It was the moment that Fight Club ended that threatened to break everything. In the dim light left as the credits rolled, I whispered to my friend next to me, to no-one in particular: “I can’t go back out there“. I was in my early twenties, and my recent exposure to existentialist philosophy, Marxism and the post-structuralists had left me cynical and bitter, but also searching for confirmation I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Fight Club finally seemed to give voice to so many of the things I had been feeling and, desperate to hold on to that, I wanted to remain seated in the dark, couched in the possibility this might be the moment I would change my life.
The sentiment passed. When you step out into what is now called the “Scotiabank Theatre“, a garish, overhwhelming testament to consumerism, you quickly forget your plans to smash the state. It was only in that pregnant moment in the dark of a movie theatre that such dreams seemed possible.
All of this, however, is just a poor lead-in to two songs I’ve heard recently that say something about the odd combination of hope and solitude in those moments we sit in the dark together and watch film. The first, “Only Way to Cry” by Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, is a tale of a man who rents an entire movie theatre so that he might indulge in watching a movie by himself. It’s the sort of brief, aching fragment that Owen Ashworth is so brilliant at and an example of why I half-seriously call him the Raymond Carver of our generation.
The second is the alt-country track “Midnight at the Movies” by Justin Townes Earle. It’s again a story of solitude, but the loneliness is tempered by the image of Martha, a girl who comes and sits beside the singer mid-movie and, without saying anything, slips her hand into his. Before the film ends, she leaves in a similarly silent fashion.
I’ve put both songs here on an 8Tracks mixtape so that, if you wish, you can listen to them both. For legal reasons, the site has a habit of randomising the track order, so if they don’t pop up at the beginning, just keep clicking through and you’ll get there. Because an 8Tracks mix requires a minimum of 8 tracks in order to be made public, I also threw in some other bits and bobs. There are some other mixtapes there too, so feel free to listen to those – though, if you’re interested in making your own mixtapes, I’d probably recommed you go with mixtape.me .
