Tame Impala’s “Lost in Yesterday”: The Pangs of a Bittersweet Nostalgia
An emotional standout from the “Slow Rush” album
Sometimes with songs, it’s the feeling that matters more than the lyrics. Vocal-free songs often provide the widest space for the mind to wander. But in songs with lyrics, there’s the added benefit of having a defined sort of poetry written on the page. And while sometimes those lines have a manufactured meaning, other times they’re as free-floating and interpretationless as a symphony orchestra.
But other times, in those songs with lyrics, the mind is given an interesting opportunity to fill in the blanks that singers leave in their less enunciated words. In some cases, the meaning we imagine in the absence of comprehension is something more poignant; we’re underwhelmed once we actually get as far as looking up the lyrics. “Lost in Yesterday” by Tame Impala is one of those songs.
Tame Impala / Wavehouse Studios
The lyrics:
“Now even though that was a time I hated from day one
Eventually terrible memories turn into great ones”
are words with multiple meanings for me. Initially upon the song’s release, there was some confusion as to whether it read “great ones,” or “gray walls.” And the truth is — both images are powerful in their own right. Though at first I wasn’t as fond of the “gray walls” interpretation, as I’ve grown to love language more, I’ve begun to appreciate the depth of that vaguer vignette. There’s an openness to the false analysis that’s squandered in the more direct “great ones” wording people now accept as correct. But there’s a value in each meaning, and in that lone line, I’ll always hear both.
Through one lens, many of the experiences that felt so horrible they would linger with me forever have faded into a forgotten haze of memory — lost in gray.
But on the other side of that lyrical coin, there are those dark memories that develop a certain magic and allure around them as years tumble by. There’s an odd beauty in the recollections of bullies, bad days, and breakups. Even lockdowns, loss, and isolation can grow a wistful sort of warmth around them as time ticks by.
Kevin Parker, the singular mind behind the music of Tame Impala, has said himself that the song speaks to the human tendency to distort details and glorify grief.
Another part of the song which always spoke volumes in its simplicity was the line:
“What was I ever afraid of? Why did I worry?”
And though by itself it may not seem like much, sung with that soaring pang in Parker’s voice, it stretches well beyond the confines of its simple borders. It’s a line that makes me think about the supreme pointlessness of a life spent worrying about what others think. It fosters a humbling appreciation for the beauties and freedoms of the boundless lives that burgeon free from high school doors on graduation days.
It was a song that was never any less before looking at a lyrics sheet. In some regards, it was something more.
Once I did read the words, there were segments where I would have almost preferred the ambiguity. The second line of the song, for example, means nothing to me on its own. But they’re cloudy lyrics coupled with a bright array of notes that cue me into what’s coming next. The words carry a power for me that goes beyond what’s actually written on the page.
In fact, apart from the chorus and the few lines quoted above, there’s not a lot about the words to the song that read to me as groundbreaking poetry. It’s interesting and unexpected sometimes to look through each line of a song and realize that it’s more about the energy that each cultivates than what the words of them literally mean when put together. In “Lost in Yesterday,” it’s about the way that propulsive melody beneath the vocals moves me that the song finds its impact. It’s the wide array of sounds above and beneath them that instill the words with what make them feel special.
In an album that largely centers around time, memory, and ephemerality as themes, “Lost in Yesterday,” “Patience,” and “One More Year” are likely the three songs that embody the idea most effectively. The former of the three tracks leads into the end of the album and stands as one of its most lively and energetic melodies.
The song is pointed, rhythmic, driven, dynamic, dreamy, and soulful. It’s bound by a pounding beat, but also manages to achieve a certain floatiness during the song’s more soaring moments.
“Lost in Yesterday” features a masterful blend of synth-driven melodies atop an unrelenting bass line that anchors the track in its place. It’s a testament to Parker’s prowess in layering sound and his ability to effectively toe a line between psychedelic and accessible. The use of reverb and delay effects, coupled with the driving rhythm, culminates in something simply infectious and hypnotic.
Releasing shortly before the onset of the pandemic as a single, “Lost in Yesterday” will always be intertwined with that fraught moment in life. It takes me back to those emotionally charged drives through the quiet Pennsylvania countryside of a world on the fritz. It pulls swampy summer air in through the wide-open windows of my gently clattering car. It enlivens me as humid, sultry air sweeps past the center console and heat lightning illuminates the far corners of the country sky in unremitting succession.
It sends me speeding through a backend nowhere with not another car in sight, a racing flurry of thoughts about the gaping world ahead and a chaotic life full of events floating free in the rear-view mirror. Memories are whisked away in one fell August breeze and enter the sprawling world unmoored, lost in yesterday.