My eyes can't look at you any other way

#940 - Detlef Schrempf :: Band of Horses

“So take it as a song,
or a lesson to learn,
and sometime soon be better than you were.
If you say you’re gonna go,
then be careful,
and watch how you treat every living soul.”

Band of Horses was a slow developed love for me. For a good long while I knew, and loved, No One’s Gonna Love You, but anything else I’d heard seemed to disappear into the background. After a little time, though, I started paying atttention, and the background music began to pull me in.

This song, especially, drew me in and mesmerized me.

It is a stunningly beautiful, simple, and lyrically moving song. There is a bittersweet feeling to it that seems to make me quietly melancholic when listening, but also hopeful in that way that music seems to only be able to convey. That feeling that one is not alone in their emotions and fears, hopes and dreams, and sadness.

Sometimes music understands more than anything else.

As long as we're together

#941 - Absolute Beginners :: David Bowie


“As long as your still smiling,
there’s nothing more I need.”

So many songs of David Bowie are part of the soundtrack of my life. Chapters of the life I’ve had so far are full of memories that are associated, or triggered by, so many of Bowie’s songs. This one, is both a memory song from my past, and a song I’ve re-discovered/re-fell in love with recently - so it is now becoming part of the memories I’m making now.

Somewhere in one of my crates of vinyl albums I have the 45” single of this. I played it over and over and over again after I first bought it. I absolutely loved the song. It reminds me of the Summer of 1986, my late teen years, when pretty much all of my money went to buying albums and music magazines, and going to the movies.

I remember seeing this film a few times in the theater. It was playing at this small shopping mall theater where I used to walk to and waste an entire day seeing everything they would play.

Recently I heard this song again, stumbling on it online (probably posted by a friend who I know absolutely loves this song, too). This time around I think the lyrics sunk in deeper, and it felt more relevant somehow. I think we are all amateurs when it comes to love, stumbling through it, trying it on, and trying so hard to not screw anything up.

I think we are all absolute beginners when it comes to love.

and I think I need a little poison

#942 - Bright Yellow Gun :: Throwing Muses
“I have nothing to offer but confusion.”

It was the mid-nineties. It was in my mid-twenties. I was working at Tower Records. I was the Mom of a two year old who was trying to pick herself up after a failed attempt at marriage and “family” (at least the kind of “family” we all saw on TV). I spent any free time I had going to concerts, and losing myself in the music (the job helped on both accounts) and I remember re-discovering Throwing Muses when this album came out - and falling immediately ears over heels for this song.

I also remember listening to this song and discussing with a co-worker how underrated Kristin Hersh was, and how she was as, if not more, brilliant as so many of the female musicians getting so much attention via the Lilith extravaganza/explosion (not that I don’t have much love for many of those artists, too).

Can you please release me?

#974 - Monster Hospital (MSTRKRFT Remix) :: Metric

“I fought the war,
but the war won.”

I don’t often prefer remixes to songs, unless of course I’m actually on a dance floor, but this one is truly an exception. The MSTRKRFT remix of this song takes it to the next level, and brings out an intensity and passion and fire to it that it just screams for.

Is the song about sex? Love? Self-destruction? The edge, or loss, of sanity? The war within all of us? Or between those of us who entangle with one another? Or perhaps it is all of this, and none of this, depending on your perspective. I know I’ve felt all of the above before…and after.

It definitely makes me want to dance.

But its gone from your eyes

#984 - Eyes Without A Face :: Billy Idol

"I spend so much time,
believing all the lies,
to keep the dream alive."

I'm pretty sure we've all been there, haven't we? Closing our eyes, and our perspectives, to keep something going - to "keep the dream alive". The heart can make us cloudy, hazy, foolish and blind. But, sometimes the hazy heart is right.

This song always reminds me of breaking free of something overdue to be free of. Trading lies in for truths, having the face come clear/your vision clear, shattering the dream to help put it back together into some kind of reality.

The change in tempo, and break in the melody, when he "steals a car and goes to Las Vegas" is more of that freedom. Seizing your life back, and finding release in your own ways. I love the line "reading murder books, trying to stay hip", more imagery of killing off the lies, to get back on to one's life.

