Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Reason To Live #4: Heartlessly Ignoring The Idea That True Romantic Love Is Anything More Than A Dream Bryan Ferry Once Had A Very Long Time Ago.

Hey you! Can I be your Valentine? Want some Harvey's Bristol Creme? How about I get you good and baked? I'll introduce you to my next-door neighbor Rosie Perez (nice rack!) if you'll be my Valentine...

How about this: I get you fucked up, we'll shovel Rosie's driveway and maybe meet her, then I freak you 'til dawn and you won't have to do ME at ALL...oh fuck it.

I don't want to be your goddamn valentine anyway.

I'd rather sit under my headphones, listen to 10cc croon 'I'm Not In Love' and stare at Google-search pics of Stephen Stills circa Buffalo Springfield. That shank of man-ass was DOPE...he didn't call his early 70's band MANASSas for nothing...*sigh*...furthermore, Stills could lay down some serious blues. I wonder if he's underrated. I don't follow the retro guitar god polls so much anymore although Rolling Stone seems to like to tell us who the new Claptons are (John Mayer 's one of three new Claptons btw, apparently he's cuter and spikes RS sales moreso than, say, Buckethead ever would).

So this whole concept of romantic love is utterly absent from the Billboard charts right now. Beyonce wants us to get our shit out of her palatial estate but at least she's nice enough to call car service for us. We don't really mean jack shit to Nelly Furtado because we can't say it right although nobody anywhere knows what this pole-dancing scold is trying to say in the first place. Google the lyrics for 'Say It Right'. Uh...say wha?

Fall Out Boy hyperventilates that "this ain't no scene, it's an arms race" and that can't be any good. Sounds like Stump and Wentz are asking for a pre-nup. Akon just wants to fuck us although Clear Channel would have us believe that he wants to "love" us (album version vs. radio edit...you know how it is). And as you scan down Billboard's Hot 100 your heart will positively swell; there's a whole lineup of ghetto thugs just waiting to pull a train on us. Where's Pretty Ricky's redo of ZZTop's 'Pearl Necklace'? Your granny's London Bridge would go right down if you hijacked her iPod with these pretty words:

She was gettin' bombed,

And I was gettin' blown away,

And she took it in her hand,

And this is what she had to say:

A pearl necklace.

She wanna pearl necklace.

She wanna pearl necklace.



So I was going to slap together your standard-issue hipster-cynic downwithlove mix tape but as I'm writing this...nah...too easy. So here's a baldfaced lovesick mix the whole office can agree on:

Anything But Love - The (Real) Tuesday Weld
Sitting, Waiting, Wishing - Jack Johnson
Love Is Everything - Jane Siberry
Soon - My Bloody Valentine
Do You Want To Come With - Stephen Fretwell (wow! Fretwell! Think of the guitar god possibilities!)
I Wanted You To Feel The Same - The Radio Dept.
The Greatest - Cat Power
Let's Dance - M. Ward (yes, the Bowie 'Let's Dance'...slowed down to a funereal pace)
Never Let Go - Tom Waits
Bluer Than Blue - Michael Johnson
Neighborhood #4 (Kettles) - Arcade Fire
Ruby's Arms - Nanci Griffith
Bleed To Love Her - Fleetwood Mac
Honey Child, What Can I Do? - Isobel Campbell w/ Mark Lanegan
You've Changed - Joy Zipper (blame your loveless life on the other guy...works for me!)
I'm Losing More Than I've Ever Had - Primal Scream
We Are Mice - Azure Ray (because we are, after all)
Bookends - Simon & Garfunkel
All Mixed Up - Red House Painters (The Cars' 'All Mixed Up'...slowed down to a funereal pace)

Vol. 2

Secret Heart - Feist
Johnny's Garden - Stephen Stills & Manassas
Fidelity - Regina Spektor
Louisiana - The Walkmen (no particular reason...just a really nice track)
Take Me - Karen Dalton
Heartbeats - The Knife
Can't Find My Way Home - Bonnie Raitt w/ Little Feat (live track...Bonnie's fit shaced/stoned to the bejeesus on this one)
Ballad Of A Bitter End - The Poems
Love My Way - Grant Lee Phillips
Forever My Friend - Ray LaMontagne
Thinking About You - Norah Jones
Knife - Grizzly Bear
I Talk To The Wind - King Crimson
All Those Expectations - Peter Bjorn and John
Multiply - Jamie Lidell (always conclude on a positive & funky note)

Enjoy your VD, people.

2 comments:

Martin said...

The best romantic song on the charts right now - romantic in the bleakest way possible - is "Stupid Boy" by Keith Urban. Yes, I listen to modern country.

Joe Schraufnagel said...

You should listen to modern country because some it is not so bad. Kenny Chesney's "Summertime" is almost a Ric Ocasek tune but with some redneck imagery.