Remember! The Summer! In Abaddon!
on Pinback’s “AFK”
I love making summer playlists. Batches of songs for driving with sunglasses on, for drawing in the backyard, for dancing between tiki torches with a beer in hand.
This is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard about summer, but it doesn’t fit those other playlists. It’s not an idealized sun-drenched synthesizer tropicalia. This isn’t about a summer in the city you love, surrounded by people who want to go to the lake with you.
“AFK” is about the other kind of summer. It’s about frustration and hibernation and repetition, and the struggle to reconcile those forces in your life with how you envisioned these three months.
REMEMBER! THE SUMMER! IN ABADDON!
Abaddon in Hebrew is a place of destruction. The title of the song means “away from keyboard,” and lyrics talk about how “no one uses the phone anymore.” A summer in Abaddon is a 92-and-sunny social wasteland.
I created these summers for myself in the past, slowed down my communication until I essentially became a hermit. In the hot months when I’d move home for the summer during college, I’d swing from savoring my isolation to craving social interaction, which the lyrics mirror; After hearing the frustration of the first three-quarters of the song, the words “I miss you” in the outro never fail to give me chills.
My self-imposed hermitages in rural Oregon were always about balancing these two extremes. I’m almost one week into my first summer in a new city, and I think I’ve passed the last time that I’ll feel the exact emotion in “AFK.” My solitary leanings are no longer self-imposed, which means they’re a little less fun.
I’m not going to forget what those days spent alone in my backyard in the Willamette Valley—which may be a good thing. But I can’t say that I won’t feel a certain nostalgia for it.
REMEMBER! THE SUMMER! IN ABADDON!
