The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Old reliable
Every morning, I wake up to the sound of a rooster crowing. It’s not my rooster. But it’s become mine the way a coffee shop becomes a home away from home. Or certain songs become mine after I listen to them often enough. Or the way a certain drink becomes a reliable comfort in an aisle filled with a thousand different sodas, all bearing minimal designs to make you think they’re more than just soda.
There is good branding and then there is BRANDING, which doesn’t hide the fact that it's meant to do work on you. I feel the same little dopamine sparks tingle when I look at the cans with the most conscientious design, like the way I hover over a van life vlogger video on my explore page. I inspect the drinks that say ‘ginger’ ‘turmeric’ and ‘probiotic’ on them, hoping they might open a new portal of possibility. Then I see the grams of sugar and the air of mystery is lost, like a crush who turned out to be bad at kissing.
At the bottom of the crowded shelves, I find Old Reliable and reach for the Mountain Valley or the Liquid Death I knew I was going to get all along. Sometimes I have to entertain the idea of something else just to know I can.
August 2023