song: "This Time" - Brightside

words: indigo baloch

“This Time” is the latest remarkable bop from Pittsburgh DIY legends Brightside. Just as toe-tapping as their last single “Just Like Dancing” — this song is full of life and power.

The title hearkens back to their 2014 album Now and Loud which features songs “Next Time I’ll Be Deadly Serious” and “Next Time”. Any Brightside or Scott Pilgrim fans will be delighted with this follow up in the band’s musical saga and evolution.

Though the beat is quick and exhilarating, the lyrics carry weight and darkness—something Brightside has masterfully balanced many times. “This Time” strikes us with the reality that sometimes healing isn’t linear, sometimes we stumble. It’s just all about picking ourselves back up and striving towards a better day.

Singer Matt Vituccio croons, in a distinct, playfully, breezy voice, “Oh, some years, some months, and some days / Are hard to take / Now we find when it’s time that / Some promises are hard to make.” And don’t we all know it? Every day comes with new challenges and sometimes it’s easy to be swept up in the sadness, rather than the joy. Sometimes we linger on the bitter, rather than the sweet. I mean, after all, it’s often harder to forget the painful bruises and scars than it is the happy, golden moments.

We can’t know for sure that the sadness is over, that the melancholy has left. But it’s important to know there’s no failure here—nothing is perfect. It’s just a matter of staying afloat, keeping our heads above the surging waters of each day, trying to find a glimmer of hope in focusing on the sunny parts.

This song is a heartbeat, a heart pounding and holding onto life with everything it has. As Vituccio tells us, tenderly, “And it’s trial, and it’s error, but that’s life / So all of this time was not a waste.” And it certainly isn’t. None of our time is.