Finding "Clarity" in 1999

I distinctly remember Tuesday, February 23, 1999. I was still living in Iowa and immediately after school let out I road with a friend to Best Buy so he could pick up Eminem's freshly released second album. Always down for a hang, I road along as there was one album I had read about and wanted to see if it was in stores. That album was Jimmy Eat World's Clarity.

On the ride home I didn't bother asking to put in my purchase as my friend was not a rock fan. So for the next hour or so of cruising we blasted Slim Shady at painful volumes. For those uninitiated, this was the "Hi! My name is (ticka ticka) Slim Shady" album. I was indifferent to rap so it got a little long and tiresome by roughly the third time through the album.

When I finally listened to Clarity it underwhelmed. Nothing on the album is lyrically hook centered on kinetically riff focused like later Jimmy Eat World releases. For a 16 year-old ska and pop punk super fan, Clarity got a cursory background listen as I played videogames before being shoved in the CD tour to be forgotten.

It wasn't until seven months later, after my family had moved three states away to Michigan, and I spent a long couple days moping and unpacking that I gave Clarity a second listen. I had been primed with a plenty of favorites like Third Eye Blind's debut and Foo Fighters The Colour and The Shape before I gave the forgotten disc a spin. I was in the absolute sweet spot to receive what Jimmy Eat World's sophomore effort was delivering.

For a teenager, freshly ripped from his friends and childhood surroundings "Table for Glasses," the first track on Clarity, was almost unfair with how close it hit to home.

Over the course of an absolutely bizarre junior year wherein I had a LOT of new, fun friends, a new band, and I was experiencing great joy in their presence, when I was by myself or chatting online at home with my Iowa friends I felt isolated and sad. Clarity was a powerful mix of salve and salt on the wounds of my hypersensitive teenage self. On the frequent occasion where I would go back to Iowa I remember every trip over I would jam Reel Big Fish, Blink 182, The Presidents, Less Than Jake, and other up, excited music. On the return trip it was only Jimmy Eat World (and Local H, a group that hasn't hung on to my personality nearly as much).

There was something so reflective and heightening about Clarity. As a single document it takes every emotion and shines a spotlight on it. I can honestly say I have never been depressed in my life but certainly low, lonely, and sorrowful. Not a single track on the entire list allows you to simply tap your toe and chew bubble gum. Songs like "Lucky Denver Mint," "Your New Aesthetic," "Crush," "Blister," "Clarity" were rippers but with a sharp, undercurrent lesson. Whereas "Table for Glasses,"  "A Sunday," "12.23.95," "Ten,""Just Watch the Fireworks," "For Me this is Heaven," road the line of hopeful nostalgic grand ballads and forceful melodic slaps to your heart strings. And of course the finale of Goodbye Sky Harbor is almost a mission statement of modest confidence and forward thinking.

In the years immediately following 1999 I spread the good word of Clarity to everyone I knew. The album took hold in the hearts of many of my friends, but few fell for it like I did. One stand out Clarity infused experience was when I cut together this video for my close friends and played it at a collected high school graduation party. I assume everyone was anticipating fun-loving Pat who made mockumentary about freestyle walking to hit them with a wacky greatest hits video. Instead the entire vibe of the room changed and it seemed everyone was feeling a little more gratitude about who we had been to each other over the last several years. As the song sings, "It happened to fast, to make sense of it, make it last." 

As college came and went, my musical tastes expanded, got weirder, and started allowing in things like classic country and even certain hip hop. All the while, Clarity has never left the rotation. Jimmy Eat World's follow up albums have had a track here or there that resonated in similar fashion to what I consider their masterwork, but the group became much more aggressive, less contemplative, and certainly more radio friendly.

February 23 is by no means a high holiday for me, and this year it nearly passed by without notice, until Jimmy Eat World tweeted out it was Clarity's 21st birthday. Where does the time go? Damn. It's cliche, but here I am a person closing in on 40 and somehow I've become that guy who can't let go the music of his youth. Oh well, I'm not towing it all like baggage at least, keeping me from enjoying new music. But of course, the silver and gold lyric applies and Clarity has meant new things to me as time goes on. It used to be a bleeding veins statement of who I was at 17, now at 37 it is comfort food and a beacon of discovery for people I instantly know I'll be friends with. I look forward to February 2040 I'll be able to look back at 40 years of Clarity and have a new layer of appreciation.