No. 115 - Arcade Fire’s “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” changed my life
Alex Ameter joined the Army to pay back student loans, then had an unlikely reunion
This Song Changed My Life is an independent music publication featuring weekly essays from people all around the world about the songs that mean the most to them. Created (and illustrated) by Grace Lilly.
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• 4 min read •
“Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” by Arcade Fire has changed my life not once, but many times.
I was passing under an overpass in Columbus, Ohio on my way, in a blizzard, to Easton Town Center, an outdoor shopping mall, during winter break to pick up a girl I’d met at Ohio State during fall quarter. As I drove, I listened to “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels).” The girl had introduced me to the song, so listening felt like getting to know her.
Driving through the snow to meet a girl while listening to a song about building tunnels through the snow to meet a girl and escape from an undesired reality was one of the many times in my life in which music seemed to create reality. These moments, facilitated by music, fill me with a sense of awe and help shape the person I am in the next moment; quite literally building a tunnel from one version of myself to the next.
A few months after the snow, “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” comforted me as the girl who introduced me to the song told me we needed to break up. We were still teenagers, and feeling so connected scared us, even though I swore to anyone who would listen that I wasn’t scared.
Years later, even though I’d spent my years in university protesting war and imperialism, I joined the US Army in order to pay back my student loans. This greatly surprised everyone around me, including myself and the girl who introduced me to “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels).” I laughed at the prospect of being a hypocritical contradiction, and thought of myself as a performance artist of irony; not as someone betraying their morals for money. I still listened to “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels),” but now it was an escape tunnel. It meant the choices I’d made weren’t really made by me, or that they weren’t actively shaping or impacting my reality.
I soon deployed to South Korea and witnessed how military culture conditions the world. To reach the train station right outside my base, I had to pass through a red light district filled with human-trafficked Filipinas being held hostage by promoters looking to entertain US Soldiers. I listened to “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” on the walk to separate myself from that reality. At work, I’d tell my soldiers to avoid these places and go see the real South Korea, so I thought I must still be a good person.
Upon returning to the United States, I listened, at an extremely loud and angry volume, to “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” while driving around my new base in Augusta, Georgia, hoping someone would hear this song and be my friend. This strategy never worked, but it certainly assisted, along with the frequent explosions and gunshots inevitably encountered in the military, in creating a new version of myself with tinnitus.
When I was deployed to Afghanistan a year later, “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” helped me pretend I was sane as I assisted the United States Government in its dealings with people I wasn’t sure had done anything wrong. I listened to this song as I escorted a prisoner from one base to another, thinking about what tunnels had led this man to this circumstance. In retrospect, I think most of his tunnels were probably built for him, and that a great many people in this world have few choices in where their paths lead.
After my deployment, I left the military and moved to New York to join a foreign policy think tank. Finally, I believed I’d reached the apex of all my tunnels as one who could bring new knowledge to the halls of power. I told myself all my moral compromises meant something; I could help the world be a better place. I marched to work each morning from Hell’s Kitchen to the Upper East Side through Central Park listening to “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels),” deluding myself.
Upon my inevitable crashout three years later, due in equal parts to my PTSD from Afghanistan, my own poor decisions, and my ornery, oppositional-defiant nature, I left my job and moved back home to Ohio.
Within a few months, I realized the girl who’d introduced me to “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” had also moved back from an educational career abroad. We’d stayed in touch as friends over the intervening fourteen years, and mutually admired the context we’d both gathered in our 20s. We reconnected over coffee, realized how much we’d missed one another, and fell in love.
As an educator, she opened me up to the idea that teaching might be a reality I’d like to inhabit. With her help, I dug a new tunnel. I’m now a history teacher for refugee students, some of them Afghan, all of them impacted by war and imperialism. I try to impart key themes from history and welcome them to the country. Their senses of humor and stories of survival and resilience ground me.
Five years after we re-met, I’m also married to the girl who introduced me to “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels).” We’ve adopted my nephew to help him tunnel towards a better future, and, as of this writing, we’ll have a new little girl in three days. On the birth playlist is, of course, “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels).”
I’ve read that upon seeing and holding their newborn child, a father is changed at a biological level. I’m looking forward to passing through this tunnel to whatever the newest version of myself will be. ◆
About Alex
Alex Ameter is currently an instructor of World and American History to students newly arrived to the US with limited English proficiency. He was previously a US Army Captain in Afghanistan and South Korea and a Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. He holds a BA in International Relations and Political Science, an MA in Conflict Resolution and Diplomacy, and an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.
⭐ Recommended by
Andrew Ameter (No. 091)
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Friendship • Family • Coming of Age • Romance • Grief • Spirituality & Religion • Personal Development
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