single space: 17 by Youth Lagoon
the day that you do is the day that you die
it is a space I no longer inhabit, nor want to inhabit. Youth Lagoon is complete. I’ve reached the top of a mountain, only to then be able to see a much larger one I want to ascend
17 came from a complete project: it’s the fourth track on the first album produced by Trevor Powers under the moniker Youth Lagoon, The Year of Hibernation (2011). The LP was followed by Wondrous Bughouse (2013) and Savage Hills Ballroom (2015).
Powers sings that the day you stop imagining is the day you die (or at least this is what his mother told him): should this be connected to the publication of two new LPs since 2023, eight years after the statement that ended Youth Lagoon?
It’s not why we’re here though - let’s not speak of the future.
But where’s here, and when is it? The year is 2013 and the place is Boise, Idaho (coming - running away? - from San Diego, California).
Power finds himself with a brain that can think faster than [he] can but not fast enough, and with thoughts that he’s sure would lock [him] up if spoken out loud.
He flees to his younger memories, where life was as fun as can be, going out hunting for snakes (too dangerous? - maybe that’s part of the fun), going out camping and swimming in lakes.
Produced alongside Jeremy Park, the song is delicate yet cadences the dreamy beat it also conveys in the lyrics: you can instantly imagine Powers reminiscing his younger years, and when the drum beat comes in you get his thoughts piling up and exploding, not too loud to make a scene, though.
Maybe we’ll come back to talk about one of Youth Lagoon’s last LPs, but for now, let’s hope he’s still having fun, like when he was 17.
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See you next time!