Nouvelle Vague – Nouvelle Vague

Bossa NovaLounge
Written By Akhil Srivatsan

The one thing that kept her going through a set was the promise of a beer, some fries, and a big burger on the other end. As she breezed through one lounge cover after another – from a smouldering rendition of Love Will Tear Us Apart through an absent-minded interpretation of Making Plans For Nigel to a decidedly non-punk version of the Undertones’ ode to unrequited love, Teenage Kicks – all she would visualise was that meal: bar food on bar china. To her, each impromptu thank you came a hundred times rehearsed, each playful laugh was a lesser version of a playful laugh from the same set played some-odd years ago. It was just another job on just another day. The one part of the drudgery of playing the same set of covers twice a week a few hundred weeks in a row that stirred any emotion at all in her heart bored still was that plate TJ and the gang would keep ready for her at her table in the corner by the stage. 

This ennui didn’t come through in her performances: anyone on any stage is an actor. A singer is an actor. A standup comic is an actor. The valedictorian on graduation day is an actor; so is the commencement speaker. Marc and Olivier on keyboards and bass are actors, so are Shanti the photographer off on the side taking promo pics for the bar and JJ the electronics guy untangling wires hastily mid-set. The moment your foot meets plywood, you can’t help but act. She’d never wanted to be an actor. All she’d wanted to be was a songwriter. Right from the day she wrote her first song at 14, when she put a journal entry to music, she wanted to be a songwriter. Rabbit Run: a song about seeing a rabbit scamper away into the bushes that lined the road to school and wondering what it must feel like to be free. To date, no song sounded more fresh. But where’s the stage, she thought, for a song like Rabbit Run? 

A seemingly sincere bossa nova cover of I Melt With You, on the other hand, brought the other forty-somethings to their feet, got them to imagine themselves and each other younger, happier. It formed Mr. S’s jowls into something resembling a smile as his hands busied themselves at the cash register, for it kept the bottle of wine out of the ice box, the gin in the tonic, and the tables well-stocked. The gigs flowing, the visa stamped. That Modern English cover got the job done. 

But that juicy burger, those still-steaming fries, that cold bottle of brew sat atop a damp paper napkin? For the 30 minutes it took her to savour that meal, this was more than just another job on just another day. Rabbit run. 

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Akhil Srivatsan
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