Momentary Reflection : Plumtree’s “Scott Pilgrim” (1997)

I sit here on this cloudy, rainy (actually misty) night, exhausted from the day, in major need of sleep.  I have my headphones around my neck, blasting the song “Scott Pilgrim,” by the Canadian band Plumtree.  I’m now familiar with this track thanks to its somewhat obvious inclusion on the “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” soundtrack, but I’m shocked to find out that this track is actually thirteen years old.  What is amazing is that this song’s crunchy feel is once again becoming a coveted sound in current indie rock, so this track still sounds just as current as ever.  You can play it next to Best Coast or Wavves and it doesn’t sound out of place.

My question is, why wasn’t this song popular at the time of its release?  Before last week, I’d never heard it or of Plumtree, an all-female Halifax, Nova Scotia band that from my reading I’ve determined must have been in the same cool circles as Sloan during the nineties.  The track’s repeated refrain of, “I’ve liked you for a thousand years, a thousand years,” is somehow both propulsive and hypnotic at the same time.  It’s safe to say, even thirteen years after the fact, this song really deserves to be a hit.