From the album “Currents,” Tame Impala‘s song “Past Life,” is this week’s Track of the Week, and provides insight into the strange, creepy nature of the entire album, just like the weird GIF below.
The Australian band released their third album, “Currents,” in July of 2015 and watched it skyrocket to the top of numerous music charts. Although the general public clearly enjoyed this album, I thought most of the songs sounded the same and followed similar structure. They were all pretty disturbing and eerie, but one song seemed especially freaky.
Like all the other songs on this album, this one begins with dream sequence-esque. However, unlike other songs, a deep, distorted voice begins discussing his mundane routine of picking up his dry-cleaning when suddenly seeing his “lover from a past life.”
The rest of the song seems to just repeat the words “past life” with the distorted voice sporadically explaining the relationship he may or may not have had with this woman on top of a repetitive melodic phrase. While I did not like the song, I can’t say the tune isn’t catchy; I could hardly stop humming the song after listening to it once. Those few hours were awful.
This song which addresses so many issues ranging from reincarnation, to denial, to the resurfacing of memories in dreams; perhaps the person to whom this mysterious voice belongs would be Freud’s ideal subject to study.
Although Halloween has ended, if you’d like to experience the strange spookiness of the track, you can listen to it below.
Unless you’re a superhuman with incredibly discerning ears, you may have trouble understanding what the singer/speaker says in the song. Here are the lyrics to help you fully experience the uncanny. To listen to the whole album, you can access the YouTube playlist or download it on iTunes.
