Last Song Syndrome

I know this sort of thing has happened to you. You wake up in the morning, walk groggily to the john to take a piss, and emerge scratching your bloated belly when, all of a sudden, a song starts playing in your head. You eat breakfast, take a shower, and get dressed - the song's still playing. You board a bus to work, stare forlornly at the sprawling cityscape whizzing past the window, and count the time between changes in the traffic light - it's still there. You get to work and leave work but it still keeps playing! Ah, you got a really bad case of Last Song Syndrome. And it doesn't last for just a day. Sometimes a song will stick with you for a week! Like what's happening to me now.

The song in question is called "Sullivan" by Caroline's Spine.

By today's standards, it's already a pretty old song. Around ten years old maybe. But there's something about it that my brain can't shut out.

"It's not hard to reach back to the days after the attack on Pearl..."

Well, lyrically, Sullivan is a history lesson focusing on the tragedy, heroism, and the utter sense of waste that war brings. It tells the story of five brothers from Waterloo, Iowa - Joseph,
Frank, Albert, Madison, and George Sullivan - who all enlisted together in the Navy during World War II after the Pearl Harbor attack, and who all insisted on staying together during their enlistment. It also tells of how they all died as a result of a Japanese submarine attack, leaving their devastated family to pick up the pieces.

Musically, Sullivan is a very haunting and hook-laden tune. Guitarist Mark Haugh's searing riffs dominates the entire song and gives it it's identity; Jason Gilardi's skin-bashing gives the song a sense of urgency and excitement; while Jimmy Newquist's vocals provides it with an apt melancholy that simmers with the indignity of getting unwillingly getting dragged into the memory of an armed conflict.

All in all, I'll be keeping Sullivan in my collection.

"Say goodbye, bye-bye, Mrs. Sullivan..."