1984 Singles # 11 The Chills

 

Peter Weir's 1989 movie Dead Poet's Society is a favourite of mine for any number of reasons and one I return to and watch again at least once a year. It's not a film without flaws. It's perfectly possible to criticise it. More than that, to damn it quite savagely if that's what you wish to do. But I think it examines a number of essential and central life issues and never comes to a completely satisfactory answer to any of  them. It makes you think about your life and the world you live in. The definition of a good film in my book.

I think there are two central dilemmas at work within it. It's an examination of the adolescent state when we are in some ways at our most interesting and creative, but also most malleable and impressionable. And secondly What makes a Good Teacher? and What Makes a Bad One? Is John Keating a good teacher? Or a dreadful, manipulative and irresponsible one?

I'm a teacher myself and have been since I graduated in 1990 and will be until I retire or perhaps until I die, so the latter issue continues to intrigue me. Dunedin band The Chills were concerned with the former, when they wrote, worked up, recorded and released their best known song Pink Frost in 1984.

 Pink Frost is the song the band are best known for but I don't think it's necessarily typical of their exceptional body of work down the years. There's darkness elsewhere but largely I listen to their records for the glorious celebratory escape they offer. Into the blessed state of childhood.

Pink Frost is something quite different. It's existential dread with a sweet tune. The story of a death in a forest of a young girl. A death that the narrator of the story is clearly implicated in. Possibly responsible for. The song explores this moment and its implications. It's just over four minutes long and it's a complete masterpiece. Every bit as good as a Dostoevsky short story. Songs can't be that? Sorry, you're not listening properly. Get your ears adjusted immediately.

Of course, the exercise I'm engaged in here is a slightly preposterous one. The Top Fifty Songs of 1984 when I was eighteen and became 19 in September. Mostly my countdown involves artists that never got anywhere close to the actual charts at the time. Generally because they were far too good for it. Really I should be listening to Go West and Thompson Twins records because they more accurately reflect the Pop marketplace of the time.

But I thought Go West and Thompson Twins were crap at the time and I'm not particularly interested in listening to them now, except perhaps to point a haughty, snobbish and slightly wrinkled finger at them. My side won guys regardless of your actual bank accounts. The Chills Rule! Of course you know, this song actually made the Top Ten. It peaked at Number Seven towards the end of January. Great records should always make the Top Ten. In my head all of The Chills records did. What does reality matter,