Strange Advance, Worlds Away

I had a moment of the sads on Tuesday, as I prepped supper. Yesterday was technically the anniversary of my mother’s passing, but she died on a Tuesday evening, so that was when I was feeling it. And this song, randomly queued by my infernal device, tapped into my grief in a way I was not prepared for.

In 1984 if I was available to drop off or pick up my teenage little sister, then my mother tagged me for the duty.

I protested. When I had been her age my parents figured I could bloody well take the bus.

We lived in the western extreme of Winnipeg. I attended a Mennonite high school in the centre of the city, the one my sister now went to. The bulk of my friends lived in the eastern burgs, as did hers. Those bus rides were long.

One party I attended — in Transcona — required three transfers and two hours and fifteen minutes of my time, one way. On the ride back, a very drunk man of indeterminate age dropped into the seat beside me, said, “You remind me of my son,” then buckled over and commenced blubbering into his parka sleeve.

I reminded my mother of this and other stories I’d collected in my journeys by bus. “Tsk — such rotten parents,” my mother would say. “Now go get your sister. Please.”

My protests were more melodrama than truth. These taxi assignments weren’t interrupting anything more consequential than yet another evening with Louis L’Amour. A ride through the city on a dark winter’s night afforded me time with the car radio — strictly AM, but still not too bad, considering. Canadian radio stations were required to play a certain percentage of Canadian content (30%, in '84). Given the conditions, any Canadian possessed of enough pluck to form a band and create original work was pretty much possessed of a character that did not permit lapses into rote mediocrity — extraordinary mediocrity, perhaps, but never rote.

So even Canadian AM radio was forced to play some pretty weird stuff. Sure, the latest hit-for-tat chapter of the Burton Cummings/Randy Bachman feud was inescapable. But in 1984 Canadian AM radio also played Doug and the Slugs. Martha and the Muffins. FM, with Nash The Slash on electric violin. Rough Trade. The Payolas. Saga. Heck, even Rush had a trim AM radio winner with “New World Man.”

But in 1984 no Canadian band hit the sweet-spot for me quite like Strange Advance (site).

Enhanced by strange advances in hair care.

The moody synthesizers, the keening vocals, the fate-laden lyrics — it all spoke directly to the Byronic romanticism that possessed me at age 19. I was utterly convinced all happiness was but a prelude to inevitable sorrow. If “Worlds Away” came on whilst en route to my sister’s soirée, I could be depended upon to wail “Oh no! don’t say goodbye!” through a cloud of sub-zero condensation, utterly smitten with my gloriously tragic take on this passing moment.

Then my sister would climb into the car, and we’d drive home, silently listening to whatever.

No 13-year-old girl should be expected to take the Saturday Night Special through downtown Winnipeg — really, that is just a given. But in 1984 my mother’s concern had additional freight beyond mere common sense — Candace Derksen was my sister’s classmate.

Thirty-five years later as I’m chopping carrots the song shuttles me back to a moment when all these currents were in flux. Thirty-five years later I am “utterly convinced” of very little. But I sure don’t think of happiness as a “prelude” to anything. Sorrow reaches everyone, and often the most unimaginable sorrow hits the most vulnerable and undeserving among us.

Actually, I am utterly convinced: we have to take care.

And a little romanticism is quite fine, if it helps you in your care for others.