During the years I lived in Europe, I noticed that people don’t watch soccer like people watch, say, American football. Soccer games are usually on in the background, while people eat or smoke or drink coffee. People pay attention to the game in the same way that a dog pays attention to the road. He’s aware that it’s there, but only because a car might drive by.
And then, without any of the soccer fans knowing quite why, something happens. There is a palpable crescendo in energy, which might come from the television but probably comes from some kind of ESP utilized by those watching the television. Everyone turns his eyes toward the screen and watches as something dramatic (although not necessarily successful) unfolds.
Something similar happens when I listen to Explosions In The Sky. The only difference: I like Explosions In The Sky.
That I don’t like watching soccer frustrates me for the same reason that being bad at chess and not liking jazz frustrate me. That reason being that I respect people who like soccer. (And who are good at chess and who like jazz.)
As others have written, a soccer match is like life: long and mostly futile, with occasional bursts of jubilation. I would add that, as in life, the long stretches of futility make those bursts of jubilation all the more jubilant.
Explosions songs are similar. At first, they hardly seem worth the investment; it sometimes feels like it’s taking a Saturnian day for the band to get to its point.
The reward, though, is a few moments of aural bliss, provided when all of that preparation pays off. Nowhere is the long build that Explosions in the Sky provides more apparent than during the band’s live show, a live show I was lucky enough to see not so long ago in Los Angeles.
But as spectacular as that live show was, it isn’t the point here: I’m often impressed by live shows. Explosions In The Sky is better than most bands because their impact is almost as big in headphones as it is while watching them with a few thousand other people.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that my ability to concentrate has diminished. It used to be that I could read or write or study while also watching television or listening to music. But no longer. Now my brain, addled as it is by too many free radicals and our hyperlinked world, can barely function if I give it two or three stimuli.
The exception: Explosions in the Sky.
There it is, in the background, in the background, in the background, tra-la-la-ing away while I read a book or patter at my keyboard. And then, like a roomful of Spaniards in a bar in Valencia, I sense that something is about to happen.
I stop writing, for thirty seconds or a minute, soak up the soaring guitars, and glory in the drama that the men from Texas have created with their brains, their ears, and their fingers.
And then the song ends and I return to my work.
But not before I let loose the sigh of relief that comes from knowing that, even if I’m not smart enough to fully appreciate soccer or jazz or chess, I’m attuned enough to like Explosions In The Sky.
Here’s a Spotify link to a song from Explosions In The Sky’s latest album, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care: “Last Known Surroundings”.
Click here to visit the Amazon page for Take Care, Take Care, Take Care.
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