Song of the Week: As It Was

Grocery store grunge

“Every generation sends a hero up the pop charts.”
- Paul Simon, “Boy In The Bubble”

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One day, you’re young and doing donuts in your mom’s Suburban in the school parking lot and blasting Soundgarden¹ out the window and the world is your oyster and you’re the absolute middle of the bullseye on the target of pop culture marketing.

The next day, you’re pushing a shopping cart stocked with Pampers and Cheerios and multivitamins and hemorrhoid cream down Aisle 6 at the supermarket and your ears perk up as… WHAT?… could it be?!?…they’re playing your song over the in-store speakers? Knee-jerk, you’re fist-pump stoked. Upon further consideration, though, the coin drops and you realize what it means, this song in this place. The supermarket’s not playing the latest hits—by artists you’ve never heard of and can’t confidently pronounce, like Yung BZ-Underscore or Lil’ 8ball or SHIZ^SNAXK²—these fist-pump songs are now (gulp) oldies.

And that’s when it hits you: it’s not your moment anymore.

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Two instances, beyond these grocery store grunge moments of hearing a non-Muzak “Interstate Love Song” on Aisle 6 , stand out to me where this cultural turning of the page was made (decades after it was first true) all the more crystal clear:

1. Seeing boygenius at Library Square

As a devout fan of Phoebe Bridgers³ and her conversational and melancholy and witty and the-insight-in-the-banal style of songwriting, I’m obviously also a fan of her indie rock supergroup boygenius with fellow songwriters⁴ Lucy Dacus & Julien Baker. Beyond the understandable Voltron-esque songwriting and musical and emotional potentiation and heft that occurs when Dacus, Baker, and Bridgers join forces, there’s another thing makes it extra-compelling to me. I wouldn’t call it amusical or extramusical, because the music is still at the heart of it, so maybe it’s music-curious?

Whatever its entangled relationship to music that I’m failing to articulate, I witnessed it as I queued up on the grass in front of the Salt Lake City & County Building, waiting to get in to the makeshift outdoor venue occupying an entire block of 200 East. The audience was, no surprise, younger than me by decades, but also much more diverse, in all kinds of ways. boygenius⁵ has become a magnet, a welcoming and safe space, a stabilizing sun for—among others in a wide cultural swath of fans—many LGBTQ+ youth.

As a white, straight Christian married 40something living in a state filled with many like me, I found myself in a rare position: the minority. It was, in so many ways, not my show (as much as I would argue that I love and connect with the songs as much as anyone, the truth of that being mostly unprovable). I was visiting. A tourist.

boygenius wasn’t there for me. They were there for them. You could see it in the eyes and movements and reactions and urgency of the audience. And you could see it as that energy was refracted and reflected back from boygenius, gratefully and lovingly and playfully and fiercely, into the crowd. We talk a lot in 2025 about the importance of being “seen”, where someone recognizes and understands and validates you. But this concert went beyond that; the attendees weren’t just seen, they were celebrated. A beautiful sense of connection and belonging.

Just because it wasn’t my moment⁶ anymore, does that mean I enjoyed the concert any less? Not at all. I loved every minute of it. Happy to cede the moment to the next generation⁷. Do you have to always be the center of the universe to enjoy…being in the universe?

If so, I’ve got some bad news for you.

2. Standing in General Admission, waiting for Gracie Abrams & Olivia Rodrigo to take the stage

When Olivia Rodrigo was touring her first album, Sour, we got tickets for my daughter and her friend and then stood/shivered in line forever outside of UVU’s basketball arena, waiting to get in, hoping that we were early enough to be pretty close up. Being honest, I don’t know who was more excited for the show, me or my daughter. Not dissimilar to my Phoebe Bridgers fandom, I’m a big Olivia Rodrigo⁸ fan too—what can I say? I dig melancholy and clever and salty women who can sing?

We ended up getting decently close to the front of the stage and then we….waited. And waited. And waited. The ancient infrastructure of my achy lumbar and vertebrae threatening to crumble, me starting to doubt if I was gonna make it through⁹. And then it happened.

No, not Rodrigo triumphantly taking the stage. And, no, not even her opener, a then-lesser-known Gracie Abrams¹⁰, taking the stage.

No. The thing that happened was:

Amid all the songs being played over the PA system, a song I’d never heard came on and, even though it was just the recording, the audience audibly cheered and, as the song continued, sang along. And sang along enthusiastically, as if the song’s singer was actually up there on the stage. Note: they hadn’t, for reasons I still don’t fully grasp, done this for any other song; just this one.

I didn’t know who the artist was. The song itself sounded (and still sounds, not a knock!) to me like a distant echo-of-an-echo-of-an-echo of a-ha¹¹’s “Take On Me” as much from the similar drumbeat down as from the syncopated synthesizer motif between verses¹². I’d never even heard¹³ the song, yet here I was in an arena where it seemed like EVERYBODY ELSE knew EVERY WORD.

And then the song’s bridge came, the singer spitting out rapid-fire:

Go home, get ahead, light-speed internet
I don't wanna talk about the way that it was
Leave America, two kids follow her
I don't wanna talk about who's doin' it first

And the crowd got even louder, bouncing both physically and verbally, matching the singer beat for beat. It’s weird to say about a song playing over a PA before a concert even begins¹⁴, but…it was magic.

Before the show, I would’ve considered myself a Harry Styles casual (if not outright fan). Someone who was generally in tune, at least. I listened to “Sign of the Times” and “Watermelon Sugar” and “Falling” more than a few times but I was behind (eight days, to be specific) on this one. I didn’t recognize his voice, even being familiar. I mean, this wasn’t some upstart like Yung BZ-Underscore or Lil’ 8ball or SHIZ^SNAXK. I knew this guy and still I was on the outside looking (listening?) in.

