“As you probably heard, the onetime juggernaut of a video rental chain formally pulled the plug on most of its remaining retail stores this week. Just think of all those abandoned storefronts where people used to rent ‘Wall Street 2’ or ‘Pain and Gain’ or whatever; just think of what Bruce Springsteen, the bard of economic collapse, might have done with such a…well, I was about to type ‘catastrophic occurrence,’ but..it was more like a sector of the marketplace realigning itself with technological reality after years of denying the inevitable.”
Mowing neighborhood lawns notwithstanding, Blockbuster was actually my first job. And, while I never cottoned to their Republican-leaning ways or their ridiculous drug test policy, it was a pretty good gig for a high school kid, all in all — if you could withstand the same twenty trailers and episode of Duck Tales playing ALL THE TIME. Like I said, ten free movies a week. As an 18-year-old just working to raise beer-money for college, you can’t beat that with a stick.
Happy belated valentine’s day, all. I know this is a few days late now, but just to keep the streak going (’05, ’06, ’07, ’08), here’s the usual yearly song-blog entry. And with that, the obligatory V-day, behind-the-curtain status-update: Well, as per the norm, I’m as single as a one-dollar-bill. (The last time I had an actual, honest-to-goodness valentine on this day, l’il Berk notwithstanding, was in 2004. Before that, 2000.) At any rate, it’s now been years since the last gal, figuring she could do better, left with a shrug and disappeared forever…just like the one before and the one before that. And, since then and right up to now, there’s been no one in sight.
This obviously can get to be a little depressing, and, now that I’ve reached my mid-thirties by myself, I sometimes struggle with bitterness over it. Didn’t virtually every movie, tv show, song, and book I’ve ever consumed consistently promise I’d have someone in my corner? It’s not like I’ve been a bad guy. (Then again, all the evidence tends to suggest that that might well have been part of the problem. Like the old Stephen Wright joke, women have often told me I’m “wonderful” …usually right as they kick my sorry ass to the curb.)
But, oh well. I’ve got my health, my faculties, and a First World quality-of-life, so I’m already way ahead in the game compared to a lot of folks out there. And to be honest, I’ve got enough problems on my plate right now without getting pulverized yet again by someone else’s caprice anyway. Besides, given my current steady-jobless, apartment-less, penniless, PhD-less existence, which, frankly, seems less and less “transitional” as the months go by, I probably wouldn’t date me either. (As a colleague noted, nostalgically studying the depression era is turning out to be quite a bit more preferable than actually living it.)
So, no worries. Some politically-minded freelance writing gigs should get me through the next couple of months even if no steady employ is forthcoming, and one day soon, I’m sure, I’ll rise like a phoenix from the ashes of my current lowly existence. And, lo, it’ll be a New Day…just like on The Wire. At any rate, to the music:
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“When the sun shines, we’ll shine together,
Told you I’ll be here forever
Said I’ll always be your friend
Took an oath, I’mma stick it out ’till the end
Now that it’s raining more than ever
Know that we still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella…
As with ABBA last year and Kraftwerk in ’06, I like to kick this post off with a happy, guilty pleasure. This year, it’s Rihanna’s “Umbrella”. Yes, it got played into the ground during its single run, even getting its own Clinton v. Obama version on Mad TV last year. But, just as with Titanic, sometimes things are popular for a reason. With its Jay-Z opening, infectious hook, not-very-oblique double entendre, and inescapable chorus, “Umbrella” is pure, unadulterated pop, and a perfect lyrical counterpart to another quality hip-hop ballad, Method Man’s “All I Need”. (“Even when the skies were gray, you’d rub me on my back and say ‘baby, it’ll be ok.’ Now that’s real to a brotha like me baby…”) And now, with a lot of things “comin’ down with the Dow Jones” in this current economy, “Umbrella” is starting to sound more and more like one of the quintessential 21st-century Depression-era ballads, the kind you might find on “Sister, Can You Spare a Dime?”-type mixes fifty years hence.
