"Chesterfield King," Jawbreaker, 1991

"We stood in your room and laughed out loud. 

Suddenly the laughter died and we were caught in an eye to eye. 

We sat on the floor and did we sit close." 

Brian was a good friend. He offered to drive Mike and me to the airport one gray, wet morning for a flight to San Francisco. My first trip away from my family. First time on an airplane without them. Mike and I just wanted to run around San Francisco for the weekend. It was the late 90s, but we still sought to channel some Beat energy circa 1956.

Brian was in the driver seat. Mike in the passenger seat. He was much bigger than me. So I crammed into the tiny seats behind in Brian's pick-up truck. My knees pressed against my chest, my body positioned sideways, leaving my head to stare out the rear window at the 15 freeway and what we were leaving behind that morning.

A mixtape Brian had made was blasting through the truck speakers. The only song I remember from the drive was Jawbreaker's "Chesterfield King." A song I had heard many times before. But on that freeway drive, that song hit me in a new way. Like a first kiss. A first anything. 

The story Blake Schwarzenbach howls is the classic teenage love angst song. But he captures his feelings in a novel way and layers the song atop the punk chord changes. The energy of the music matches the energy that teenagers keep hidden in their heads, their chests, their other places. 

"I took my car and drove it down the hill by your house. 

I drove so fast. 

The wind it couldn't cool me down, so I turned it around and came back up."

The best line of the song. The pseudo-chorus above, paints the clear picture of a tiny moment that means so much. Not many songwriters are able to capture these tiny moments. Blake can. And although I never drove my car down a hill by any girl's house to cool myself off, Blake sings it with so much heart and honesty, I feel like I have. Maybe I did. I don't remember. 

And a live version because WHY NOT?