Nostalgia is a curious thing. It allows us to look at the past as though through the lens of a kaleidoscope. Even our difficult or mundane experiences can look beautiful when seen through the refracted light. Our memories are mystified and altered, often in response to emotions and desires of our current selves. The Shins 2001 album, Oh, Inverted World, magically expresses the condition of nostalgia. The band’s frontman, James Mercer, draws heavily on his experiences growing up in Albuquerque to construct his whimsical and obscure lyricism.
In the second track of the album “One by One All Day” Mercer recounts a memory from his childhood. “‘Howdy Lem,” my grandpa said with his eyes closed/ Wiping the eastbound dust from his sunburned brow,” he sings. As Mercer paints this picture of a long ago day with his grandpa, the upbeat and fast paced percussion reflect his emotions of excitement and joy present within this memory. The line “a life before doubt” shows how this was a time in Mercer’s life when he was still able to blindly trust in the world. Our senses play an important part in the way we make memories. The specific way something smells, or tastes, or sounds can be a powerful trigger for sensations of nostalgia.
When Mercer sings, “I smell the engine grease and the mints the wind is bending,” he is using his own sensorial experience of this memory to insert the listener within his own feelings of nostalgia. “Beside a stream under the rocks are snails and we can fill our pockets.” We get to see Mercer engaging in activities of childhood with his grandpa that many of us can relate to. The following lyrics, “Let them go one by one all day in a brand new place” shows the carefree nature of childhood, that you can spend all day collecting and releasing snails. This is again calling back to that point in his life when things were simple, and he wasn’t doubting the world. He was just experiencing it and the many wonders it contained, no matter how small. The song concludes with a retrospective reflection on this memory; “Oh, Inverted World / If every moment of our lives were cradled softly in the hands of some strange and gentle child I’d not roll my eyes so.”
As children, we have certain expectations of what the world will be like. This notion of the “inverted world” shows how these expectations break down as we grow older and lose our childhood innocence. Our worldly perspective becomes inverted. Mercer has a clear desire to return to a time before this inversion, when he was able to hold the moments of his life in the gentleness and wonder of childhood. This is a desire that is relatable to many. If not the desire to actually go back and relive the childhood years of one’s life, then at least to have the ability to retain that innocent and novel outlook on the world.
Fittingly, due to their shared themes of coming of age, many songs on Oh, Inverted World resemble the dreamy arrangements of Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys. None more than “Weird Divide.” In this song, a hazy chorus of oooh’s float slowly over the lazily strummed guitar. Mercer’s singing echoes slightly, soundly vaguely far away. All of this transports the listener to a sleepy and dream-like place, which very effectively gives the impression of looking back in time. “Several days a month you made/ The mile to my house/ And had me do a stroll with you.” Here, Mercer recalls a memory of taking walks with a person from his past who is significant to him in some way, though he doesn’t let us in on the nature of this relationship.
“Far below a furry moon/ Our purposes crossed/ The weird divide/ Between our kinds,” Mercer sings of purposes crossed. He seems to be reflecting on the serendipitous nature relationships oftentimes take, as well the many moments and happenstances that have to align for any two given people to know each other. The “weird divide” between the duo in this song furthers the idea of the unexpectedness of their relationship (be it platonic or otherwise). “It please me this memory/ Has swollen up with age.” These lyrics refer to the way our memories can become romanticized with distance. When Mercer sings, “Even time can do/ Good things to you,” it suggests that the relationship in this song may have also been altered by this romanticized lens of nostalgia, and that in reality it may not have been as dreamy as it appears to be.
