Super Deluxe "She Came On"

Movies like to depict the “Aha!” moment.

The character, who has been one way for the entire film, has a single conversation/realization/life-changing event, and suddenly they realize that they should spend more time with their kids or they really love their bookish best friend not the hot model they’ve been chasing. Or whatever.

But real life isn’t like that. Realizations tend to come more gradually, as does change.

You don’t wake up one day and decided, Hey, I should grow up a little!

No, it’s more of a process that maybe starts internally as you question how and why you do certain things, and continues with you evolving as a person.

I remember in the late 90s when this song by Super Deluxe came out. I instantly gravitated toward it, because I was in a huge Power Pop phase, listening incessantly to Matthew Sweet and Big Star and The Posies. “She Came On” is so damn hooky!

Then I was struck by a particular line:

“I found myself wandering aimlessly, calling it Freedom.”

I knew what it meant. It really hit home. It's where I was.

I was still living like a college student, happily untethered from responsibilities of relationships or sobriety or major possessions. Anything that weighed me down, or smacked of adulthood, I roundly rejected.

But there was already a part of me (in my thoughts, but not yet my actions), wondering: To what end?

I’d see these guys out at the bars, 10 years, 20 years older than me, still living like they were in college. Did I want to be one of those guys?

I didn’t yet have the answer of what I DID want to be (I still kinda don’t), but I’d seen “Dazed And Confused.” I didn’t want to be Matthew McConaughey's character, aging but not changing.

I was years away from wanting to, or being ready to be married, or own a home, or consider that staying home on Friday night wasn't the worst fate in the world.

But a simple pop song was there to let me know that I was evolving.

Super Deluxe - Music - More Music Videos

See the video on Totally Fuzzy.