Travelling supposedly promises escape and self-discovery – this is probably why Josh Rouse’s “Flight Attendant” stars as the opening track for the soundtrack the Julia Roberts-starring Eat Pray Love (2010), a film adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. The modern pop sensibilities that the Nebraska-gone-Nashville singer-songwriter adopts across 1972 (2003) certainly helps create an appropriate atmosphere, offering a sonic backdrop for flighty moments of introspection in the comforts of airports and coffee-shops.
But there’s some interesting lyricism beneath all the dreamy, wistful percussions and light strings. The first two verses efficiently establish a confessional character sketch of an uneasy childhood that was mostly experienced as an outsider:
‘When I wasA little babyA mamma's boyNo one could save meFrom those kids at schoolThey would bullyThey would teaseThey would taunt meHaunt me
"You're such a pretty boy""You're such a pretty boy""You're such a pretty boy""You're such a pretty boy"
Lyrics: Genius
The turn in the chorus takes the narrator to an imagined adulthood, where Southern repressions have been left behind for a jet-setting lifestyle marked by an intriguing sexual ambivalence:
'FearI grew up so scaredThe bible beltRedneck lifestyleOne day I'll fly freeIn the airplanes"Where's my seat?Where's my champagne?"ChampangeI'm such a pretty boyI'm such a pretty boyI'm such a pretty boyI'm such a pretty boy'
There appears to be some gender-bending sensibilities at work here. ‘Male prettiness’ is set up as a liability in a more repressive, rural setting – which then becomes an asset in a more gender-fluid cosmopolitan environment. Are the speakers’ admirers male, female or both?
It doesn’t seem to matter. Despite the promises of geographic, social and economic mobility, the lonely self still has to be contended with:
'Hotels were closedAnd the airport was cleanI was stranded aloneIn my southwest dream'