This generation, getting back to the Paul Simon lyric, was sending Harry Styles up the pop charts.

As if it wasn’t already humbling enough to know that Olivia Rodrigo’s songs that night—teen heartbreak and heartache and pining and twitterpation—weren’t looking (writing?) in my direction, the songs over the PA while we waited? They weren’t either.

You can bet I went home and put the song on.

And loved it. And that’s how “As It Was” by Harry Styles¹⁵ is my song¹⁶ this week¹⁷.

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One day you wake up and it’s simply not your time anymore. Move over, they say. And you can resist, you can push back for awhile, pretend it’s not happening, get an age-inappropriate haircut, wear something ridiculous, try not mush-mouthing the current slang¹⁸, whatever it is that you do to pretend you can stall the hands of time.

But eventually, momentum and gravity and time and Mother Nature win out.

And you sit there and you know it’s not the same as it was.

But it’s still pretty great.

1. Could have also been:
Led Zeppelin (probably “When The Levee Breaks”)
Beastie Boys
Jimi Hendrix (for sure “Voodoo Child”)
Rush (probably “Tom Sawyer”)
The Black Crowes
Pearl Jam
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Skankin’ Pickle
Phish (depends who was driving)

2. None of these are real but I would not question any of them if they popped up on Friday New Releases on Spotify. Here is a list of all-real names that were on that very playlist last week:

Lola Young
GIVĒON
Sexyy Red
Beéle
NxWorrries
Knxwledge
Latto
Chezile
Rico Nasty
Aminé
ILLENIUM
Blxst
BossMan Dlow
Kaitlin Butts
Tee Grizzley
MEOVV
Chuckyy
LUCKI
JVCK JAMES
spill tab
DAMEDAME*
SoFaygo
Funkdoobiest
MØ
Bizzarap
fakemink
Ecco2k
Folk Bitch Trio
JOSEPH(CH)
&friends

And, yes, this is very much my out-of-touch Homer Simpson “who are these no-name bands? NINE INCH NAILS?!?!” moment.

3. I got to see Bridgers at Kilby Court on her Stranger In The Alps tour. I loved every sad second of it, which almost made coming back to my car, after the show, to find the passenger window shattered, less painful. Knowing that she’s playing venues like Red Rocks now, it’s even more mind-blowing that I got to hear the songs I love—plus achy covers of Tom Petty and Mark Kozelek—in a little dumpy garage.

4. and current couple!

5. Are you supposed to capitalize boygenius at the beginning of sentences? Or is its branding so strong as to defy the rules of grammar? I am a respecter of brand.

6. My moment? That was moshing/skanking mindlessly, barbarically at Swim Herschel Swim shows, dripping with sweat. Or shouting “SAY BABY!” at the top of my lungs at a Primus show. Or bobbing my head into whiplash to “Let Me Drown” at a Soundgarden show.

7. Not that they needed or asked for or wanted my permission. And not that they hadn’t already seized their moments decades before. The older generation (me, in this case) is often deluding themselves that having their finger near the zeitgeist, near the moment, near the momentum is anything like having a grip on the thing.

8. We went to the GUTS tour too, which in typical Early Fandom fashion, I thought was good but not as good as the first one. Early fans are insufferable.

9. Dramatic much? Short answer: yes.

10. My daughters have both since summarily discarded both Taylor Swift AND Olivia Rodrigo (their former undisputed #1s) for Gracie Abrams’s tales of heartbreak. Kids these days! What ever happened to loyal fandom?

11. There was not a bigger a-ha fan in 1986 than Paul Jacobsen. Ask anyone in my family. In fact, to this day, I had no idea that Scoundrel Days, their follow-up to the smash Hunting High And Low, was anything but a great sophomore album. I listened to it like as if it were in the same league as legendary sophomore albums like Radiohead’s The Bends or Beastie Boys’s Paul’s Boutique. I listened today and, well, let’s just say that maybe 1986 Paul overrated it just a teaspoon or two.

There’s a certain charm, though, to the poppiness of “Cry Wolf” and “I’ve Been Losing You”, not to mention the Leonard Cohencore (right down to the whispery vocals) Casio-beat of “October” which isn’t to say it’s a great song, but I would never have gotten that sonic reference in 1986.

12. Pitchfork reviewer Olivia Horn agreed with my assessment:
But the album’s first single, “As It Was,” zips ahead about a decade, bouncing along to drum machines and a synth hook reminiscent of A-Ha’s “Take On Me.”

13. In my defense, the song came out April 1. The show was 8 days later on April 9. Kids were on the ball!

14. I’ve had a couple of these experiences. I think I’ve written about hearing Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” playing before U2 took the stage at The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. And how the whole audience was singing along, because it was the week that Chris Cornell (lead singer of Soundgarden) died. And how I totally cried like a wee babby. There have been others. Music is powerful stuff, man!

15. Remember when Harry Styles made a surprise cameo in a Marvel post-credits scene? Did Marvel just abandon that as a failed stunt?

Yes, it was in one of the worst Marvel movies. Yes, it was a pretty niche Marvel character (Starfox, anyone?).

16. No deep dive on the lyrical content. It’s pretty, intentionally broad. I’m not gonna hold a pop song up to the same lyrical scrutiny as a Joni Mitchell song. It’s soda, not fine wine. It’s breezy; it feels good. Let’s just let it be that.

17. If you’re interested in a playlist, here’s the ongoing Song of the Week playlist.

18. My kids’ faces when they hear me say “sus” or any modern slang. Gold!