Groove Armada – ‘My Friend’

When everything looks pear-shaped, you always have your friends. Last night I unofficially graduated from University after 5 years of trying to figure out what it is I wanted to do, and ofr once, my mind wasn’t on how difficult it is to get a job at the moment, but rather, how much I’m going to miss my Media crew. I didn’t really expect anything like this from my degree; having moved from another tertiary institution where the name of the game was beating everybody else, sticking to the people you went to school with like glue and not talking to people you didn’t know, I assumed it would be the same. Coming in a year late with absolutely fuck-all to show for it, I was nervous as hell starting at the University of Sydney. Anyone who’s seen what the quad looks like will understand; the place creaks with tradition and can scare you before you even get to the outdated wooden benches that you’ll be sitting in for class, because it’s like Hogwarts x Oxford – British People. But safe to say, I made friends. A lot of them, in what strikes me now as a very short space of time, and I’m very sad to be leaving Uni behind because it’ll probably be quite a while before we’re all in the same place again.

Groove Armada, then, while not the obvious choice for the mood of today are also entirely appropriate. Recently in Australia for their last big tour ever after over a decade in existence (a very long time for an electronic act, just ask Basement Jaxx), this London collective had one of their biggest hits with a downtempo anthem which boasted about three lines of lyrics, the most pertinent being,

“Whenever I’m down/I call on you my friend/A helping hand you lend/In my time of need..”

I was not in a very happy place when I first came to the degree I’ve just finished. Two years of law in a vicious environment had all but destroyed my creativity, and I was finding it hard to write or do anything remotely creative without ripping it to shreds. But then I met a whole lot of people who were interested in the same things I was, and were happy to spend hours talking about it. I fell in with (amongst others) Jacquelines, Emilys, Elizabeths, a Nadia and Larissa, two Hungarians, some amazing Irish-surnamed hipster twins and this fantastic dude called Colin, and I’ve never felt more comfortable in my entire life – school included. I didn’t call on these people because I didn’t expect to meet them, let alone hang out with them all the time but now, I wouldn’t hesitate. Kinship is a wonderful, rare and exhilarating thing; it makes all of the disappointments and bullshit parts of life seem relatively unimportant.

At five minutes, this is not a short pop song, despite the relative death of lyrics. It is my (probably somewhat misguided) hope that the friendships I’ve made over the past three years will keep going long after all the cool kids have stopped dancing, packed up and gone home. Just last night, people were already discussing magazine start-ups, websites and all kinds of crazy shit. This is a group of people who dare to dream, despite the evidence or the naysayers, and will accomplish some truly unbelievable things in the not-to-distant future. I can’t wait to watch My Friends blossom into super-successful, trend-setting leaders in all of their fields. Rest assured, I’ll still be here writing long-winded essays about it. I did win the ‘Most Opinionated’ award for a reason, after all.

MECO2010, thank you. It’s been real.

Groove Armada – ‘My Friend’

Sail with the Armada here.