So my RRBF was singing an old Pogues song this morning, “Dirty Old Town,” and asked if I had the record around, which I don’t. But I remembered the song from a tape an old high school boyfriend made for me years and years ago, after he had written out the words to “Bottle of Smoke” on a jean jacket, after we had broken up, gotten back together, broken up and gotten back together again. Another song on that tape, “A Rainy Night in Soho,” was one of my all-time favourites the year between high school and university, when I was sick with the Wegener’s for the very first time.
“You’re the measure of my dreams,” Shane sings, “The measure of my dreams.”
And I’m glad I still know the words, and thank you iTunes for having the very song I want to listen to at the very moment I’m feeling sentimental for old boyfriends and days when I still cared about what was written on the back of my jean jacket.