Has a song ever sounded this lonely?
I recently watched Chungking Express for the first time, Wong Kar-Wai's 1994 classic. Ostensibly, the film tells two loosely-connected stories of people falling in love in the aftermath of heartbreak. However, I think this description misses the mark a bit. My takeaway from Chungking Express was not that its four protagonists found deep love connections; rather, I saw it as extremely lonely people choosing to be lonely together. (That may sound paradoxical but hey! It's the emotion the movie left me with.)
Upon finishing the film, I was compelled to throw on The Blue Nile's seminal 1989 album Hats. I can't quite explain the connection my brain made between the film and this record: perhaps it was the rain slickened concrete streets of Hong Kong on which the film takes place; perhaps it was the lingering mood of the darkly-dreamy score; perhaps it was simply that the title Chungking Express resembles the name of a train and reminded me of the track which this post centers around. I suspect those familiar with both Chungking Express and Hats will be able to draw the same subliminal connection between them as I did.
Hats has had somewhat of a resurgence as of late, becoming a cornerstone example amongst internet music nerd circles of a "sophisti-pop" record should sound like, alongside the ever-beloved Sade. Perhaps more wide-reaching, though, was when Taylor Swift referenced lead single "The Downtown Lights" on her 2024 album The Tortured Poets Department. A co-sign from the world's biggest pop-star was sure to garner extra attention towards what was already the album's most well-known hit.
With Hats, however, I've always had a different favorite track: "From a Late Night Train." The shortest song on the album at four minutes, "From a Late Night Train" strips away much of the lushness found elsewhere on Hats and leaves singer Paul Buchanan nearly alone as a dejected narrator. The song title itself is evocative, conjuring up images of a mostly-empty, slow moving train, with Buchanan sitting solitary in a dim corner, probably half-drunk, talking to nobody in particular. He sings of a relationship fallen by the wayside, accompanied only by looming synth ambience and a few stray instruments. Wilted horns are the city commiserating with Buchanan as he rolls on by; a piano barely manages to stagger through the song. Buchanan's delivery is of a broken man, as he barely mumbles out the song's refrain, "It's over now / I know it's over." He's not up on a pedestal, declaring his heartbreak with big notes and loud emotions. He mostly just seems so fucking tired.
I can see why "The Downtown Lights" is the flagship song off Hats. It's shimmering, it's illustratory, and it's got a magical chorus. It's also where Buchanan's vocals are more audibly expressive, with the way he's almost screaming by the end of the song. And don't get me wrong, I think it's an absolutely phenomenal piece of pop music. But for me, "From a Late Night Train" has the edge. It's one of those songs that delivers profound emotion by being so quiet; the lonely malaise found here may be more subtle, but in many ways I find it more powerful.
In Chungking Express, several songs appear multiple times, famously including "California Dreams" by The Mamas & the Papas and film star Faye Wong's own cover of The Cranberries' smash "Dreams." In the first of the film's two segments, there's a lesser-known reggae song that recurs - Dennis Brown's "Things In Life." The song's chorus seems to be encouraging the film's recently-dumped characters to get over their lovelorn ways: "It's not everyday we're gonna be the same way / There must be a change somehow / There are bad times, and good times too / So have a little faith in what you do." Though of course not included in the film, "From a Late Night Train" seems to include the response of both male protagonists: "But I can't let go." Perhaps that was the latent connection my brain was making after all.
