Another post inspired by my fascination with FIFA soundtracks. As you may or may not recall, I owned FIFA 07 and the previous games going back to 2003. I was a major fan. September 2007 came around, and the brand-new edition, FIFA 08 was released. 07 was old and busted, 08 was the new hotness. I had to get it. And I did. It was the first FIFA game I bought with my own money, at the old Woolworths store down the road from my secondary school. No Christmas / birthday gift here. I recall using a £50 note to buy it. Only God knows how I managed to get a hold of that. 2007/08 as a period in my life is one that I can barely remember for some reason. The facts then were I was now in Year 8, and I was 12-years old turning 13. Maybe it was all the hormonal changes going on, changed the brain chemistry. But a lot of time was spent playing FIFA 08, I know that for certain. The stuff was addictive, I couldn’t help myself.

Jupiter One’s ‘Unglued’ was a tune that appeared in the game’s menu music. Again, it wasn’t one of the moments where I first heard the track and was stopped in my tracks. Even if it was, it wouldn’t be a moment I’d clearly remember, ’cause of the whole memory blank on the time thing. But I feel like after playing the game a few times and getting used to the range of songs that played in the navigational sections, ‘Unglued’ eventually became one of the few that was a standout to me. I do want to say that when I did start enjoying the track as a thing in itself, what popped out initially was the melody in the verses. It sounded so familiar, like a melody that should have been existing for decades up to that point, like a “Singing in the Rain” type of situation. I think I liked that the title itself isn’t sung in the choruses, but rather slipped in twice during the first pre-chorus and the second verse. Thinking about it now, I do also remember being dramatic, staring blankly into the wall, miming to the unexpected, minor-key “Twice in my life…” coda. I guess I was trying to be “part of the song”, trying to capture the feeling it was going for. Definitely had some theatre-kid energy when I was younger, I must admit.

Seems to me that ‘Unglued’ sort of builds a narrative between past and present. It’s in the verses where singer Kaoru Ishibashi depicts a scene of being in a cemetery, describing the trees around him and being on a beach somewhere. Very in the moment. And then in the pre-choruses, he turns to nostalgia and begins to remember how things were. The second pre-chorus in particular, beginning with “And people never used to smile…” ending with, “Looking like I never win, but I feel fine”. The chain of lyrics there, I really like ’em. Just how Ishibashi brings up this sort of pattern from the past and finds a kinship with it, it’s nice. And he sings it all very nicely too. The choruses are a thrill, and after the last one there’s the aforementioned coda where things take a left turn and get a little spacey and floaty in the process. I wonder when those two times Ishibashi thought there was a wall at the edge of the world occurred. This was my introduction to Jupiter One all those years ago. EA Sports probably liked the band or their sole album at the time, their self-titled LP, so much so that another song from there was on the soundtrack of FIFA 09. You know I got that game too. But ‘Unglued’ always did the job for me.