Racing Mount Pleasant and the Double-Edged Sword of Memory
- Elliot Anderson
- Oct 13
- 4 min read
The most beautiful and painful things in life are often the memories we cannot escape.
Racing Mount Pleasant explores this idea on their self-titled sophomore album. Forming in 2022, the band consists of seven friends from the University of Michigan playing everything from trumpet to violin. Formerly known as Kingfisher, Racing Mount Pleasant began their album rollout earlier this year by changing their name to its current iteration. Their latest album is a culmination of art rock, folk, and chamber music, forming a symphony of memory and heartbreak across thirteen tracks.
One of this album’s greatest strengths is its ability to convey emotions in a way that perfectly parallels the musical palette. At its most charming, Racing Mount Pleasant is the saccharine folk songs of “You” and “Seyburn” with sparse guitar instrumentation and sentimental lyrics. At its most volatile, it is the anguished saxophone soloing of “Call It Easy” and “Outlast,” a climax of angry guitars, horns, and strings. Other songs like “Seminary” are silky smooth waltzes with soft vocals gliding on pillows of horns. Every song is held together by flawless, world-building production, Sam DuBose’s powerful vocals and guitar, and the band’s impeccable chemistry. While inspirations from artists like Bon Iver and Black Country, New Road are apparent, this album manages to solidify the new sound of an emerging great in art rock.
Racing Mount Pleasant is a tale of memory and longing. The album begins with the evolving chamber rock opus “Your New Place,” an anecdote from the protagonist about a cathartic night spent at his girlfriend’s apartment. The protagonist is fleetingly happy, reveling in “how lucky I am to be a piece of your smile” and feeling “on top of it all.” Across the next few songs, however, these euphoric feelings fade. He tries to comfort his regretful partner in “Tenspeed (Shallows),” but in “Emily,” things go from bad to worse. Emily, his partner, passes away following the events of that night as her “body floats to sea and [her] eyes fill with sleep.” Throughout the album, the truth of that night remains unclear. This event is regarded enigmatically, sometimes instead implying that she moved out of the state, or that they just broke up. This ambiguity demonstrates that what matters to the narrator is not what happened, but the fact that she is no longer in his life.
The narrator spends the rest of the album grappling with the memory of his lost lover who haunts his
memory, no matter where life takes him. The second half of the album shifts from a softer folk sound to more explosive rock, highlighting the evolution of the narrator’s feelings from depression to anger. In songs like “Outlast,” guitars and sax wail as the narrator is practically fuming, “I’ll outlast you / I always thought I’d be the one you choose.” In the end, the narrator seems to accept his situation. He declares that he can’t escape “the fantastical ordinary you,” someone who has completely enraptured his mind despite not being inherently extraordinary; someone who is magical because they are nothing more than they appear to be. The narrator resolves to be “tied to Emily,” and the album ends suddenly with a swelling instrumental climax and lines that appear to reflect the humble start (“Hello, nice to meet you, wanna dance?”) and sudden end (“Oh my god is this just how it ends?”) of their relationship.
While this album can be interpreted as a tale of heartbreak and grief for a lost relationship, there is a deeper meaning behind these lyrics. The band has hinted that nostalgia was the primary inspiration for this album. Fittingly, many lyrics are focused on details and environments rather than individuals. The narrator remembers Emily’s apartment on the “34th floor,” the “cold of that November night,” even a painting on her wall, more than any specific things about his partner. Whether it's the frequent mentions of the apartment, song titles like “Your Old Place,” or lyrics like “She’s home when she’s in love,” this idea of home is at the center of the album’s narrative. While Emily might literally be a person, she also represents the power of a nostalgic memory. The real story of Racing Mount Pleasant is about someone who can’t escape the memories they love so much. Whether a relationship, a childhood home, or any other experience, this album highlights how nostalgia can be just as limiting and heartbreaking as it is comforting.
The band itself confronts nostalgia with its name change. ‘Racing Mount Pleasant’ comes from a misread
highway exit sign for the towns of Racine and Mount Pleasant, Wisconsi
n. Hailing from the Midwest, many of the members of the band often saw this sign, making it a fuzzy, yet familiar, memory for them. Just like their album’s protagonist, Racing Mount Pleasant finds meaning in a place, or in their case, an exit sign. The protagonist’s Emily is his ‘Racing Mount Pleasant,’ a foggy memory that remains inescapably relevant to his life. For us, it is important to cherish the warm feelings of our personal ‘Racing Mount Pleasants,’ but not to let them hold us back from experiencing the rest of our lives.
Favorite Tracks: "Call It Easy," "Seminary," "Your New Place"
Rating: INDY
Elliot Anderson is a sophomore in the College studying Biology and minoring in bands named after road signs.