A massive single for the Welsh band on their fourth album, Maybe Tomorrow was one of the greatest hits of 2003. I certainly remember hearing it non-stop on BBC Radio Nottingham on that summer, which I spent working laboriously on my MSc project.

My project was chelate-assisted phytoremediation of mine spoil polluted land. We tested citric acid and EDTA with maize plants, and see how effective they were at cleaning up contaminated soil. It was an interesting bit of work for the University of Nottingham, but I do remember it was pretty taxing both on my physical and mental health. Lab work is not for the faint of heart, and I did have to work off hours on weekends. I even got an extension for my thesis, as my tutor Dr. Scott Young was happy with my work.

It’s weird thinking about how it’s been 23+ years after those heady days. The song still is a banger, bringing both solace and longing, and I can still see myself, dehydrating and milling plants, using digesters and spending long hours on the unreliable graphite machine, wondering where I’ll be in the future. I still wonder.

-Sam J. Valdés López