Moby

Play
V2, 1999

In 1999 I was living in a loft in the suburbs. It was a narrow room with windows on either end and a triangular roof. Enormous lengths of wood ran up the walls and met at the peak, like the upside-down hull of a boat. I wasn't really doing much at the time. I had a casual job and some "freelance" work, doing other people's uni projects for handfuls of pot. I'd usually stay up all night fiddling around with old computers and listening to music.

What I remember most about that loft are the late-night visitors. After midnight they'd sneak around the side of the house in front and make their way upstairs unannounced. One girl would come over to watch whatever dreadful programs were on television at that time of night and fall asleep in my bed. Another friend would always rock up with some cheap alcohol (usually a sickly-sweet bottle of port) and a copy of Moby's Play. He'd head straight for the stereo when he got there and spin, without fail, 'Find My Baby'.

I always hated that fucking song, and he knew it. It had a sample of an African-American singer bellowing "I'm gonna find my bay-beh/ Whoo!/ Before that sun goes down" over and over, set to a mainstream nightclub beat with a guitar solo smacked in the middle. His pressing "play" would be the start of a strange dance we'd act out. I'd tell him to turn the song off, he'd turn the volume up instead, I'd turn it back down and he'd tell me what a fuckhead I was. Then the bottle would be opened and before I knew it we'd both be singing along stupidly, taking special care to shout the "Whoo!" part as loud as possible.

Lately I've been thinking about my strongest memories of pop music and wondering how they've influenced my taste. I have no idea what the above anecdote says about me, but it's one of the happiest memories I have from that time in my life. Maybe it means sweet fuck all. When you're writing about music all the time, there's a danger of taking it all too seriously. So, I guess, I just hope you liked the story. And I still hate that goddamn song.