While reading through Nathaniel West's 1939 novel "The Day of the Locust," I came across the following line: "He wondered why all his sympathy had turned to malice." When i read it, it resonated with a musical lilt. Immediately I knew that I had heard this very same sentence in a song before. I stopped reading and hummed the sentence in my head, trying to recall the tune it belonged to. I knew it was a band i liked and whose CD i owned, but it wasn't until I googled the keywords "lyrics," "sympathy," and "malice" that I learned it was this Luna song. I first heard this song 7 years ago, after buying a used copy of "Bewitched" (Luna's best album, alongside "Chinatown") for 6.95 at a Blockbuster music. I purchased the album because I recognized the band from an Uncut Magazine compilation CD where their song "Super Freaky Memories," in a small way, blew my mind. I am a southern Californian, Nathaniel West's novel takes place in Hollywood and this song is, to this day, one of my all time favorite Luna songs. Both the book and the album were purchased second-hand and I think I have hit on an interesting connection between the two, although aside from this linguistic similarity the song and the novel have little in common. And, in case you're wondering, the novel is excellent. It is considered the premiere novel about Hollywood, specifically pre-WWII Hollywood, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who likes to read fiction.
While reading through Nathaniel West's 1939 novel "The Day of the Locust," I came across the following line: "He wondered why all his sympathy had turned to malice." When i read it, it resonated with a musical lilt. Immediately I knew that I had heard this very same sentence in a song before. I stopped reading and hummed the sentence in my head, trying to recall the tune it belonged to. I knew it was a band i liked and whose CD i owned, but it wasn't until I googled the keywords "lyrics," "sympathy," and "malice" that I learned it was this Luna song. I first heard this song 7 years ago, after buying a used copy of "Bewitched" (Luna's best album, alongside "Chinatown") for 6.95 at a Blockbuster music. I purchased the album because I recognized the band from an Uncut Magazine compilation CD where their song "Super Freaky Memories," in a small way, blew my mind. I am a southern Californian, Nathaniel West's novel takes place in Hollywood and this song is, to this day, one of my all time favorite Luna songs. Both the book and the album were purchased second-hand and I think I have hit on an interesting connection between the two, although aside from this linguistic similarity the song and the novel have little in common. And, in case you're wondering, the novel is excellent. It is considered the premiere novel about Hollywood, specifically pre-WWII Hollywood, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who likes to read fiction.