How to Talk to Girls at Parties

Gaiman’s story is set in 1970s London during “the early days of punk” (Paragraph 29). This music is what Vic and Enn normally listen to. They tell the girls at the party that during their time as exchange students they had listened to Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold.” The song, Enn says, “had threaded through the trip like a refrain: I crossed the ocean for a heart of gold” (Paragraph 29). The line portrays the search within and without to find goodness. The line also suggests travel, mirroring the girls at the party, who have traveled as tourists to Earth.

When Enn arrives at the party, he says, “The music playing in that front room wasn’t anything I recognized” (Paragraph 30). His description of the music creates an otherworldly, ethereal mood: “It sounded a bit like a German electronic pop group called Kraftwerk, and a bit like an LP I’d been given for my last birthday, of strange sounds made by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop” (Paragraph 31). Later, Enn notices there are no record players or speakers, and he wonders where the music comes from. He calls the music “unfamiliar” once more while talking to

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