Time To Pretend

The alternative/independent group MGMT, headed by young Brooklynites Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden, is gaining in popularity with an eclectic mix of music, the diversity of which brings to my mind the Beatles (I’m not saying they’re as good as them, they just remind me of them). They’re very good at promoting themselves, having already made a couple of appearances on late-night network television shows, putting out their own videos on YouTube, playing to large crowds, and sporting an interesting official website. One of their songs, Time to Pretend, along with its video, has captured my attention as well as my imagination. Its lyrics ridicule the all-too-often trend of rags-to-riches popular musicians who, having finally made the “big time”, lose control over their own destinies and allow their lives to disintegrate into a progression of shallow marriages & breakups, chemical abuse, and ultimately, their tragic deaths. The video expresses a slightly different theme, though, that correlates better with the song’s title. It shows how some young people abandon their real, down-to-earth lives (which include their families and friends), to embark on aimless journeys of self-indulgence and fantasy. I’ve read some glowing comments about this song on the YouTube site, one stating that this was her generation‘s anthem, another going on about how beautiful the song was. Well, to those, I would just say that they need to really listen to and understand the words before calling Time to Pretend an anthem or oh-so-beautiful. I think it is much more significant than that. And hearing (and seeing) it reminds me of an experience I had back in 1971.

When I was in my early teens, Rod Serling had his Night Gallery series on prime time evening television. One evening, my mother and I were sitting watching it and, as these things are known to happen, we were completely unaware that perhaps the most disturbing episode in the history of television was about to be shown (O.K., maybe I'm exaggerating a little). The title of the piece was Silent Snow Secret Snow, and it was closely based on the acclaimed Conrad Aiken short story published decades earlier. Orson Welles flawlessly narrated this compelling and tragic story of a boy whose inner fantasies (chiefly involving the mysterious presence of snow) became so strong that he ultimately shut out the real world to completely dwell within them. After this singularly significant episode of this often trite series was over, my mother turned to me and told me that this was what she had been afraid was happening to me: that during the previous few years, I had become more inwardly drawn and controlled by daydreams and fantasies of nonexistent places and situations. I was shaken up enough just from watching this very unsettling story without having to hear that from my own mother! Perhaps this was a time that helped me turn myself back into the direction of growth and constructive interaction with the world, based on its own terms and not on inventions of my own imagination.

What directly connects the Time to Pretend video with Silent Snow Secret Snow is a brief segment (at the 2:24 mark) showing the singer in darkness, with snow falling down on him. Very eerie! If you run across either MGMT's Time to Pretend video or Night Gallery’s Silent Snow Secret Snow episode, I highly recommend you watch it, either for yourself or for the sake of a loved one you may be concerned about (one word of warning: Time to Pretend in its unedited form briefly uses some explicit language near the beginning).