‘Side’: Travis’ overlooked dive into stoicism
The year 2000, in British indie rock terms, could be quickly summarised as the moment when a great fissure was formed by the releases of Coldplay’s Parachutes in July and Radiohead’s Kid A in October. By Christmas, you probably needed to pick a side: the dark, dystopian new adventures of the world’s greatest space rock band or the comparatively comforting melodies of a friendly space rock band headed for dance-pop immortality. What we tend to forget is that the new millennium, right up to that point, had been owned by an entirely different band with an angel-voiced frontman.
Travis was, without any hyperbole, the UK’s biggest band in 2000. Their breakout 1999 album The Man Who spent nine weeks at the top of the charts, and the band rode that wave to a headlining spot at Glastonbury in 2000 along with a big awards season, winning ‘British Group’ and ‘British Album of the Year’ at the Brit Awards and ‘Best Act in the World’ at the Q Awards. Had Travis had the same sort of world-conquering worldview as their tourmates of that summer, Oasis, their next album likely would have abandoned the contemplative ballads of The Man Who for something with more swagger and anthemic bombast. Instead, Travis fans were rewarded in 2001 with something else entirely.
The Invisible Band, as the name suggests, was a fairly egoless and grounded follow-up to a mega-hit (though it had the same producer, Nigel Godrich, fresh off Kid A). Maybe the aforementioned movement of public attention toward Radiohead and Coldplay helped Fran Healy and the band focus less on making a big statement and more on taking a breath and figuring out their own values after a year of massive, unexpected success.
In any case, the lyrics on the album’s biggest hits all seem to touch on a similar theme of pulling back and setting aside drive and desire in favour of acceptance and personal fulfilment. The opening track ‘Sing’ literally argues for the importance of carrying a simple tune, but it also ends on an interesting note when Healy sings, “Baby, there’s something going on today, but I say, nothing, nothing, nothing”.
Another single, ‘Flowers in the Window’, similarly calls for easing one’s troubles by stopping, being quiet in the moment, and watching the flowers grow.
Probably the best example of Travis’ newfound stoicism – a departure from the sometimes overwrought self-pity of The Man Who – is the third track, ‘Side’, a lovely four-minute radio pop song that sneakily imparts some fairly heavy philosophical ideas. Sure, Healy’s words aren’t exactly probing the depths of a Thom Yorke, nor inspiring the same level of critical analysis. But for a band that could have been buying its own hype like so many before them, Travis is almost remarkably focused on communicating a version of ‘existence monism’ here, or the idea that the universe is essentially one thing–one side of a circle–and that everyone is equally part of that shared existence. And so, if “the circle only has one side”, there is no use in coveting what your neighbour has, let alone worrying about whether Chris Martin copied your style.
“We all live under the same sky /We all will live, we all will die / There is no wrong, there is no right”. These words also echo stoicism’s focus on finding tranquillity through accepting the cycle of life and death and not getting caught up in rigid judgments of good or bad, right or wrong.
“We all try hard to live our lives in harmony / For fear of falling swiftly overboard / But life is both a major and a minor key / Just open up the chord”. Again, Healy is basically calling on the listener to sing a song, watch the flowers, and accept that they cannot control the world, only how they respond to it.
‘Side’ wasn’t a smash hit for Travis. It topped out at number 14 on the UK charts and hit the same mark on the US Alternative chart. Its stoic message, if not totally lost on the listener, was at least, perhaps, not as satisfying as a good cry in the rain or being encouraged to sing along to a happy banjo. Over time, though, ‘Side’ has proven to be among the band’s most popular tunes, racking up 66 million listens on Spotify and resonating with a 21st-century audience even more in need of a few minutes of tranquillity.
