#220 (of 365) "No Cars Go" Arcade Fire

My first published novel was originally titled Us Kids Know, which is a line taken from this song on this chart at this place in the countdown. That version of the novel was written back in 2008-09 or so, from the germ of an idea stolen from a novel called What We Do is Secret. Didn't steal the plot but the writing style, which, to be fair, was stolen (originally) from Catcher in the Rye, but WWDIS started with a 2-page chapter that was one run-on sentence featuring a ton of skater slang (took place in the "underground LA" of 1980 among homeless gay teens) and I was enthralled. The rest of the novel was amazing, and all the characters had cool nicknames. One of the minor characters was called "Stickboy." At some point, I took out a notebook and just tried to write in that style. I think I can write an approximation of the opening paragraph. "Stick. Not because he was good with a bat, and not because of the stick in his pants, I didn't care about that, or I pretended not to. But Stick was Stick because he was tall and thin, or used to be, when he was younger. He's not much taller than me now. I never learned his real name." That's probably not accurate, but some version of that paragraph started a short story called "Stick," featuring a teen boy in love with his friend "Stick." 

I had two classes that fall for my MA in Writing -- one in short story fiction, and one year-long writing project (our thesis)--and I submitted Stick for the short story class and turned the story of the two characters into a longer form, what would become Us Kids Know. That August, while reading WWDIS, I was also reading a book about Merge Records, the indie label founded by my favorite band, Superchunk. And of course, there was a whole chapter about Arcade Fire, who signed to Merge despite a bidding war for their services, because Win Butler said he heard the Magnetic Fields "Born on a Train" in a record store and wanted to sign with whatever label they were on. Funeral came out shortly after, Merge couldn't handle the demand, but it got fixed and was amazing, and there was a page or two written about how huge the band got basically overnight, and how a sold-out show at the Bowery Ballroom in 2003 or 2004 was "the" event in the City, and everyone said they went. So how did I expand my short story of "Stick" to a full-length novel? I made it the mission of the two teens to attend this actual Arcade Fire show at the Bowery Ballroom in 2003 or 2004. And I named the novel "Us Kids Know" after a line in this song, off their 2003 self-titled EP. 

So, yeah, this song meant a lot to me. My thesis ended up being a complete novel but it wasn't very good, I don't think. I mean it was good for a first effort, but taking later writing classes in NYC (at the New School and NYU) and workshopping some of it made me drop that novel at some point. I later revisited, change a lot of the plot, and since it was long enough after 2004 and the Arcade Fire explosion, it didn't make sense to center it around them going to that concert anymore. So Arcade Fire got switched for the The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die and the title got replaced by one of their songs "I Will Be Okay." Sold ~1400 copies, which I'm incredibly proud of. Even if us kids know is no longer.

Hey! Us kids know.
​No cars go. 

​"No Cars Go" - Arcade Fire // Arcade Fire EP (2003)