I’ve emerged from the blackness; but for a long time the Old 97s’s Jagged was practically my theme song.
- I would give anything not to feel so jagged*
Cattle Decapitation’s “Bukkake Tsunami”.
Not really. If I had to pick one song, it’d be Talking Heads’ “Lifetime Piling Up”.
Yesterday I was thinking about how many things in the past five years of my life were just bullshit. My last relationship was just like a giant game where I was constantly just saying things to try to be heard and looking back I don’t even know what I was trying to say. I don’t get how so much senseless crap can come out of a person every day for such a long time without her ever noticing how far she’s getting from anything to do with the truth. Yesterday I just woke up and thought I don’t want to try to figure out where I thought I stood anymore because what difference does that make when every day you wake up and you’re standing in some other place anyway?
Well it’s hard to explain. Then today right out of the blue I found my old Ben Folds CD on the computer and put it on just for something to make noise and Smoke seems to be exactly about that conclusion. Now I keep listening to it over and over. The past really is like a book you wrote to try to give your misery a sensible narrative but you only get to write it, not read it. “All the things we’ve written in it never really happened…we are smoke.” Oh, Ben Folds, you always understand me, you must be really smart.
I love me, I love me, I’m wild about myself
I love me, I love me, my picture’s on my shelf
You may not think I look so good but me thinks I’m just fine
It’s grand when I look in my eyes and know that I’m all mine!
Years ago, when my first boyfriend dumped me and broke my heart, I listened over and over again to Rod Stewart’s version of *First Cut Is The Deepest*. Although the twenty five years of experience I’ve gained since then have given the lie to that song, whenever I hear it I remember how true it seemed then.
A few years after that, I dated a guy who insisted that Billy Joel’s *She’s Always A Woman* was me right down to the ground. He’s the only man I’ve ever known who saw me as a femme fatale, so I was madly flattered by this. Whenever I hear the song I think of that man and wonder if it still reminds him of me.
And – since I seem to have a romance theme going here – *The Broken Road* (most recently covered by Rascall Flatts, but I prefer the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band version) describes exactly how I feel about the incredible luck that led my husband and I together, considering the way we were both running around when we met.
“Long Time Gone” by the Dixie Chicks
“State of Mind” by Clint Black…this song is so evocative that I couldn’t listen to it for a couple of years after a big change in my life
“Everyday I Love You Less and Less” by the Kaiser Chiefs
“Bones of an Idol” by The New Pornographers, especiall the verse that begins:
REM’s “World Leader Pretend.”
I recognize the weapons/I’ve practiced them well/I fitted them myself.
I was very, very good at being emotionally unhealthy when I was younger. This is pretty much how I feel most of the time when I see others in the same situation.
Also, Poe’s “Haunted,” for much the same reasons.
Not that I’m a bitter old man or anything, but “Working Class Hero” by John Lennon still touches a nerve that’s there for me in a way few other songs can.
There’s room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill,
A working class hero is something to be.
http://www.lyrics007.com/John%20Lennon%20Lyrics/Working%20Class%20Hero%20Lyrics.html
“Funbus” On the Enter The Chicken CD. It’s Buckethead’s (the guitarist that doesn’t sing) album, and “Funbus” features Bad Acid Trip. The lyrics are very satirical and blast boring, stereotypical music. For the full lyrics go to http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=11241052 - his only blog entry contains the rest of the lyrics - but the song really needs to be heard for the full effect, it’s hilarious. Here’s an excerpt:
"fear something new till we’re told its ok
no time to explore no time to play
the craving for new is something to shun
thinking is bad it spoils the fun"
"
I could have written the lyrics to the Doobie Brothers’ What a Fool Believes from experience.
Me: “Don’t you remember, we dated for two months?”