Forgiven, For Now

Dance With Somebody wore out its welcome with me fast—I know I was alone in that, it was everywhere, Mando Diao were having their moment, everyone loved it. I’d seen them at Rock im Park in 2007 and genuinely liked them then, which made the overexposure sting more than usual. You don’t want the bands you actually care about to become the soundtrack to someone else’s summer.

Gloria is different. It gets in through the back door—the shouted name riding the melody, the video with a model who earns her screen time—and I find myself playing it again without meaning to. That’s the real test: not whether a song is good but whether it survives your own resistance.

My only hope is that radio doesn’t grind it down. Not because it’s too delicate for rotation—it isn’t—but because I’d like to actually enjoy it for a while first. The song doesn’t deserve to be destroyed by proximity. Neither do I.