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kellinatorI am really digging the '90s at 9 on 99X. Yes, I know it's a little early to be getting nostalgic over the '90s, but who am I to complain when I can drive to work bopping along to "Mysterious Ways"?
So one of the songs they played this morning was "The Distance," by Cake. And once again it hit me why I think that is a really good song, though it's not the catchiest Cake song or even anywhere near my favorite Cake song (that would be "Rock and Roll Lifestyle", duh). It's this line:
in his mind, he's still driving, still making the grade
she's hoping in time that her memories will fade
The whole song is about this guy who's trying to get this girl back, like so many other songs, but unlike all those other songs, we get her perspective in that one line, and it's so unexpected and awful. Maybe it gets me because I so identify with that line, hell, the song could be about the email my ex whose name I will not speak sent me last winter.
It never fails to amaze me how many people miss these things. How many chicks in the '80s swooned over "Every Breath You Take" (also known as "The Stalker Song") and played it at their weddings?
I knew these girls in college who were stupid. Don't get me wrong, intellectually they were very bright, but they wouldn't have known irony if it had crawled out of an O. Henry short story and bitten them on the ass. However, whenever they didn't get irony they held it up as an example of how much smarter than I was they were because they weren't majoring in English. They also used the fact that they came up Thinkers and I came up a Feeler in personality tests to show how much smarter they were. Never mind that they were the ones who got married too young and I was the one who gave up love for career (and we all know how well that turned out...) In fact, one of them got married in the single white-trashiest wedding I have ever attended, and coming from Pulaski that's saying something. The wedding was in her father's backyard and he raised rabbits, so the whole wedding stank of bunny poo. I had highlights put in my hair right before the wedding and they lasted longer than the marriage did... But I digress. Anyway, these chicks would listen to Sarah McLachlan's song "Possession" and just goo-goo over how romantic it was, ohmigawd, and I would be sitting there going "You guys do realize that she wrote this song about the guy who was stalking her, right?"
And they said I was the one who couldn't think.
So one of the songs they played this morning was "The Distance," by Cake. And once again it hit me why I think that is a really good song, though it's not the catchiest Cake song or even anywhere near my favorite Cake song (that would be "Rock and Roll Lifestyle", duh). It's this line:
in his mind, he's still driving, still making the grade
she's hoping in time that her memories will fade
The whole song is about this guy who's trying to get this girl back, like so many other songs, but unlike all those other songs, we get her perspective in that one line, and it's so unexpected and awful. Maybe it gets me because I so identify with that line, hell, the song could be about the email my ex whose name I will not speak sent me last winter.
It never fails to amaze me how many people miss these things. How many chicks in the '80s swooned over "Every Breath You Take" (also known as "The Stalker Song") and played it at their weddings?
I knew these girls in college who were stupid. Don't get me wrong, intellectually they were very bright, but they wouldn't have known irony if it had crawled out of an O. Henry short story and bitten them on the ass. However, whenever they didn't get irony they held it up as an example of how much smarter than I was they were because they weren't majoring in English. They also used the fact that they came up Thinkers and I came up a Feeler in personality tests to show how much smarter they were. Never mind that they were the ones who got married too young and I was the one who gave up love for career (and we all know how well that turned out...) In fact, one of them got married in the single white-trashiest wedding I have ever attended, and coming from Pulaski that's saying something. The wedding was in her father's backyard and he raised rabbits, so the whole wedding stank of bunny poo. I had highlights put in my hair right before the wedding and they lasted longer than the marriage did... But I digress. Anyway, these chicks would listen to Sarah McLachlan's song "Possession" and just goo-goo over how romantic it was, ohmigawd, and I would be sitting there going "You guys do realize that she wrote this song about the guy who was stalking her, right?"
And they said I was the one who couldn't think.
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Date: 2004-08-27 09:26 am (UTC)Of course, that may be because I can totally identify with almost all of it, from the people not getting irony to Thinker/Feeler superiority to Weddings That Should Never Have Been... was the bunny-poop wedding the one I was at? With the fly-covered barbeque?
Speaking of redneck-y weddings, if my friend Jules had gotten her way, she'd be getting married in Tiger Stadium, which is redneck in a somewhat different fashion. (As it is, she's getting married on campus in the LSU chapel, and the groomscake is going to baked in the shape of tiger stadium and decorated accordingly). At least her colors aren't purple and gold.
And, you know, I love Cake. But my favorite song is Madly. At least today. My favorite Cake song tends to shift, depending on which of their albums I've last listened to.
