No. 091 - Coma Cinema’s “Running Wide Open” changed my life
Stagnating in his 9-to-5 life, Andrew Ameter hits the road
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 •
It was 2018 and I had hit a wall. My weeks were a cycle of monotony, slogging through a lifeless 9-to-5 just to get to weekends that revolved around the same bar crawl. There are worse fates, sure, but at 26, it felt like my life had plateaued. You know those scenes in movies where the main character drives past his workplace and daydreams about going straight instead of turning right into work? Yeah, that was me. “Is this all there is?” is something that would go through my mind on a weekly basis.
When I’d had thoughts like this in the past, music had always been a kind of lifeline for me — a place to go when I couldn’t make sense of things, when I needed something I cared about to speak to me in an indirect way. In the spring of that year, my lifeline became “Running Wide Open” by Coma Cinema.
I don’t know if I’d call it a decision so much as an act of desperation when I packed up my VW and left Ohio for California. It was largely at the suggestion of my girlfriend (now wife) after she had seen months and years of my unhappiness. She was willing to deliver the harsh truth that I needed to change something. I wasn’t naïve enough to think that a change of scenery would automatically erase my problems, but I hoped it might give me the space to figure out who I wanted to be. It felt like the first real act of defiance against the stagnation I’d let take root in my life and hey, I thought working in film would be pretty cool. So I left, and somewhere between the Midwest I grew up in and the hypnotically flat plains of Kansas, “Running Wide Open” became my constant companion.
I don’t think the song itself is extraordinary in the traditional sense. Its melody and lyrics tell a familiar (and sad) story, albeit with personal touches from songwriter Mat Cothran. But as my insanely long car ride went on, the song evolved into something deeply meaningful.
At first, it was my rallying cry. I’d drive with the windows down, screaming the lyrics, using the song’s title as a mantra. “Running Wide Open” felt like freedom, like running full speed toward a new life. The cliché of it all didn’t matter; it felt like I was finally walking in the footsteps of a dream I’d already had.
As the miles passed, the song began to shift in meaning. It wasn’t just about escape, or really about escape at all. That was a far too cynical interpretation of the life I had in Ohio. It became about vulnerability and understanding who I wanted to be now and for the rest of my life. In the VW, with nothing but the highway and my thoughts for company, I had to confront myself about the mistakes I had made and realize that much of it was my fault. Every time I listened to the track was an invitation to sit with my uncertainty and the bullshit I tried to blame others for. To embrace it instead of running from it. An engine running wide open.
The landscape around me changed dramatically as I drove west. I’d flown a lot as a kid but had never seen many of these states from this point of view. One of the most meaningful parts of this chapter was reconnecting with my sister, who joined me at the latter end of the trip, and who I lived with upon arriving in Los Angeles. For years, the distance between Ohio and California had eroded the close relationship that we had as kids. The slow dissolution of a tight sibling bond can often be crueler than a critical event pulling you apart, as it seems more in your control but you let it happen anyway. I’m forever grateful that we were able to reconnect and still remain close today. I’m sure she got a little sick of hearing this song, though.
For so long, I’d lived under the weight of searching for a broader context that wasn’t there, always asking what everything meant, what was expected of me, or how my actions fit into some bigger picture. In the process, I lost any sort of discernible direction, or at least a direction that I recognized. Here in California, with no one’s expectations but my own, I could just exist and pursue the interests that had laid dormant for many years. This included a photography career in the music world that I still love today and working at a film exhibition non-profit. I’ve met some of the kindest people I know out here; something that was likely possible in Ohio but not for that version of Andrew.
Now, whenever I hear “Running Wide Open,” I’m not immediately transported back to the car ride or that fateful year as a whole. That would open the door to a sort of wistful, narrow nostalgia that I try to avoid. Instead, it just reminds me of a mindset that transformed my life: everything you need is within you.
Sometimes you just need a song to give you that little push. ◆
About Andrew
Andrew Ameter works in fundraising at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles and can be found at music venues around the city capturing artists in their moment.
Instagram @aameter
Website andrewameter.com
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