No. 047 - The Strokes’ “12:51” changed my life
Suburban teendom and the song that made Sam Banellis want to move to New York
This Song Changed My Life is an independent music publication featuring essays from people all around the world about the songs that mean the most to them. Created by Grace Lilly, supported by readers.
• 4 min read •
I could probably say that all of the songs from the first three Strokes albums changed my life.
As a teenager longing to get out of the suburbs, those albums and that band were the epitome of cool to me.
I wanted to leave my hometown and go to a big city like New York where the band had formed. I wanted to go somewhere with more excitement, more “culture” (not unlike the titular character in Greta Gerwig’s 2017 film Lady Bird).
The Strokes were my favorite band in high school.
This was in the days before Spotify, so I discovered their songs on Pandora. I spent hours in my room watching videos of their live shows online, wishing I was close enough to anywhere they would stop on tour. (Shoutout to the very sketchy YouTube-to-mp3 download website that let me illegally put all of their music on my iPod.)
Like Lady Bird, I went to Catholic school and felt like I didn’t belong.
I definitely wasn’t rich enough. I liked “weird” indie music, didn’t have the right clothes, was into artsy boys, didn’t drink, and had a small group of friends. I wanted to switch schools, but my parents wouldn’t let me, so I was forced to try (unsuccessfully) to fit in.
To me, the Strokes represented my future.
“12:51” is the song that made me want to move to New York.
We'd go out and get forties
Then we'd go to some party
These lines in the outro made me think of a night out in New York for Julian and the band. Getting cheap drinks, flirting, wandering the Lower East Side after midnight. I wanted to be out late and have a cool guy wanting to hang out with me like in the song.
This was a world away from my life in Pennsylvania.
“12:51” was a time of day I couldn’t even conceive of while living with my parents, and I had to Google what a “forty” was after I first heard this song. I was also oblivious enough to not fully realize that this song was about trying to go home with someone to hook up at the end of the night.
It’s funny to look back at how basic I actually was.
By the time I got into the Strokes, they were headlining Madison Square Garden. Since college, I’ve seen them play massive stadium shows. One was a 40,000 person show opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Despite thinking I was ~artsy and unique~ in high school, I really wasn’t. It’s like at the end of Lady Bird when she has a guy in her college dorm room and he finds out she only has greatest hits CDs.
“They are the greatest, though.”
“12:51” changed my life because I did move to New York for college when I was 18 and stayed there for 10 years.
I got to go to concerts on the Lower East Side and all over the city. I worked at my college radio station, and I saw the Strokes live for the first time right after graduation in 2016.
Throughout these experiences, I always thought back to those times in my bedroom listening to the Strokes, wishing my high school self could have known where she’d end up. ◆
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About Sam
Sam Banellis is originally from the Scranton, PA area and is now in Philly after living in NYC for 10 years and thinking she’d never move back to her home state. She works from home in the nonprofit industry and loves collecting records, biking, and hanging out with her cute cat Blair.
Instagram @sambanellis
⭐ Recommended by
Josh Ramos (No. 004)
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“When is Jeff coming?”
I’ve been asking repeatedly in between swigs of root beer for the last hour. It’s summertime in Colorado and the sun is down, past my bedtime but this is a special occasion. I’m the only eight-year-old in the saloon slash restaurant and I’m feeling like hot shit.
My aunt reassures me for the fifth time that Jeff will be here any minute.
I scan the room looking for him, squinting through 1990s secondhand smoke emanating from the pool tables by the front door. Nada.
Jeff is a local musician. As far as I know, he’s the only one. Any time there’s live music at this bar, Jeff is the one performing. In my mind, Jeff equals music. And since I love music, I love Jeff…
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