In my recent interview with skater turned corporate suit turned DJ turned indie folk musician Fink, we spoke about many things. However one of the most pressing issues on my mind was the music; his tunes are infectious and totally worth listening to over and over and over. So it is for the tune “Blueberry Pancakes” from his album DISTANCE AND TIME. Blueberry Pancakes is a song about chance meetings, love, longing, lounging, youth, change, and breakfast lost.
Most of the setting for this song takes place in a local pub, The Holly Bush, where Fin Greenall cut his teeth as a musician as well as a young man falling in love. The song begins, though, with the infectious line, “I really miss your blueberry pancakes,” setting the stage with an obvious lack of breakfast…and so much more.
Fink is at once inside and outside of the situation; in the song actually, he’s back at the bar, alone. In his mind though he’s back at his flat with his old girl, enjoying his girl’s morning-after Blueberry Pancakes. He’s also in a time in his mind before meeting the love he’s had and lost. He orders up another pint from his old bartender friend Brooke and scowls at the current situation remembering “before this place was so cool (and) so full.” At that same table, he goes back further still; recalling when Brooke was “wearing a yellow t-shirt and you had a friend, I was dying to meet her and we did…back in the day.”
So Brooke is still there, Fink is still there; his love who cooks the mean assed blueberry pancakes is gone and The Holly Bush has turned into a ravaged relic of its former self. Says Fink during our interview, “The Holly Bush is a real pub…it’s something of a pilgrimage for Fink fans.”
The song, Blueberry Pancakes is about the ephemeral nature of life and relationships. According to the songs lyric, The Holly Bush Pub is still there and his own feelings and memories are still there, “everything else is momentary; everything else just stops.”
The haunting end line which is repeated is also where we find out where our singer is: “Sitting at the table where it all began for us.” When asked about the table, Fink concurs. People often ask him “which one is the table,” and he is able to decidedly direct them. “It’s still there,” he says.
While love and friends and hope and breakfast are items which come and go through our lives, maybe the ravaged narrator in the song Blueberry Pancakes would agree, they shouldn’t be. Blueberry Pancakes is a song with multiple meanings and speaks to the listener on a variety of levels. It’s on iTunes, its online elsewhere; check it out!
