David Von Beahm’s artist page is HERE
I fell in love with ’80s synth-pop back in the early 2000s, and that love has never left me. If I have a choice of what station to listen to on SiriusXM radio, I’m choosing First Wave. A station that plays all the alternative ’80s acts I love—Echo & the Bunnymen, Depeche Mode, and New Order? Yes, please.
I mention that because The Glass Notebook is exactly the kind of song that would feel at home on First Wave. It sounds like something that could have been played on WLIR or KROQ back in the day, but the more modern production means everything is more upfront and louder than anything from the mid-’80s. This was another song that randomly came up on the NAS playlists and immediately hooked me. It’s got that throwback ’80s sound I love, along with some really beautiful lyrics that genuinely touched me.
Like a lot of the great ’80s songs I love—such as First Picture of You by The Lotus Eaters or Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush—The Glass Notebook takes a little time to get going. It opens with a fingerpicked guitar riff and light cymbals before the drums and other instruments rush in with urgency. When the vocals arrive, I immediately get strong ’80s vibes from David’s voice.
The structure of this song is particularly intriguing. The intro is a bit long, the verse that follows is rather short, and then it lifts into the chorus. The chorus is where we discover what the title means. What is a glass notebook? To me, it represents the transience of life and memory—the idea that everything you are could fall apart in an instant.
“I wrote my life in a glass notebook
but I threw it to the ground and it shattered to pieces,
my fractured words of a fragmented world,
I left them lying there as my final releases.”
From there, each verse introduces a different melody from the last. The only constant is the chorus melody, which returns twice at the end. It’s a really cool structure—one you don’t often hear outside of more alternative music.
With its unmistakable ’80s atmosphere and cryptic yet emotional lyrics, The Glass Notebook is a perfect slice of modern music that sounds like it could be from the ’80s—but isn’t. Ideal for fans of alternative ’80s acts like Echo & the Bunnymen and The Fixx.
This review was submitted by fellow NAS artist Lavender Fire.
There Spotify Artist page can be found HERE
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