Torch songs gave expression to the new urbanites’ unfulfilled longings in the 1920s and 30s. The large metropolises that had sprung up in the United States had created a new condition, unknown to the tightly knit rural communities that most town dwellers had arrived from. In the large city they found a certain freedom of expression, but also anonymity, a sensation of disappearing into a faceless crowd, loneliness… The bars and clubs appeared to promise new romantic or daring sexual encounters, but the promises often remained unfulfilled or their fulfilment offered little satisfaction. Songs like “Lush Life” poured this new condition into music. Naturally, in my pre-coming out days in the United States, I found this music and made it the companion of my restless and lonely nights. But now? I am the liberated modern urbanite, possibly a little blasé with experience, and my fits of melancholia are the emotional luxury of a man not really lacking anything fundamental in his life, or are they? And yet… I found myself asking what that lush life may be like now, in the internet age promising new romantic or daring sexual encounters to the sophisticated town folk…

There is an hour in the night where feelings of loneliness, sexual longings, a yearning for company–any company–or comfort surfaces; it is the hour between the completion of a day’s work and sleep. The day cannot possibly be over yet, can it? Surely, there must be something more to it? So, one sits up, as if waiting for something to happen. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t…