Oh, God, it’s my birthday. Hooray, hooray, hooray. 28 and still going on. A lot of people never made it this far. Very sure I had mu 18th birthday post on here. Might have to check that one out, see how I was doing. Actually, I’ll skip that – 2013 was a bit of an awkward one. Clinging onto what’s left of the 20s now, but probably feeling happier now than I have been in a long while. And that’s all that matters really, right? Personal well-being and all that. Anyway, let’s move on, let’s move on.

Eagle-eyed readers out there who might have a keen interest in Interpol and what I write on here may have noticed that I once wrote about ‘NYC’, and now I’m on ‘PDA’. So you may wonder, “Well, where was the post for ‘Obstacle 1’?” Answer is, I used to like that song quite a bit. But then it lost me along the way. ‘PDA’ though, is probably my favourite song from Turn on the Bright Lights, without question. Initially, I came across it by chance when its video showed up on MTV2 many years back. I had been accustomed to at least some of the band’s work at that point. Videos for ‘Evil’, ‘Slow Hands’ and the aforementioned ‘Obstacle 1’ were usual sights to see. As a result, ‘PDA’ was like a new track to me. But with the short attention span that I had as a kid, and the fact that TV speakers never do music justice anyway, I didn’t think much of it. But give the guy a few more years of life and some good headphones, and he exposes himself to broader horizons.

This track constantly feels like its pushing itself forward, constantly striding with this driving quality, and it all begins with the very first strike of the crash cymbal. After a few measures of the bustling drum introduction, the rest of the guitars join in – and every note/chord that’s struck is hit simultaneous alongside every beat happening on the kick drum, which also adds to this building tension. I think it’s agreed amongst the indie consensus that the rhythm section is the highlight in the majority of the album’s songs, particularly Carlos Dengler’s bass playing, and, my god, is there no better example of that aspect than on this song. Many times I’m humming and “ner-ner-ner”-ing to his bass and completely disregarding everything else. He starts and stops, climbs in scales and descends again, leaps to higher octaves, and all of this done in such a fluid manner. This was all from a person who stated that he disliked playing the instrument.

But even trying to pay attention to the lyrics is kinda difficult enough. They’re hard to break down, which I don’t mind too much, though listeners might think about what Paul Banks is even trying to convey in this. The title doesn’t appear in its lyrics, but it’s understood to stand for ‘Public Display of Affection’. So there’s something about love, or the ending of it, in there somewhere, buried deep within. What I like about it most though, is the flat, deadpan delivery that only reaches a peak during the choruses. Even then, it’s not much. But it just works. Also, a big hand goes out to the amazing outro, which I didn’t get to hear that first time because the music video used the radio edit of the song.