In the penultimate episode of 2017’s Twin Peaks revival, an image of Agent Cooper’s face is superimposed over a heartwarming shot of the ensemble cast. His eyes are resolute, and his face remains still for several minutes before intoning, “We live inside a dream.” The meaning of this moment is widely debated, but it is this author's interpretation that here, the world of Twin Peaks is revealed as a fictitious escape from reality. Here, the good guys always win, there is no ambiguity, and no mystery goes unsolved.
“Paris Syndrome,” the second single from indie-rock outfit Kyle Benor & The Ghost Caravan, exists in a similar fantasy world. The song follows a lucid dream of adolescent reinvention, where everything from car rides with friends to far-flung reunions is reexamined. However, this time around, the car is never stops driving, and your best friend never leaves. The sorrow of endings is not known here. The lyrics openly confess the falsehood, admitting in the opening lines, “I had a dream we were on the corner of your street / And everything was explained perfectly.”
The lyricism on “Paris” is exemplary, pitching a circus tent of dream logic and inviting you under the big top. Cleverly leveraging the real-life medical condition to focus on a relationship instead of geography, Benor asks the question at the heart of all ending relationships: what if it happened differently? He establishes a unique voice throughout, not describing a romantic love or physical lust but the plain joy of knowing someone. When life separates the two, our narrator is disappointed by the roadblocks of real life, so imagines various never-ending adventures in the safety of the other’s company. “We decided we would stay out that night / Instead of falling asleep on separate sides / Talk about all the things on our minds / I answered all your questions / You answered mine." Benor fixes our mistakes and gives us closure.
Musically, the song relies on clichés established by early 2000s indie-rock groups. Benor is clearly well-versed in all things Ben Gibbard, using Death Cab’s guitar-led piano-accented formula to great success here. However, the use of these familiar trappings allows to “Paris” to reflexively comment on the genre itself — often overstuffed with romantic platitudes and sickly sweet narratives. With Benor confessing in the opening lines that there isn’t an ounce of truth to what’s occurring, the song reveals a second layer of storytelling: A fable about the power of denial, but also a satire of over-romanticized indie heartthrobs. The songs overflows with melodies ripe for coming-of-age montages, but in a deft move of prosody, the song never explodes into catharsis. Instead, it relies on interchangeable and memorable sequences that thrill and delight, but also serve as a reminder that the narrator’s perfect world isn’t *truly* perfect — the resolutions aren’t real. Kudos to both Benor and The Ghost Caravan for managing to deliver a product that so neatly balances these ideas without flying off the rails.
In the end, the song is a powerful and emotional epic, crackling with energy and enough ideas to make Gibbard himself tremble in his boots. Beyond this, though, lies a sense of sadness that promises Benor has more stories to tell (or at least imagine). In the final moments, the dreamer wakes up and realizes “Nothing played like it did in [his] mind” — the drive is over, and all the comfortable answers no longer apply. Confronted with this realization, he decides to “sleep a little longer in denial,” slipping back into a haze of reverb and guitars. Much like the inhabitants of a certain small northwestern town, he stays put in his fictitious world, safe from open ends and non sequiturs. The rest of us are not so lucky.
Comments