A Heart That Beats "Under The Moon"

I will swear up and down, left and right, and along the z-axis that I am not a hipster.

But I really like this one musical act called Mike Golden and Friends. I promise they aren't that obscure and apparently Patrick Stump follows them on Twitter, so they must be cool. Also, you can get all of their songs in the past three years here for free!

Anyway, they have this song from their album Groceries called "Under the Moon." This song has become the beat of my heart, the stuff going through my veins, and the pictures underneath my eyelids before I finally drift to sleep.  It's the voice of the Midwestern guy that one day I'm supposed to fall in love that listened to Sinatra as a kid because his parents didn't believe in the new stuff they played on the radio but instead of becoming an astronaut and flying to the moon he settled for a liberal arts college education and minored in philosophy and serenading hopeless romantic girls with a guitar. It's the voice crooning in my ear as I dance with a shadow in an empty public bathroom waiting for the date that may or may not come. It's the abrupt ending that causes somebody to drop me in the final lift so I black out from the shock.

I don't know why this song affects me so much. I can always feel my heart become heavy, not because the song is sad, but because it forces me to think. There are always these imaginary arms that wrap themselves around my waist and let me lean my head against its chest and listen to it breathe. And while it may fight with me, it doesn't matter because we are two moonlit crazy teenagers who may not want to grow up even though we think we're ready for the freedom it gives us.

It's my falling in love song. It's not my ideal one, but it's mine. It's my "crying my eyes out because he didn't call me back only to forget all that when I see him again" soundtrack. But the thing is, it's a reminiscing song, and that's how my falling in love works. It starts out beautiful and familiar, and eerily similar to Hazel and Augustus's love in The Fault In Our Stars: "slowly, then all at once." It was ragged at times and sometimes you don't want to be stuck in this free-fall because it hurts and it definitely isn't perfect. Eventually, it would end.

And I'm so scared. What type of heart beats a song like that?


To learn more about Mike Golden, go to http://www.mikegoldenandfriends.com/ or follow their frontman Mike Golden on Twitter @MikeGoldenDaily.