Music for your next identity crisis

Do you like the wah-wah, kids? Well, as a great man once said, in this song I’ve given you a wah-wah.

Once in a great while, when I look in the mirror, I go, “Who the hell is that?” It’s probably a function of age, as more and more I don’t resemble photos of myself from earlier eras. You know what I’m talking about. But even younger people must sometimes look into the eyes of that figure in the mirror and wonder what’s going on inside.

“Familiar Stranger” is about that momentary sense of separation from yourself. Thank God it’s curable by simply walking away from the mirror!

When I was a kid, we had a medicine-chest mirror adjacent to the big mirror over the bathroom counter, and when I opened that medicine chest I’d create a mirror-tunnel that always fascinated me. It looked like a place I could actually enter, and I often wondered what was around that scary but inviting bend. I never actually tried to go in, like Alice through the looking glass. Maybe, I figured, that’s where my mirror image lives, and he comes out to meet me face to face whenever I go into that room.

That’s the way a kid thinks. Now, I go, “I’ll just shave and leave. Don’t stare at me like that.”

Anyway, if you like the wah-wah (and I know you do), the solo starts at about 1:53. It seems particularly suited to the subject matter, that wobbly warble.

Don’t forget: I’m no singer, but the song has words so I sung ’em! (Headphones preferred too …)

Photo credit: Niels Smeets