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“In Circles”

Meet me there

In the blue

Where words are not

Feeling remains

Sincerity

Trust in me

Throw myself into your door

In circles (I’m running down)

In circles (running down)

In circles (running down)

“In Circles” is a prime example of how Sunny Day Real Estate connected the dots from grunge to the next subset of punk music: emo. The verses of “In Circles” are the dictionary definition of what emo sounds like, but the angst-ridden choruses sound distinctly influenced by Nirvana. The vocals change from drawn out and sad to forceful, strained, and kind of mumbled à la Kurt Cobain. So, at the same time that emo was a natural progression of punk and hardcore, it was also the next stage of evolution for grunge. In a strange, albeit unfortunate cosmic way, the actual timeline works out eerily well: Kurt Cobain died in 1994, and, just one month later, Sunny Day came out with their acclaimed debut record, Diary. The tie becomes even stronger when you consider that the two bands were signed to the same label, Sub Pop. (Another “total fluke” perhaps.) While William Goldsmith never officially met Cobain, his death shocked him just as much as it did everyone else.

“A few months before he died,” Goldsmith says, “Jawbreaker had toured with Nirvana, and they gave us their all access passes. So we were able to basically go backstage […] and watch [Nirvana] from side stage. Man, their tour manager was so pissed because we had the passes that were needed to be there, but he knew we weren’t supposed to be there. Then, the next thing you know, shit happened. When Kurt died, that really kind of fucked with my head. I didn’t listen to Nirvana at all from the day that I found out that he died. I only listened to Nirvana for the first time again about a year ago.”

Opinions may differ on whether or not that particular event marked the end of grunge, but that’s how pop culture and history will remember it. The death of Cobain, the talented, sulking rock star of the time, drew a line in the sand. The only question left was, what’s next?

Sunny Day Real Estate had no idea that they were going to be part of the answer to that question. “I just wasn’t aware of any of this stuff,” Goldsmith says. “I just didn’t know. It was years later [that I found out I was influencing bands]. I probably didn’t really become aware of that until the early 2000s.”