Love is a Laserquest, and my love of the Arctic Monkeys

When people ask me about my favourite song, I play them Love is a Laserquest by the Arctic Monkeys.

I first heard this song towards the end of my first year of university. The next day, I took a Greyhound to Montreal, and played it on repeat. To this day, hearing this song still takes me back to warm evenings spent walking down Boulevard St. Laurent, turning at every corner, with nowhere else to go. I've been back to Montreal a few times since then, but I have yet to find the same city that once existed in this song.

This was the year I fell in love with the Arctic Monkeys. It was hard not to, with the album playing on repeat that summer. I began to pay attention to song lyrics, and between tracks, ponder over the words both said and unsaid. And it also didn't hurt that Alex Turner, with his lopsided smirk and greaser hair wasn't too hard on the eyes.

Speaking of Alex Turner, if you search him up on Google Images, you will be begin to realize that every photo will fit at least one of the following criteria

1. Black sunglasses, more often indoors than not

2. Intense smoldering gaze, permeates the computer screen, into your soul

3. Greased back hair, with one perfect strand falling soulfully in front of his eyes. Classic I-didn't-even-try-but-jk-I actually-did hair. Come on Alex, we know you spent a good five minutes in the dressing room placing that strand of hair at the perfect place, just knowing it would distract us all. (It did)

In other words, he looks a little bit like a jerk. But hey, I get it. If I was a rock star and wanted to be taken seriously by all my rock star friends, I too would stop smiling every time someone took my photo.

But now listen, here is my theory. I think, that if we dig deep enough, beneath that leather jacket and the layers of hair gel, we will find this Alex Turner

Alex Turner circa Cornerstone, aka the year Alex Turner peaked. Untamed hair barely held together by a battered pair of headphones, wearing a red jumper his mum knit for him last Christmas, with the video editing skills of a 8 year old boy who finally saved up for his first video camera. I could go on...

Now, how am I so sure that a little piece of this Alex Turner still exists?

Just listen to his music.

I can't think of air without thinking of you.

Not "I can't stop thinking about you" or even "I can't breathe without you" but I can't even think of AIR without thinking of you.

What a poignant image. Air.

Invisible, forgettable, but ever so ubiquitous, impossible to live without.

If that is not lyrical perfection, I don't know what is.

And let's face it, someone who is able to write lyrics like that, must be a big, red sweater-wearing softie on the inside.