No. 064 - Vinnie Caruana’s “Somehow the World Keeps Turning” changed my life
The song that found Matthew Welch in the stockroom of a Target
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.
• 3 min read •
In the winter of 2013, I was 24 years old standing in the stockroom of a Target in Long Beach, California. I was feeling closer to my dream than I had ever been, yet it was still out of reach. It was wearing me down.
I had just ended a nearly five-year-long relationship and was at a job I didn’t enjoy. I felt left behind by everyone around me.
One (long) day, as I was wandering the stockroom, feeling the weight of it all, I opened Spotify to find City by the Sea — a new record from Vinnie Caruana, lead singer of the Movielife and I Am the Avalanche.
Immediately upon hearing the first chords of the first song, “Somehow the World Keeps Turning,” a feeling hit me. It built and built as the song progressed. As Vinnie tore into the first verse, I caught myself almost floating through the stockroom. I listened to the whole record front to back, on repeat, for the rest of that shift and every shift for what felt like weeks. Eventually, I felt that floating feeling without even spinning it. It inspired and sustained me through a truly low point in my life.
In the years since this discovery, many of the dreams I carried around in the stockroom have become my reality. I’ve been working as a cinematographer for the past four years. I’ve made films for bands that I grew up loving, bands that changed my life when I was younger. I’ve even made work with one of Vinnie’s other bands, Peace’d Out. It’s still surreal to think about where I was compared to where I am now.
I don’t know if fate is a thing to put much stock in, but I believe City by the Sea found me when I needed it most. I connected with it as a piece of art and, since then, I’ve become close friends with Roger Camero, who did some of the engineering on it. I’ve even made some music videos for him. Most importantly, though, I made a friend who is always down to go on some sort of food adventure where we inevitably talk about music or movies or life in general.
My life has been defined by music and movies — I’ve been changed and saved by both art forms. So, the task of designating just one life-changing song feels daunting, yet exciting.
It could have been a Cranberries song that I heard for the first time on the radio while driving home from school with my mom. Or maybe “Brain Stew,” which was the first and one of the last songs I learned on guitar, and which opened a whole world for me in punk music. It could have been something by Jawbreaker, or any of the other bands I was introduced to via Steven’s Untitled Rock Show on Fuse. Or, it could have been Comeback Kid’s “Wake the Dead,” which my friends and I used in a skate video we made, and which I’ve sung along to and jumped off the stage to more times than I can count.
For me, that’s what makes for great art: some sense of authenticity, some form of reaching out, an attempt at connection.
“Somehow the World Keeps Turning” was just the magic I needed at that moment in the Target stockroom when I felt like my world was standing still. It’s a song that I go back to in moments of stillness as a means of waking up, of propulsion, to forge forward, because the world is, indeed, somehow still turning.
It’s a song that saves my life every time I hear it. ◆
Categories
Friendship • Family • Coming of Age • Romance • Grief • Spirituality & Religion • Personal Development
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About Matthew
Matthew Welch is a cinematographer living and making in Los Angeles. Through his time touring with punk/hardcore bands, he developed a love for capturing moments visually, and hasn't stopped since. In his free time, he can be found watching movies at his local church, Vidiots, buying camera supplies at Eagle Rock Camera, or at his home making playlists.
Instagram @mattxwelch
Website mattxwelchcinematographer.com
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