Just Because I Can Do the Things That You Do

A woman I work with is always talking about "earworms." Songs like Found a Peanut, the theme from Pinky and the Brain and anything by Juice Newton. I get them too, I know I posted about one not so long ago (but won't go find it in fear it will be stuck in my head all night.)

... but it's too late. I just got a Michigan commercial that goes "Let's go Krogering... Krogering.... Krogering..." running around in there.

Anyway, for me even worse than earworms are bullsh!t lyrics. Things that make me insane because I want to argue with the person who wrote them.

I just spent a few hours at a neighborhood bar writing a story and Johnny Cash "I Walk the Line" came on. I stopped writing and had to listen and remember what the lyrics actually were. What does he mean "Because you're mine, I walk the line.?" Walk the line in terms of drinking and gambling? Most Johnny Cash songs are about that bad boy stuff ... sometimes he even kills a man just to watch him die. But this one seems to just be about monogamy. I can handle that: he's not putting the responsibility for his good living on the good woman who gives him good loving. Monogamy might be hard to maintain for a lot of people over the course of a lifetime, but it's far from crazy in our culture to promise to be true. It's perfectly reasonable for Johnny to walk the monogamy line because he has a partner. Whew,I'll be able to sleep tonight.

This did remind me of my top irritating lyrics though. I can't tell you how many hours I've fumed about these.

Joe Jackson Breaking Us in Two:
You don't do the things that I do
You want to do things I can't do

Okay, so she doesn't do things he does, implying ability but unwillingness. And yet she wants to do things he can't do. As if he's trying and is just incapable of meeting her impossible demands. What is it she wants him to do? Complicated couples yoga postures? Improvisational dirty talk in Chinese? All the while, she's refusing to take a nice romantic walk around the block while holding hands.

Grrrrr.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!

The whole point of this song is to be good at all times so you get presents from Santa. It has nothing to do with being good for the sake of goodness!

Aghhhh!

Dolly Parton Jolene:
Please don't take him just because you can

We know nothing about Jolene other than Dolly says she is beautiful, thinks Jolene could have her choice of men, and that Dolly's man has the hots for Jolene and mumbles about her in his sleep. We don't know that Jolene is even interested in the man or if, like Dolly, could never love again if she can't have this particular man. What, a beautiful woman automatically has less deep feelings for a guy? A beautiful woman wants to take a man "just" because she can. In my life, I've been a dumpee not the beautiful takee every time so it's not like I'm the beautiful vixen with an axe to grind. Even so, for some reason that line makes me crazy every time I hear it.

It also gets my goat that even though the song is written from the perspective of one woman begging another to leave her man alone, in all the live performances I seen of it, Dolly introduces it as if it is a girl-fighting, put-that-hussy-in-her- place song. Completely counter to the lyrics and what makes that song so compelling to me.

I do love Dolly Parton though (song writing more than singing, I tend to like her songs performed by other artists) and Jolene is one of my favorites. I like the Mindy Smith version with Dolly Parton doing backup vocals and harmonies. Her solo version on Just Because I'm A Woman is not quite as good. I also love the White Stripes cover.

Evangeline

My friend P. said she was not sure she'd know Emmylou Harris if she heard her. I know she deserves a song all her own her, but I'll be honest, I don't love Emmylou's voice. I tend not to like those "she sings like an angel" voices. So I'm going to go with an old favorite and add in The Band.

David Bowie

Tonight has been designated as the offical Labyrinth watching night by several of my friends around the country. Two of us have never seen it before, a strange number of people appear to be obsessed with it, at least one has never seen it and never wants to. Those that are obsessed with it are a bit younger than me -- I'm guessing they are the same generation of girls who memorized lines from The Princess Bride and watched that 100 times. I was a bit too old for the girlish fixation with those movies when they were released. My friend J., the Labyrinth Refuser, tends not to like the fantasy worlds or sci-fi type movies. She loves jars of eyeballs and zombies though so she might be watching B-list horror tonight instead.

I don't have strong feeling about the movie but feel there is a gap in my David Bowie knowledge. I absolutely hated Requiem for a Dream though, but I won't hold that against Jennifer Connelly. Her performance was not the source of loathing for the movie.

I'm excited.

Do the Hustle: Support my 2010 Hustle Up the Hancock Climb!

Mercury and I will be climbing 94 flights of stairs in a few weeks. hopefully we will be climbing lots of stairs before then in preparation too. If any of my readers are particularly interested in Lung Cancer, please feel from to sponsor my pain. If any of my readers are still smoking (!) quit right now.

Support my 2010 Hustle Up the Hancock Climb!

Silver

My new iPod arrived today, it's silver. All my previous iPods have been white but my choices this time were black and silver.

My old iPod (the trusty survivor of The Great Burglary of 2009) is not 100% dead, I just can't use the wheel command thing anymore or sync it. I've decided to call it Time Capsule. New guy will be Mercury, the name I had in reserve for a grey cat.

I was thinking today about how I like the color silver. I like silver jewelery better than gold and I'm even enjoying the strands of silver hair that are popping up in my dark hair more than I would like light golden highlights. I'm sure the fascination with these silver white strands will wear off soon but for now it's kind of fun. Or maybe I'll become fabulously grey like Emmylou Harris.

When Art and Life are at Odds

For the first time in a long time I have a bunch of story ideas and want to write .. but work is so busy lately that I don't have time. I'm feeling pulled in a thousand directions, exhausted at the end of the day, too wound up to get to sleep on time, and tired when I wake up to do it all again.

I suppose it is the inability to sit down and work on my ideas that is making me feel like I have so many and really want to. We always want we we don't have; it's likely that if I had a less draining schedule and a day with a pen and paper I'd just sit there and doodle and think about how I wanted to sew instead but couldn't because I didn't have the right fabric.

Oddly enough, Bon Jovi inspired this flood of ideas.

The Most Exctiting Organ Ever

Tonight I saw that dumb cell phone commercial with Eric Clapton about a million times. Every time it reminded me that I'll never love Eric Clapton even though I try and then my mind drifted to the George Harrison happy spot and one of my favorite performances ever .. Billy Preston at The Concert for Bangladesh. It was there that I can across this great "disembodied hands" video.


(posted by BlackSciFi ... I can't wait until Friday when I have time to poke around and look/listen to a bunch of other stuff he's posted.)