Sarah Recommends: “Rest My Chemistry” by Interpol

“I live my life with no painJust some rage and three kinds of yes…”

I’ll be frank: I have mixed feelings about Interpol. When they were new, and hot, I ignored them, and once I told some guy in the line at a Starbucks that there could be no Interpol without Joy Division and this was met with a questioning sort of a look, and I continued to wait for my iced mocha, thinking how could this kid not know about Joy Division ? Since then, I’ve given them more of a chance, and while I still have mixed feelings, neither hate nor love overall, I have no reservations when it comes to “Rest My Chemistry.”

It dares to be grandiose and beautiful, and it succeeds, the way their “Pioneer to the Falls” does. It takes me back into my past — the sticky summer nights of 2012, when my opioid addiction escalated, and the withdrawal taught me nothing, and I made promises that somehow, the next day, I’d take less (tonight I’m gonna rest my chemistry). I hear this song, and there’s something almost plaintive in Paul Banks’ delivery, or it’s his own promise that he wants to believe. For the few minutes it takes to listen to this song, I believe it, and marvel at how desperation can sound so beautiful.

https://youtu.be/2uOyfqVuonQ(Song recommendation by Sarah Nichols)