I've always loved this song.

Transition to another place

#985 - New Life :: Depeche Mode

"You think you only know me when you turn on the light."

Early Depeche Mode brings to mind late nights sat in my room listening to the radio, fingers aimed and ready on my portable cassette player, trying to record all my favorite songs of the week. They remind me of a first kiss on a Disneyland ride, Star Hits magazine, Licorice Pizza record store, and sleepovers at some of my closest friends houses.

I lost my taste for the band for quite awhile during the late 80's/early 90's due to some not-so-great associations with the band and someone(s) in my life at the time. It is kind of a shame when someone, or an experience, taints your perspective on a song and/or band. But sometimes it is inevitable, and impossible to change - memories and people attach to music, just as times in my life do.

Time heals though, and I usually am able to come back and forgive certain songs and bands for their memory triggers (or maybe I forgive the person, or time and place) - perhaps a bit of both?

This song, though, reminds me of good times and some of my memorable (in a good way) adolescent experiences.

Is all I need to calm the pain

#986 - Love Resurrection :: Alison Moyet

“Just a little divine intervention.”

What a voice Alison Moyet has - powerful, sexy, beautiful, show-stopping really. I discovered her voice first back when she worked with Vince Clarke with the band Yazoo, and the song Don’t Go…and later Only You (another favorite of hers that I love). I bought the album Alf, which this song is off of, on cassette soon after it was released - wanting more of her amazing voice.

This was a radio hit (and video hit, a combination that was pretty much a given in the 80’s) - but also was one of the songs I loved the most on the album.

The juxtaposition of religion and sex, and the need fulfilled in both, is intriguing to me - the layers of meaning in a song (something I’ve mentioned being drawn to in an earlier post).

No matter what we all say, and do, in life - we all are looking for something to love, and believe in. Whether that be another person, family, pet, project, or some kind of faith/religion - or some combination of the above.

I tend to be a big believer in love - so this song, I appreciate it…

You don't know how bad I got it

#987 - Wouldn’t It Be Good :: Nik Kershaw

“You must be joking,
you don’t know a thing about it.
You’ve got no problems,
I’d stay right there if I were you.
I got it harder,
you couldn’t dream how hard I got it.”

In some ways one could say this song could pair up with The Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want, in as far as the “grass is always greener” perspective. And perhaps Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill in the “can we trade places” vein.

That said, this song takes a more adolescent approach to the theory, stating in that “you don’t understand at all” tone of voice about how it would be oh so better to be in someone else’s life (or in these lyrics, “shoes”).

No wonder I loved this song so much as an adolescent. I still carry some love for it now, though I’ve gained a heap of perspective in how we all struggle, we are all conflicted, and we all have our own green behind the fence, our own sense of bliss and sadness and chaos, and sometimes life just sucks.

A car goes by

#988 - I Go Crazy :: Flesh For Lulu

“This city’s mad in the head,
and sick in the soul,
all the stars flew away a long time ago.”

This is one of those songs that remind me of Los Angeles, Hollywood in particular, and days past that I spent running around under the street lights and ever-changing clubs. I close my eyes and can picture the street signs, liquor stores and pizza places across from dance clubs and concert venues, hookers walking next to tourists walking next to next week’s rock band.

And the band of us, piled into a tiny hatchback car, looking for something, and everything, and nothing.

There was an energy, an electricity, that ran through the nights spent in the city, and through all of us, back then. Some of them were chemical, or alcohol, induced. Some of it was the pulse of the city, the dreams low-circling the sidewalks, and the spotlights flashing on and off behind walls and security gate enterances.

Just beneath all the chaos and clutter there was always an undercurrent of emptiness. We were all looking for something to fill it, the people we knew, and the strangers we’d pass, we all carried with us that hunger.

We were all going just a little bit crazy.

I'm waiting for you

#989 - Milk :: Garbage

“I am weak,
But I am strong.”

If I were to make a list of the most sensual/sexual songs I love this one would definately be near the top (this version, remixed by Massive Attack, especially). I love the feel of it, slightly cloying, almost a feeling of aural humidity, mixed with vocals that seem to swirl around the musical refrains.

