Still in Rotation: Skylarking (XTC)

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Still in Rotation: Skylarking (XTC)

Still in Rotation is a feature that lets talented writers tell Midlife Mixtape readers about an album they discovered years ago that’s still in heavy rotation, and why it has such staying power.

What is there to say about Anna Lefler? She’s a fabulously talented, funny writer; she’s got Breck girl hair; she’s one of the most generous, insightful writers I know. Case in point: 18 months ago, when I was running in circles creatively, La Lefler helpfully explained to me what the memoir I was writing was about. So that was helpful. She’s a gem, and after you read her take on XTC’s Skylarking, you’ll agree.

Skylarking (1986)

Sometimes I like to time travel.

Sure, there are albums I listen to again and again for their stunning musicianship or inspired lyric-writing. Mood-wise, I have favorites that activate, elevate…and moderate. (There are also those earmarked strictly for working on my Dougie in my underwear, but Nancy has requested that I save that blog post for another time.)

Occasionally, though, what I want – or even need – is to settle into a collection of songs like it’s a vessel. Like I’m reclining into a Barcalounger. A mobile, musical Barcalounger. I’m not ruling out the possibility of wings here. Are you with me? Less “Dr. Who” and more “Dr. When.”

XTC’s Skylarking is that time-traveling recliner. (Hey, Rolling Stone – I’m available!) And when I strap into it, where – without exception – does it transport me? My apartment on Dwight Way in Berkeley, California, circa 1987.

The situation: a dilapidated, free-standing, two-bedroom “penthouse” where the green industrial carpeting had bigger waves than the San Francisco Bay, and where my roommate for the year was an angry female bicyclist who ate a lot of kale and kept in her room an agoraphobic pet rat named “Señor.”

Highlights of that year included getting my first-ever haircut that required the use of electric trimmers, convincing the attendant of an all-night gas station in Oakland to let me use the employees-only toilet in his pay stall by bursting into tears at Pump #3, and – on a bet – inhaling an unfiltered Marlboro through my right nostril.

I think it’s pretty obvious to all of us why I would want to revisit this particular slice of my personal history.

From its initial cricket chirp, Skylarking is a lush, psychedelic-pop/New Wave album produced by Todd Rundgren and released in 1986. According to Wikipedia (yeah, we’re doin’ that), Skylarking is a “life-in-a-day” semi-concept album. [Note to self: never look anything up on frickin’ Wikipedia again.] You’ll get more than a whiff of Beatles influence here, which accounts for at least part of my pleasurable fixation on it.

And speaking of pleasure, if you’re wondering about the subtext of the album, take a look at the pornographic pelt o’ posies that adorned the original, “banned” cover:

I will now cleanse your mind by telling you that the title of the album was inspired by Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem To a Skylark, and by invoking a word that we can all agree has unassailable high-brow credentials: pastoral.

Skylarking is a nectar-drenched rumination on the nature of life. It is woven with a rich web of musical and lyrical callbacks – a macramé plant hanger of an album. Virtually every song explores the parallels between the cycles of nature and the cycles of human life, love, and loss. I think of this album as a little machine – an engine that endlessly and for the most part joyfully recycles itself as it churns out the auditory equivalent of a Peter Max print.

I’m having a hard time spotlighting individual songs because they truly flow one into the next, much like (wait for it) the seasons of life. New love, insecurity, blissful bafflement, the challenges of everyday existence coupled with the eternal resurrection of hope – it’s one big philosophical/emotional gumbo.

And then, plopped into all of this fecund moisture is the album’s best-performing single, “Dear God.” It’s an arid, accusatory song of anti-theism that rose to Number 37 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Tracks – and likely the only song from the album whose title sounds familiar to you.

My unfortunate personal association with this beautiful and thought-provoking song is that it was used in a multi-media presentation by a boyfriend at the time – one whose acquisition was significantly less satisfying than that of my marked-down pair of rayon, mustard palazzo pants. What can I say? It was the 80s. Mistakes were made.

Has Skylarking stood the test of time? I don’t know. Maybe not. Probably not, in fact. But for me, that’s just the point: it’s not a timeless album. On the contrary, it’s an album rooted in a very specific time, one during which the formula for contentment read something like this:

4 pumps of Dep + $1.50 worth of gas in my scooter + 2 rolls of laundry quarters

None of life’s formulas have seemed this simple to me in a very long time, but I remain hopeful that they could be. That’s what drives me to strap myself into that musical Barcalounger, again and again.

♪♪♪

Anna Lefler is a writer and comedian. She is the author of the humor book, “The CHICKtionary: From A-Line to Z-Snap, the Words Every Woman Should Know,” which The Chicago Tribune calls, “A wry celebration of modern femininity.” She is also a writer and performer on the Nickelodeon/NickMom television show, “Parental Discretion with Stefanie Wilder-Taylor.” Her work has appeared online at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Salon.com, and The Big Jewel, and she is a faculty member of the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop. You can find her on Twitter at @AnnaLefler, on Facebook at facebook.com/AnnaCornettLefler, and on her website at annalefler.com.