[Note: I thought about writing up “Umbrella” this year before the unfortunate Chris Brown situation last week, which can’t help but inflect the song negatively. At first, I figured it might be in poor taste now and that I should choose some other pop song. But, in the end, I just decided to go with it anyway — hopefully, the song stands on its own, and will continue to long after recent events have receded.]
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“Yes indeed, I’m alone again.
And here comes emptiness crashing in.
It’s either love or hate, I can’t find in between,
’cause I’ve been with witches and I’ve been with the queen.
It wouldn’t have worked out anyway.
So now it’s just another lonely day…”
On the other side of the emotional spectrum from “Umbrella”, Ben Harper’s “Another Lonely Day” is an acoustic, bone-dry lament to the most recent smash-up. (“Yesterday seems like a life ago, ’cause the one I love today, I hardly know.“) To be honest, there are elements of this otherwise-beautiful break-up song that rankle. Unlike, say, Chris Isaak (listen to anything on Forever Blue) or Tom Waits (last year‘s “Make it Rain” for example), this reads like an I-got-dumped song by a guy who’s never, ever been dumped. (“I’d rather walk alone than chase you around.” Oh, it’s your call, then? How nice that you have the hand. “Further along, we just may?” Again, not up to you, pal.) If, as the song says, this final kiss-off is of Harper’s doing, I wish it’d had more of the conflicted brio of U2’s “So Cruel” or most any of Dylan’s impressive stable of “It’s been real, it’s been fun, hasn’t been real fun” farewells. But, not to lose the forest for the trees, “Another Lonely Day” is still close to perfect in its simple, painful delicacy, and it definitely well captures that grim “SolitaryMan” sensation of “Ugh. Here we are again.”
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“I was feeling lonely, feeling blue,
Feeling like I needed you,
Like I’m walking up surrounded by me,
A&E.“
Ever looked at the words of a song you thought you knew decently well and discovered that it’s not at all about what you thought it was? (I would guess a lot of Republicans had this experience when discovering that “Born in the USA” wasn’t even close to a pro-Reagan anthem of the heartland.) This happened to me just this past week when I decided to write up Goldfrapp’s A&E. Given the upbeat tempo, the video, and the snippets of lyrics I knew, I always thought this song was about someone slowly emerging out of the clouds of a bad break-up and enjoying a day outdoors. (“It’s a blue, bright blue Saturday, and the pain’s starting to slip away.“) But, I was wrong. Reading more closely, it seems the “backless dress” is a hospital gown, A&E is the British term for the ER, and Alison Goldfrapp is basically waking up druggy after a botched “Then he’ll be sorry!” suicide attempt. (“I think I want you still, but it may be pills at work.“) Uh, oops.
Ok, so this is less like Bjork’s All is Full of Love” and more like The Sundays’ “Here’s where the Story Ends” than I originally thought. Still, it’s a great song, and not half as depressing as it reads on the page. Goldfrapp more often go for cinematic Portishead-like atmosphere (Felt Mountain) or sultry, come-hither dance numbers (“Ooh, La La,” “Strict Machine”), and I’m a big fan of both settings. Still, the organic, pastoral feel of Seventh Tree is a grower, as is “A&E.”
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“All the people I love are here.
All the people that I love can’t hear.
All the people I love are drunk.
All the people that I love aren’t here.”
After getting “A&E” wrong, I’m not even going to try to make heads or tails of the lyrics to Hot Chip’s obscenely catchy “Crap Kraft Dinner”, a current staple of my driving time. At first it just seems to be about a happy, drunken party buzz (i.e. the exact opposite of “This Place is a Prison,” by The Postal Service.) But, eventually amid the haze, there’s clearly somebody missing, and/or sort of break-up happening. (“All you can hear is my refusal, ’cause i haven’t got the time for a jerk-off loser.“) Regardless, both strands intertwine, then fade into that sweet, melancholic outro. Like Brian Eno’s “By this River,” this isn’t really a love song per se, but one I find strangely soothing.
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“Everybody wants to be hollywood. The fame, the vanity, the glitz, the stories. One day I’ll become a great big star. You know like the big dipper. And maybe one day you can visit my condo.