The lyrics are contradictions, weak and strong, good and bad, heat and cool - just like love, and lust. The swirling, dizzy feeling that takes your breath, but also ignites you into something stronger - that infectious, irresistable pull to another body and soul.

This song is delicious.

Well I could tell by her blood-stained hands

#992 - You Can't Always Get What You Want :: Rolling Stones

"But if you try sometimes,
well you just might find,
you get what you need."

Is it merely a question of perception that determines what we want versus what we need? Do our desires match our expectations, or do we somehow along the way confuse settling with satisfaction? Do we ever get what we want, or are we forever forced to not get truly satisfied?

(I can't get no satisfaction, sung later by the same band...interesting)

I often wonder if we all suffer from a similar disability of sight. Do we always wish for something on the other side of the fence, something unknown and mysterious? Do we convince ourselves that someone else always has it better, or is better? Is it true that we only realize what we have when it is gone?

Or, do we fool ourselves into aspirational wants, and lose sight of what we really need?

For a simple rock song, it certainly pokes at some pretty heavy thinking, at least to me.

Why don't we ever believe ourselves

#993 - Worn Me Down :: Rachael Yamagata

“Worn me down to my knees,
I did anything to please,
but you can’t stop thinking about her.”

To live in the shadow of someone else’s past love is one of the roughest roads to traverse upon when in a relationship. It is a constant competition, even if unspoken, to somehow come out ahead, and to finally overtake the memory of a ghost of a girl (or boy) who still haunts the one who holds your hand now.

It is exhausting. It is emotionally brutal. And, it does wear you down.

I did it once, for awhile, with someone who meant the world to me. I think I knew it going in, too - actually I know I knew it. The consequence of being a friend first, I suppose. But I think I played that trick with myself that so many people do, I believed I could change the person, the past, the memory, and the situation.

Lessons learned, even if it hurt - I now listen a hell of a lot better at the start, and I speak up when things hurt. And, I refuse to live in the shadow of someone before me. I don’t mind baggage, hell I have an airline carousal of my own baggage, and I don’t mind issues (again, I have quite a few of my own) - but I won’t tolerate someone who is using me to get over someone else, and I won’t be someone’s second best.

I don’t choose to be worn out that way anymore.

You only have to look behind you

#993 - Destroy Everything You Touch :: Ladytron

“Everything you touch you don’t feel,
do not know what you steal.
Shakes your hand,
takes your gun,
walks you out of the sun.”

Science Fiction, other-worldly, spinning through space kind of music. I close my eyes and picture the Tardis circling through time, Leeloo falling into Dallas’ cab, or Alice leaving the infected behind to run off to a post-goth club with Neo pre-being-the-One. This is part of the soundtrack I have set aside for when I write one of two novels I’m attempting to get through.

This song, especially, reminds me of some post-apocalyptic wasteland, where there is still art and music - humanity and expression surviving all else.

There goes the fairy tale

#994 - If Love Is a Red Dress (Hang Me In Rags) :: Maria McKee
If Love Is a Red Dress (Hang Me In Rags) (live) :: Maria McKee

“If love is shelter,
I’m gonna walk in the rain.”

I have a big, probably semi-dysfunctional, love affair with songs about heartbreak. I love the rip your heart out and throw it on the ground where you lay kind of songs, full of bitterness, loneliness and regrets. I tend to cry my eyes out to songs like this, and there is something healing about that. Maybe it is that inner need to feel connected, even in pain (or maybe, especially when in pain) - so music about heartbreak acts as a cord to the collective sorrow we all feel when we lose love, or love in vain.

I’ve loved Maria McKee’s voice since her days with Lone Justice, and think she is terribly underrated as a singer. She is the voice of the five whiskeys down, corner of the bar in your favorite dive, feeling the sting of somebody leaving - and somehow, in all that despair, her songs have this inner lining of hope. Maybe that’s the soul in the heartbreak? Or in the fact that you would not be crying at all if you did not risk it all for love, and isn’t that part of living? That risk?

Love songs gone wrong sometimes bring me to life.