When I listen to Chain Gang Of Love I feel an overwhelming urge to rent the kind of car that’s meant more for cruising than for commuting, good gas mileage, or environmental stability. I want to drive through the desert with all the windows rolled down (or the top down, if the non-earth-kind car is a convertible). I want to wear my hair in a messy ponytail with a thrift shop scarf holding it all in place. I’d stop at every roadside attraction, the more ridiculous the better, taking Polaroid pictures. My bags would be mostly full of collected souvenirs from gift shops and gas stations, like plastic snow globes, or light-up shot glasses.

The Raveonettes – Chain Gant Of Love (2003)
Album Review – February 4, 2011

I’d play this album loud and pretend that if I drive just far enough I’ll go back in time, to 1963. Maybe I’d change my name and my birthday, join an all-girl motorcycle gang, wear over-the-knee boots, bleach my hair out, and do the biggest sunglasses and leopard print pants the world has ever seen.

I’d return home eventually, probably by the end of a weekend, or sometime next year. Every time after, when I played this album, I’d remember the trip. Listen to it while I flipped through the postcards, photographs, and all the lipstick stained napkins I’d kept, pressed in the paperback romance I’d brought along to read.

I’d remember and smile the widest smile as I thought how much that trip back to 1963 had meant to me.

That’s what I think of when I listen to this album, especially the title track, “Chain Gang Of Love”.

“Chain Gang Of Love”