On the big hill you know like 9-0-2-1-0…“
Speaking of obscenely catchy , Felix the Housecat’s “Madame Hollywood” isn’t a love song either. And, granted, almost every cut featuring Ms. Kittin has almost exactly the same “ritzy, raunchy, and bored” monologue somewhere therein. (Cases in point: “Frank Sinatra,” “1982,” “Nurse.”) So I don’t have much to say about this one, except that I could listen to the crisp, old-school-Modish backbeat that drives this track for just about forever.
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“And have you ever wanted something so badly that it possessed your body and your soul, through the night and through the day, until you finally get it…and then you realize that it wasn’t what you wanted after all? And then those selfsame, sickly little thoughts now go and attach themselves to something — or somebody — new! And the whole goddamn thing starts all over again…”
Well, I’ve been crushing the symptoms, but I can’t locate the cause. Unfortunately, The The’s “True Happiness This Way Lies”, the stand-up-routine opening track to Dusk, one of my desert-island discs, doesn’t appear to yet be on the Youtubes. (That is, aside from one well-intentioned misfire of a cover.) [Update: It is now. Added below.] But in it is distilled much of what makes Matt Johnson’s better albums (Dusk, Soul Mining) so powerful — the relentless self-questioning (“Slow Emotion Replay“), the soaked-through melancholy (“This is the Day“), the dismal sensation of being endlessly driven astray by one’s passions (“The Dogs of Lust.”) So, for the next day or two, and as per the old-school method around here, you can grab this track here. And remember: The only true freedom is freedom from the heart’s desire…and the only true happiness this way lies.
“In the lower courts, according to a study Professor Long published in the Washington & Lee Law Review last year, Mr. Dylan is by far the most cited songwriter. He has been quoted in 26 opinions. Paul Simon is next, with 8 (12 if you count those attributed to Simon & Garfunkel). Bruce Springsteen has 5.“
With great lawyers, you have discussed lepers and crooks: By way of Ted at the Late Adopter, the NYT examines Chief Justice Roberts’ use of Dylan in court opinions. “Mr. Dylan has only once before been cited as an authority on Article III standing, which concerns who can bring a lawsuit in federal court…The larger objection is that the citation is not true to the original point Mr. Dylan was making, which was about the freedom that having nothing conveys and not about who may sue a phone company.”
Also in music news, the freewheelin’ Bob Dylan is in the studio working on his 31st studio album (and the follow-up to 2001’s Love and Theft.) “Work…began early this month with four days of rehearsals with his touring band at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie, New York. The crew have now moved to Manhattan to record the songs.” And, for the Springsteen fans out there, the story also reports that the Boss is currently cutting an album of Pete Seeger covers, The Seeger Sessions.
“‘Wherever there’s somebody fightin’ for a place to stand, or a decent job or a helpin’ hand, Wherever somebody’s strugglin’ to be free, look in their eyes Mom you’ll see me.'” By way of Medley, Jon Corzine gets some unsolicited advice on picking the next Senator from New Jersey. After all, the GOP may have the Governator…but we’ve got the Boss.
“The 50-50 split is not between Democrats and Republicans, but those who vote and those who don’t. That’s right: nearly 50% of eligible voters chose not to vote in 2000. The underlying challenge of our democracy is to change this non-participation and to ensure that the core values of citizenship and active participation in the electoral process overshadow the domination of big money and corporate power.” Sent to me by Chris at Do You Feel Loved, the inimitable Bill Bradley emerges from hiding to admire the Vote for Change tour in USA Today.
A few days out of date now, but still worth reading: Bruce Springsteen on the need for regime change. “It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities – respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals – that we come to life in God’s eyes. It is how our soul, as a nation and as individuals, is revealed. Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to move forward.”
From REM.HQ: “The band officially confirmed today that the new record will be titled Around the Sun…Around the Sun will be released on Warner Bros. Records October 4th (internationally) and October 5th in the United States. The first single will be ‘Leaving New York.'” And, in other R.E.M. news, the band will be part of MoveOn’s Vote For Change Tour, with Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Jurassic 5, and many others.
