Alone Again (Naturally)

December really creeps up.

As does January, and February - and the lot of them. And though many associate the coming of these awfully dreary months with the feeling of despair and the colour grey; I associate the period with the joy of being able to listen to Gilbert O’sullivan and not feel as though I am manifesting poor weather and mood.

Though being a tune that encapsulates the worst few things that can happen to a person within six verses, there is something about it that soothes me. And ironically makes me feel less alone - despite having never been stood up at the altar or having never experienced the death of a parent, or even the feeling of being torn up over the notion of a God.

And even despite the name of the song itself.

I recently read The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides for the first time (devoured it even), and the song appears within the text in a symbolic sort of presence. A siren call to the obsessive boys that narrate, by the Lisbon sisters, igniting a conversation over landlines and vinyls.

Why do we not communicate via landlines and vinyls anymore ?