And yet, these songs move me and make me wistful for a life I've never experienced, a love that isn't even real. It's ridiculous, really, and I blame this entire mess on a satellite radio service that mostly sucks and a TV show I don't watch.
I live in New York City, so I don't own a car. When I want to drive somewhere, I use Zipcar, a car-sharing service with perks including free gasoline and XM Radio. XM has 170-plus channels, but there are maybe 10 channels that play the music I want to hear when I'm driving, and it often seems like those channels are stuck on repeat.
Many channels have similar playlists, so if you were flipping around this summer, it was easy to hear Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" six or seven times on a two-hour drive. Right now, if you flip around, you will undoubtedly have the option of listening to either Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" or The Fray's "How to Save a Life" every 10 minutes.
This is what happened to me last Saturday, and now both cheese-fests have refused to leave my brain. I've since learned that both songs are huge because they've been featured on Grey's Anatomy, that ABC hospital drama that's also turned viewers on to groups like Metric and The Postal Service. This is, I've heard, one of the biggest kingmakers in rock music today.
And even though the only episode of Grey's Anatomy I've ever seen was the debut two years ago, I've found myself on YouTube this week repeatedly watching the videos for both "Chasing Cars" and "How to Save a Life." I'm weirdly obsessed with the Grey's Anatomy characters for four minutes at a time, and then the songs end and I'm done caring. I'm not going to start watching this show, but there's something amazing about its resonance: Grey's Anatomy is such a force that it can create two mega hit singles about the same love triangles and tragedies, with both videos featuring many of the exact same moments from the show.
Thanks to the Grey's Anatomy fan in my household, I know that the "Chasing Cars" video sums up the first two seasons of the show while focusing on the Season 2 finale where Meredith has sex with Derek in the hospital during the hospital prom. The "How to Save a Life" video rehashes that Season 2 finale, then takes you through the first three episodes of the new season.
In both videos, you'll see Derek and Finn staring at Meredith in her "hospital prom" dress. Finn is her date, but Derek, as you now know, ends up having sex with Meredith in the hospital. You'll also see Izzie falling in love with Denny the heart patient. Denny dies, and Izzie holds him and sobs uncontrollably, in her prom dress, on his hospital bed. Then Alex, who loves Izzie, comes in to comfort her and lifts her off the bed. There's more overlap in both videos, but I'll stop there because I think you get the idea: This is a total soap opera, and there's enough compelling ponder, ponder, angst, angst in these videos to make me understand why it's a hit.
Many people I know think this show's absolutely brilliant. I doubt I'll ever find out more about it, because I can't see myself following these stories in one-hour bursts. But I'll always, for better or worse, have these songs.