve gone back to the older stuff as well and fallen in love with what I was previously merely in like with.
It feels kind of cosmic and amazing when someone like Tracy Anne Campbell writes a song called “James” that describes not only her experience with “James,” but also your own experience with a James…precisely and in just the right time and space. Sure, ” James” could be a placeholder, like how that guy from Counting Crows has a Maria? Tough to say since I don’t know Tracy Anne personally, but I’m glad she wrote the song. In my mind, she wrote it for me a little bit. She has a James and I have a James. Or we had some James’s. And, now we’ve got this connection, me and Tracy Anne. This thing that binds us. Common experience provided a place for this love to grow.
My friend Stacey asked me once if it made me feel any better to know that someone as awesome as TAC, with her musical talent, bright blue eyes, and Blair Waldorf bows, was going through some crap break up with a dude. I don’t know. It’s certainly boggles the mind that someone could break the heart of this adorable lady, and yes, seeing that other people go through crap too can soften the blow and, I dunno, somehow boost the self-esteem? I’m not sure. Heartbreak sucks, and I wish it on no one. What I do know is that this person I don’t know, and will never know, went through something awful and out of that came art. Art that has helped me through my own experience. Thank you, Tracy Anne. You rock. I like your big bows.
I went to see Camera Obscura when they came through DC a few months ago. I went with Stacey, and I cried in the 9:30 club when they played “James.” Whatever. As seen in my previous post, I am good at crying in public. Don’t worry, though, I’m good at laughing, smiling, getting angry, basically the whole spectrum of human emotion whether in public or private. I’m a feeler, I suppose. Anyway, it was a great show. Stacey and I danced. I didn’t take any photos, because that’s almost an impossible thing to do at the 9:30 club. Luckily, some other humans in the world have taken some pretty good pictures of Camera Obscura, and I’m going to show one right now, right here. You can’t stop me.
Camera Obscura at Leicester Summer Sundae, originally uploaded by ‘Chris’.
One of the best things about My Maudlin Career is that it’s not just sad. It’s happy too. Some of the songs are even upbeat and dancey. It’s not just about breaking up. It’s about falling in and out of love and getting over it and not getting over it and everything else that goes with the territory. In May, the song that resonated was “James,” and it’s still a song that has a special place in my heart. But, I’m moving on and hanging out with other songs like “My Maudlin Career.”
If you have not listened to Camera Obscura, you should do it. Now. Take it slow or take it fast. They are just the most adorable band ever.
