Goodbyes, two Lorelais

Published in 27.09.2024

As of today, I’ve finished watching the Gilmore Girls. It hurt me more than anticipated. That last scene from Lorelai and Rory peacefully chatting, drinking what would be their final cup of joe together at Luke’s diner, early in the morning, as seen from the building’s window frame? It severed my cold-hearted cover, leaving me weeping and moaning with feelings. Can you believe it?

Cinema, or any artistic medium for the matter, has this distinctively transformative power. The longer you get to experience a fantastic reality, the greater the pain will be when the time come you part ways with that imaginative world. I grew so used to the show’s idiosyncrasies, character dynamics, and New England settings, it’s become integral to me. Leaving that behind had my heart aching.

Scene from Gilmore Girls. Lorelai Gilmore says: “I'm just stressed out and kind of feeling my mortality lately.”. She is a white mid-40s woman with her black hair tied in a bun, and she is smiling with her eyes closed and her left hand facing up. She's in her kitchen at night. It is dark, and there is a yellow mug on the table she's sat by. She's wearing puppy pajamas.

Months ago, I talked about the series’ pilot with a friend, mentioning I’d likely enjoy it. Said and done. Many important events of my life also coincided with the period I watched the show. That placed it amongst other unforgettable productions for me, along Twin Peaks and Dawson’s Creek. And it is no coincidence the thrice of them are all set in small American towns surrounded by lush nature.

I highly appreciate the aesthetic. And you know what else I like? Alternative rock and other indie tunes. Speaking of which, the Gilmore Girls was filled to the brim with. Even to its very end, when love triumphed to the cheerful sound of The Mighty Lemon Drops’ Inside Out. Its riff immediately took me back to college, to a classmate I was really close with during that time.

Scene from Gilmore Girls. Rory Gilmore holds a diner menu in her hands with a newspaper piece on the back, showing it off to her mother, with an amused smile. She says: “That's my piece”, and then she changes her voice to say: “wrapped in plastic.” Her tone mimicks a Twin Peaks' character, Pete. She's a white woman with blue eyes, pink lips, dark brown hair combed back. She wears a blue scarf and a khaki jacket. She's sat at a diner, and there is a window behind her showing a snowy street. — The Gilmore Girls revival had Rory reference the classic Twin Peaks pilot scene when Pete announces Laura Palmer had been found dead, wrapped in plastic.

We both enjoyed literature and had a similar taste in music, in addition to being queer. We only grew apart when he fell behind, as it meant we wouldn’t be together in many classes anymore. He passionately despised the eighties music I loved, a counteract to my aversion to the millennial era he held so dearly. Nothing wrong with that, hadn’t it been for his favourite artist: The Smiths.

Of course I listened to a tune or another by them, as any other sadboy lad would. Heck, even despicable Morrissey wasn’t the reason I used to get pissed at his liking of the band. It was his foolishness, as he’d often talk about how exceptional they were in the otherwise barren landscape from the period. That I found baffling, as the Manchester quartet was far from unique at its time.

So, to prove him wrong, I started working on a mix full of indie and alternative rock songs my friend could as well enjoy. His shocked expression when he realised he was jamming to New Order was priceless. Some other popular entries didn’t cause as much of an impression, though. For instance, he already knew and digged The Cure. He’d just been oblivious to the fact they were also an eighties act.

Once he noticed no artist had more than a song added onto the mix, but for The Smiths, he smiled at my choices: the rather obscure Accept Yourself and Paint a Vulgar Picture. Their presence there was a nod to the fact The Rolling Stone magazine ranked both tracks, our favourites, as the band’s worst — a recurring laughing matter for us. Yes, we are aware we are too far-out, even for hipsters.

Scene from Gilmore Girls. Sat by her kitchen table, Rory Gilmore clinks her orange mug to her mother's yellow mug, and says: “to absent friends.” She is a white, 30 year-old woman with her dark brown hair tied in a bun, and she is smiling, looking to the mugs. She is wearing a thin grey sweater. It is dark at night, and there are some appliances behind her.

Come to think about it, our weirdness was one of the key factors that brought us together. Anyhow… Every now and again, the mix still grows. It became one of my favourite anthologies to listen to, with the added benefit of reminding me of a good friend. Expanding it just makes sense. Sponsored by the Gilmore Girls finale, its latest addition was Inside Out, by The Mighty Lemon Drops.

So, allow me to share the mix here. Just bear in mind it’s got some liminal cases; borderline synth-pop and jazz songs:

It’s Getting Louder (Friends)
Birthday (The Sugarcubes)
Sweet Shiver Burn (That Petrol Emotion)
Just Like Honey (The Jesus and Mary Chain)
This Is the Day (The The)
Every Beat of the Heart (The Railway Children)
Somewhere in My Heart (Aztec Camera)
Between Something and Nothing (The Ocean Blue)
Accept Yourself (The Smiths)
We Close Our Eyes (Oingo Boingo)
Inside Out (The Mighty Lemon Drops)
All the Way (New Order)
Seven Seas (Echo & the Bunnymen)
Happy Hour (The Housemartins)
Just Like Heaven (The Cure)
Song from the Edge of the World (Siouxsie and the Banshees)
Birds Fly (The Icicle Works)
Heaven or Las Vegas (Cocteau Twins)
Made of Stone (The Stone Roses)
Another Bridge (Everything but the Girl)
Spirit (Bauhaus)
Ocean Blue (The Primitives)
Good Feeling (Violent Femmes)
Paint a Vulgar Picture (The Smiths)