A Madeleine de Proust

Through my listening experience, I’ve found both The Car and Suck it and See albums to be the most essential to the Arctic Monkeys narrative. Both albums act as guidelines to existential inquiries the band have pondered since their debut.

They are also reminiscent of themes in Marcel Proust’s novel “À La Recherche du Temps Perdu “(In Search of Lost Time).

The seven volumes of Marcel Proust’s work search for meaning in life while appreciating its essence through the perspective of art.

Let’s examine the title track, The Car. I believe it is the embodiment of a “Proustian Moment”.

We experience Proustian moments daily. In the book he uses an example of childhood memories triggered by biting into a madeleine cake and sipping on herbal tea. This simple act of the ordinary allows him to feel gratitude.

It has become very clear through my conversations with AM fans, the online reviews I’ve read and watched, and with the lack of recordings posted from live footage, that many don’t like this song.  And with it being my favourite song, I think I understand why.

The Car is a prophetic song with an unclear ending.  The Spanish guitar at the start sounds like Hotel California, which was said to be inspired by John Fowles’s novel, The Magus.  

The Magus has no ending. And that is unsettling. Fowles even refused to give readers any clarification. The theme of the book is centered on the idiom “be careful what you wish for”. I believe The Car emulates a similar warning.

At its core it is unsettling, forcing the audience to reflect internally. Personally I believe this song can be better appreciated and valued by a listener who experienced certain elements only found in adult relationships.

Youth tend to fast track through stages of maturity and stand strong in their certitude, but nothing can measure up to the credibility of the natural passage of time.

Anyway I digress. In defence of this song, I’ll attempt to find literal meaning to the lyrics: To me, the song is about a memory. A wish to return to a familiar meeting place.

It’s a road trip to a foreign place. And based on the melody and the lyrical clues, I am assuming it’s a trip to Mexico.

He’s purchasing the traditional Mexican sleeping amigos memorabilia from a boat kiosk. He paints an image of meeting someone in a familiar cafe he still can’t pronounce.  They stay overnight in a dusty apartment. Dusty, implying it has been lived in but was abandoned, as if it’s a return. It’s not home, and it’s not the Eden you seek on a holiday either.  But he’s been here before. 

“Sweeping for bugs” could also mean searching for a planted surveillance device, giving us our first Magus-like detour.  Who’s this person? Another retired spy? Are they on the run? Is this fiction?  The answers are conveyed in the romantic melody. The other person is a love interest. This is a memory he wants to live out again, with a mapped out itinerary leading back to a love they both felt. A revisit to a holiday.

^{Photo credit to: Damon De Baker}

It also warns of the trials of long-distance relationships and the pressure of experiencing every perfectly, planned moment before the holiday expires.  Before two people inevitably part ways.  How many birthday candles can they blow out? How many cliffs can they climb up, jump off, and gleefully dive into the ocean? It’s all forced, rushed, making joy an exhausting feeling to chase after.

What he wished for, the getaway from the mundane, is anything but a holiday.  

And no matter how many items he can “fetch” from the car to perfect the moment, it won’t suffice the idealized standard, or a memory.  

This is amplified in the powerful collision of the guitar solo into the romantic strings. It serves as a poetic epiphany. Reality leaking through, urging him to live his madeleine de Proust.