Air
Playground Love

Getting lost, without fearing the darkness, without being afraid of those solemnly advancing shadows. The mute and plastic love, which utters no word but is wise to everything.

Bauhaus architecture of a dream, where every note from that electric piano is a spark of light and each pause is a muffled breath.

The sax, languid and suspended, is a drop sliding over a magnolia leaf, while Gordon Tracks’ voice – alias Thomas Mars – is a distant echo, a lost memory struggling to find its own era, a distillate of tenderness and nostalgia.

The subdued beat of an adolescent heart, the shiver of a reserved love that is born within the cracks of a schoolyard, among the eternal shadows of a summer afternoon. Melancholy that doesn’t hurt, desire that doesn’t burn.

In 1999, Sofia Coppola, in her directorial debut, reached out to the French duo Air — composed of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel — to compose the soundtrack for her film “The Virgin Suicides,” based on Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel. Coppola wanted an ethereal, nostalgic, and deeply evocative sound, capable of embodying the sense of mystery and longing that permeates the story of the five Lisbon sisters. Air, fresh from the success of “Moon Safari,” accepted the challenge and locked themselves in the studio for an intensive weekend. For the lead vocals on the track “Playground Love,” they called upon Thomas Mars, singer for Phoenix and Godin’s childhood friend from Versailles. Mars, wanting to distinguish himself from his group, took the pseudonym Gordon Tracks. In a curious twist of fate, Mars would, years later, become Sofia Coppola’s husband. The track was born from a specific scene in the film: Trip Fontaine and Lux Lisbon lying on the floor, immersed in erotic and adolescent tension. Dunckel says it was that very scene that inspired the title “Playground Love”—an unripe, schoolyard love, lived out in corridors and on playgrounds. The music is built on a bed of soft synths, with a sax line played by Hugo Ferran that crosses the track like a languid sigh. The lyrics, written by Mars, are simple and direct: “I’m a high school lover / and you’re my playground love,” evoking a youthful, obsessive, and sweet love, already tinged with deep melancholy. The song was released as a single on January 17, 2000, anticipating the debut of the entire soundtrack on February 23. The album received widespread acclaim, was nominated for a Brit Award for Best Soundtrack, and was included by NME among the best soundtracks of all time. The song became a symbol of the film, even being used in the trailer and the closing credits. “Playground Love” is a perfect example of how music can amplify the language of cinema, and how a track can be born from an image, from a visual emotion, transforming into a cultural icon.