I lived another world, 140 beats per minute

Today marks the 633th day since we met last - an unstriking figure by any numerology. But today, I lay rest a question which has pursued me for just as many days. The night we met, silly circumstances having taken away the day that came before it, we settled on bowling. Whether it was the streaks of strikes, our fluorescent pin-slayers, or perhaps the formidable footwear we wore, there was a moment of transcendental bliss that night I would remember fondly. Here I mention things, where I meant you.

It felt like all life’s promises were delivered on, elegant simplicity, a moment where no past junction was passed wishing I’d reconsider. As you hummed along with the soundtrack, it passed into the foreground and seized me by the senses. I lived another world, 140 beats per minute. The rush lasting as long as the song did.

In a desperate attempt to get hold of the one memorabilia I could think of, I set my hopes on finding that song. As a child I never made much of musical notation - tablature worked just fine - so I devised a representational system that would help retain the song as its memory further withered. The sequence here represents the rhythm; the relative height the tonal direction of the melody, and the size of the dots the duration of the tone.

To my surprise, nobody could make out what song the carefully marked 12 dots represented. My less than perfect pitch while re-imagining it of course didn’t help either, so more than one and a half year would pass before the song surfaced again. Keeping up with whatever the Swedish genius spawns, I noticed I already had one of the artist’s tracks in my collection. On the bromidically titled Dancefloor Remix Volume 2 no less!

It’s somewhat embarrassing now to read how the song topped the charts all across Europe and was the most requested song late summer 2007. That night was the only time I had heard this title before today, and I doubt I would have come across it ever again if it hadn’t been for the Swedish roots of the artist. But then again, I live in another world. An effusively cheery world, today I do.