MILB: "We Used To Be Friends" by The Dandy Warhols

(Editor's Note: This blog is not aimed at anyone.  Well, anyone that actually reads my blog posts.)

You might have heard this as the theme tune for "Veronica Mars" or on the radio.  Maybe you saw the video.  However, this song really does deserve to stand on its own.

The Dandy Warhols made it huge with "Bohemian Like You", with a sound like "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and a great beat.  Their next album brought out "We Used To Be Friends."

Growing older has given me a unique perspective on life, as it usually does.  This song is obviously about growing up and the lessons you learn as you get older and that sometimes friends just fade away.  The main theme of the song deals with remembering someone with whom you used to be close, but something happened and you aren't any more.  The opening lines of the song pretty much sum it up:

A Long Time Ago/We used to be friends, but I/ Haven't thought of you lately at all./  If ever again, a greeting I send to you/ short and sweet to the soul I intend.

This is growing up right there.  The difference between when this song was released and now is that with email, Facebook, twitter, etc, it's becoming less and less common to lose touch with people from your past.  Heck, I even found a friend on Facebook that I hadn't heard from since I was 8 and moved from Arkansas to Florida.  Sometimes, though, people you've been very close to seem to drift away.  Many times there isn't even a reason for it to happen.  The song puts it like this:

It's something I said, or someone I know/or you called me up maybe I wasn't home

You see, sometimes there isn't a reason for growing apart.  You just do it.  I know there are friends that I'll always be close to in life.  We don't talk for a bit, but then we chat and it's like nothing happened.  But then there are people I hardly ever hear from.  I'll go years without hearing from them, and then one day they'll contact me and I'll be, "Wow, has it really been two years since I spoke to them?"  It's nothing personal, but life does get in the way you know?  The good news is that if you are really interested in maintaining relationships, you can do it now, no matter where in the world you are.  Heck, here I sit in Johannesburg and thanks to social media I can watch my nephews and niece grow up.  Or I can chat with one of my former college roommates online while he sits in a cafe in Brussels and I sit in my house in South Africa, which happened last month.

However, sometimes that's not enough.  The Dandy Warhols made a great song which perfectly fits in with growing up.  Sadly I know one day I'll run into someone with my family, and after introducing everyone, and a brief chat, I'm sure Lovely English Lass will ask me, "Where did you know them from?"  My response will probably be, "Well, we used to be friends."