Saturday, March 08, 2008

Songs Your Life Should Not Emulate

And I am taking nominations.

This is NOT a breakup music thread. If/when that day comes, it will be signalled by Dusty Springfield's/White Stripes' "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" and Phil Collins' "Against All Odds" and all the most emotive dreck I can post without crashing the blogger server.

Anyway, I was chatting online with a most cool co-blogger, who always reads between the lines in my weird emo posts and asks, most solicitiously, "are you doing okay?!", I told him that yes, I was, and the songs I posted do have certain degrees of verisimilitude to real life, but really, aren't that bad. I think all the songs I chose, even "Fidelity," by Regina Spektor are quite hopeful and lovely, I think. They are peppy. Pro-living, but in that Wham! "choose life" way, not the current anti-choice way.

From Fidelity:

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
I hear in my mind
All of these voices
I hear in my mind all of these words
I hear in my mind all of this music
And it breaks my heart


I take this as a call to kick up your heels and let go. You can't keep yourself from the fall.

On the Radio:

This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath
No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again


Pretty much.


If I was being truly emo and shit, I would post any of the following three songs that I think that real life should not emulate:

1. Love The One You're With -- Crosby, Stills & Nash live version

2. Landslide -- Fleetwood Mac or Smashing Pumpkins

3. You Don't Bring Me Flowers -- Barbara Streisand & Neil Young


1. If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with--fuck that shit! I am all for dancing the one that brung ya, but I also believe that you should be with the one you love. Again, do not settle.

2. Also, you should not be afraid of changing because you built your life around someone else. The landslide WILL bring you down. I would change my life for someone, but I'd like to think that I would not be afraid of changing it again either.

3. Finally, while it sucks if someone no longer brings you flowers (which is more of a symbolic gesture of no longer being attentive or loving), the lines to focus on are "you hardly talk to me anymore/when you come through the door/at the end of the day." Now that would suck. Flowers, and the tangible material things don't mean as much to me. It is the gesture, the emotional symbolism that matter, which is why I do love getting flowers. But if you got the rest, you don't need much stuff.

Even though it's nice to get flowers, I buy myself flowers too. And jewelry. I don't wait around for much. The one thing I don't do (much of), because I am already emotional and hyper-analytical enough such that most of you probably think that I'm batshit insane, is talk to myself. So if this need is always filled at the end of the day, I'll be mostly happy.

And with that, I am going back to sniffing my stargazer lilies I bought from my local flower stand guy and eating some chocolate mascarpone cookies I baked for myself and other loved ones. Hell yeah, I just said that. Word.