"CAN'T YOU COME BACK?..."

At times, when writing and rewriting have been up against watching TV or sport, staring into a corner, or any other worthy alternative to actually just sitting at the desk and getting it done, music has come to the rescue. The goal of writing a story that delivers the thrill of hearing a great pop song has pushed Neverland in Shadow along from even before the beginning.

So here is Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl by Broken Social Scene: another number whose atmosphere and emotional punch carried me back to the keyboard.

DREAM ABOUT ME

It's an odd song, in the best possible way, with an effects-treated vocal that feels delivered from outwith the regular world.

Its content too might be described as a wish from some jilted supernatural entity. The repeated, pleading mantra that takes the lion's share of the words adds to a feeling of incessant obsession:

Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me

After an unlucky-thirteen times, the plea continues but, as if some mystical horse-trading is at work, it's truncated to the first two commands; the romantic notion of sleep, and of directing a person's dreams vanishes:

Park that car, drop that phone

This is prior to a closing line indicating acceptance, resignation and maybe a little bit of disappointment that someone who once rebelled and refused has taken a conventional path:

Used to be one of the rotten ones and I liked you for that,

Now you're all gone, got your makeup on and you're not coming back

It's all subjective of course, and in the ear of the listener, but that's what I think about a song that so often delivered a pick-me-up whenever it was required.

Find out more about Broken Social Scene at the band's website