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Date: 2004-08-27 09:32 am (UTC)I think you're hella-cool too. And yes, that is an awesome song. One of my favorites.
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Date: 2004-08-27 09:27 am (UTC)Personally, I always thought Sarah McLachlan's Possession was the perfect fan-song for DarkAngsty! Tom Riddle/Ginny Weasely fic. Potterdom has obviously twisted me.
Also, the image of backyard bunny-poo weddings will haunt me all day. You truly ARE evil.
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Date: 2004-08-27 09:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 09:28 am (UTC)Erm, we'll have to disagree about Cake, though. *shudder* If that were what Eddie was talking about when he said "cake or death", I might have gone with the latter...
That's just me, though. :)
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Date: 2004-08-27 09:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 10:51 am (UTC)"Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either.”-Golda Meir
:D
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Date: 2004-08-27 10:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 09:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 10:55 am (UTC)*sigh* Sorry, don't mean to be such a pessimist; I've just spent a lifetime of dealing with this crap from my mother, who, having a bachelor's in psych, really ought to know better!
Thanks. :)
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Date: 2004-08-27 09:35 am (UTC)Um. Yeah. I wonder if she ever REALLY listened to the lyrics.
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Date: 2004-08-27 09:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 09:47 am (UTC)Their theme was the Linda Ronstadt/Aaron Neville collaboration "Don't Know Much".
Sums up lumpy bro and his lumpy bride just perfectly.
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Date: 2004-08-27 09:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 10:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 09:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 09:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 09:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 09:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 09:54 am (UTC)And speaking of Springsteen, ever hear the one about the New Jersey legislator who wanted to make "Born to Run" the state anthem?
Baby this town rips the bones from your back
It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we're young
That may fit New Jersey, but I doubt it's the image they want to project.
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Date: 2004-08-27 09:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 10:47 am (UTC)Every time he performs that song in concert I sit down. It isn't against Bruce, but the dumbasses around me who think it is a patriotic battle cry!!! I hate the perception of that song, and cannot stand to listen to it.
Now, Badlands, Jungleland, Hungry Heart, The Rising... that is a different story
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Date: 2004-08-27 01:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 09:59 am (UTC)Some of the listed ones:
Fifty Ways to leave your lover (Paul Simon)
You're Breakin' My Heart (Harry Nilsson)
Song for the Dumped (Ben Folds Five)
Jackhammer Rape (Type O Negative)
Thunder Rolls (Garth Brooks)
etcetera. I've been at more than a few weddings where that last one was played, especially. *headdesk*
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Date: 2004-08-27 10:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 10:23 am (UTC)That's just /wrong/.
Re: Discovery Channel song
Date: 2004-08-27 12:12 pm (UTC)Re: Discovery Channel song
Date: 2004-08-27 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 10:14 am (UTC)Being stalked and harassed is not cool. I listen to the lyrics of some of these songs and realize they are NOT a story I want to be a part of, but I can still enjoy them as music and poetry. Those silly little bubbly codependent college lust bunnies might have to find out the hard way, unfortunately. Then again, so did I...and I was an English major, too. ;)
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Date: 2004-08-27 10:48 am (UTC)These chicks didn't understand that "tied down to this bed of shame" is NOT a happy, romantic statement?
Not only are you smarter than them, sweetie, but they need brain transplants just to qualify as homonids.
Re: songs of irony
Date: 2004-08-27 12:10 pm (UTC)Then, of course, is song that sounds like a love song from Al Yankovic...
Re: songs of irony
Date: 2004-08-27 01:09 pm (UTC)Speaking of which, "One More Minute" would be another totally wrong song for someone to play at their wedding. :-D
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Date: 2004-08-27 03:52 pm (UTC)And about stupid people - I like Leonard Cohen's tongue-in-cheek line: "We are ugly, but we've got the music.." ... at the risk of generalizing broadly, I think most of your readers may very well be cut from the same mold - kids who could read, can think, cut through the looks-centered superficial stuff ... steer away from being shallow, self-centered and vapid.. I dunno. Honk if this rings a bell.. :) (but then again I might be talking oot me arse). What I'm trying to say is that we may not get the benefits of fitting into the shallow mold, but we get LOTS more toys to play with :)
*sing* Sad songs and waltzes aren't selling this year...
Date: 2004-08-27 03:57 pm (UTC)Yes, they did have "The Masochism Tango" on later.
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Date: 2004-08-27 11:03 pm (UTC)"Hit Me, Baby, One More Time."
*/ahem*
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Date: 2004-08-28 09:52 am (UTC):shrug:
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Date: 2004-08-29 08:13 am (UTC)