There’s an oft-quoted phrase by John Nathan Turner, former producer of Dr Who, used to disqualify fan opinions. “The Memory Cheats”. It can be a little off-putting once you are the target of it, but strip away its attachment to Who Fandom, and you get a short but sweet rebuttal to misremembered facts.

It was March of 2012 and while trawling on the snowy Weston Park, an old song pop in my head. All I could remember was that it was both sad and matter of factly, it was speedy, and the drumming was tremendous. “We are, we are, we are” was all I could remember, so Google search wasn’t good enough. Nor were the websites that falsely promised that if you hummed or whistled a song, you could eventually find it.

So time passed and it frustrated me to no avail not to know the name of the song. It felt like a perfect ditty for my novel concerning a bunch of thirtysomethings dealing with stuff that happened to them on the late 80s. It was a crucial piece of the plot because it felt emotionally perfect. So, since I couldn’t find it, I chose Fall on me by R.E.M. for a crucial moment of the novel, since it also has the same set of emotions at its disposal.

Time passed and I was back in Mexico. One afternoon in 2015, I was helping my dad with some shopping at a mall and we went inside MixUp, which was selling off backstock. As my dad armed himself with movies and CDs, I looked at discount PS3 games. There were copies of Saints Row 3 for cheap but I couldn’t afford one. My dad saw me, yanked the copy from my hands, placing it in his basket. He then continued shopping.

While playing the game, the dang song comes on. The Icicle Works! I cranked up the stereo’s volume, as I had connected it to the PS3 for extra loudness. I went for youtube, watch the video a few times. Ian McNabb is what you get from mixing Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. The song goes for that unclaimed territory between The Cure and Tears for Fears and it was just like I remembered it. I’m sure we had a copy of the music video on Betamax somewhere in the mess of a house that was my parents’ house but it’s impossible to find it.

I’m still re-writing that mess of a novel, as no end seems to be correct. Perhaps it’s best that way.

-Sam J. Valdés López