I like to listen to music when I go to the gym. I should be listening to my Italian lessons, but they only seem to bog me down. No, what gets me moving and keeps me moving is Goldfrapp. I love the early, moody, John Barry meets Ennio Morricone electronic music produced by the duo, but when I’m on the elliptical or working that abductor, I want the later disco Goldfrapp.
Confession: I don’t usually pay attention to the lyrics the first few times I listen to a song. The timbre of an instrument or voice (I love Alison Goldfrapp’s soaring, breathy voice—I’ve listened to Black Cherry a thousand times and I still have no idea what she’s going on about and I don’t care), the rhythm, the melody, the hook, these things all grab me before the lyrics. Eventually though, the words will start worming their way into my consciousness. And so it was with Goldfrapp’s Rocket, an ABBA-esque dance song that was a club hit (I’m told) in 2010. After hearing it twenty or so times the lyrics over the hooky chorus caught my attention.
Oooo-oooo-oooo,
I got a rocket,
oooo-oooo-oooo,
you’re going on it,
oooo-oooo-oooo,
You're never coming back.
Cute. And I like rockets. Then several more listens later:
Cliches, secrets,
Stories unfold
Fooled by passion
Losing control.
And:
But I still wanna know
How she got in the door uninvited.
That was the clincher. Suddenly, Alison Goldfrapp’s seemingly mundane lyrics, so catchily wrapped in Will Gregory’s Eurotrash synths, captured a scene from one of Russian auteur and cinematic ascetic Andrei Tarkovsky’s most celebrated films.
Oh yeah, I'm talkin' Solaris.
Psychologist Kris Kelvin boards the space station Solaris, a shabby looking place orbiting a mysterious aquatic planet. The station is inhabited by two bizarre scientists; a third, we learn, committed suicide just before Kris’ arrival. This scientist has left Kris a video message warning him that should he see something strange on the station, not to overact and to attribute it to something like his conscience. Right, okay, whatever, Mr. Dead Scientist.
Kris does indeed experience something strange, namely his wife, Hari, mysteriously appears in his room. One might say she was not invited and she certainly didn’t come through his door, because it was barricaded. Oh, and Hari committed suicide on earth years earlier. (Lots of suicides, I know. It’s Russian, what do you expect?). Hari is no ghost, though, she is a very real entity, a physical but not quite human manifestation of Kris’ memory and conscience brought into existence by the sentient planet. Kris is understandably freaked out by this. He’s edgy. He sweats a lot. He lures her to the station’s launch pad where he puts her in a rocket and shoots her into space.
Hari appears again the following night and Kris decides to roll with it and treat her like his wife, which means their old behaviors come back and are played out again, with Hari trying to kill herself and Kris wracked with guilt.
Solaris goes on (quiet, John Yearley!), but I’ll stop there because I want to get back to Goldfrapp.
Recognizing this reference was like going to a new acquaintance’s home and seeing that your shelves hold many of the same books. It induces a smile. It’s also comforting to know that a difficult art film made almost 40 years ago not only has legs, but can have its essence distilled and placed in a dance song. That’s my kind of stealing.
But, and maybe I’m making too much of this, I think the reference is more than a pop tart's attempt to look smart. I think the reference is near-brilliant. Like most pop songs, the chorus repeats, as Kris and Hari are doomed to repeat their actions in perpetuity. And then, of course, the song repeats in your (well, mine at least) head, over and over, like a memory or a pang of conscience you can’t shake. No matter what you do, no matter how many rockets you put those memories in, they keep coming back. Like the earworm that is this song.
Here’s the goofy and creepy video for Rocket. It doesn’t support my Solaris thesis, but I still enjoy watching it, because lord knows there are some people I’d like to put on a rocket and shoot into space.