Ball of Wax 65 Songs: Green Light Cameras – “Shelter in Place (Can’t Wake Up)”

Beloved Florida pop weirdos Green Light Cameras return with the disco-infused “Shelter in Place (Can’t Wake Up),” their response to our call for future-themed songs. Retro strings and a pulsing beat keep this song moving through an ever-shifting aural landscape, as two vocalists unwind a love story set in the all-too-familar not-too-distant future portended by the current moment. (When you’re already living in a dystopian world wrought by madness and calamity, is there any difference between writing about the present and the future?) “Maybe when I kiss you we’ll wake up,” ruminates Phil Chamberlin towards the end, but his counterpart closes with the echoing refrain, “This is not a dream, we can’t wake up,” a sobering and increasingly common realization for all of us these days.