“Cohen has explored the theme of love as an all-consuming flame, both destructive and creative, from the outset of his career — a painting of St. Bernadette in flames appears on the back cover of his first album — and that tortured ambiguity flickered throughout the evening. ‘If he was fire, then she must be wood,’ Cohen sang in ‘Joan of Arc,’ but the old ladies’ man himself has always been dry wood, burning up, consumed by the same flame, dying endlessly. Cohen is a battered philosopher of eros, and the beauty and horror of much of his poetry derives from his alternately exhausted and triumphant response to the demigod of sex.“
Rumors of the Death of a Ladies’ Man have been greatly exaggerated: From the bookmarks, and based on the current tour that’s recently been immortalized on the very listenable Live in London, Salon‘s Gary Kamiya sings the praises of one of his idols, Leonard Cohen. “‘Looks like freedom but it feels like death/ It’s something in between, I guess,’ Cohen sings in ‘Closing Time.’ That knife edge, that balancing act between the intolerable and the redemptive, is where Cohen lives, both in his work and in his performances. He is a fearless explorer of darknesses of all kinds, mostly erotic and romantic, but also, and increasingly, political and spiritual. For Cohen, without darkness there is no light — a credo summed up in his song ‘Anthem,’ with its exquisite chorus ‘Ring the bells that still can ring/ Forget your perfect offering/ There is a crack in everything/ That’s how the light gets in.’“
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:
*********
“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.]
*********
“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.”
*********
“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.”
*********
“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.
*********
“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.
*********
“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.
“I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous impact on our society.” (The notorious) BettiePage, 1923-2008.
For an appreciation of Page, see TIME‘s Richard Corliss, who today delivers a tribute as gushing and fanboy in its own way as Peter Jackson’s moving remembrance of Forry Ackerman earlier this week. (1916-2008.) “But what everyone remembers about Bettie, aside from her trademark bangs, is her smile. Guileless and guiltless, it conveyed an Edenic sensuality. To her fans and her official detractors, who might have agreed that sex was dirty, Bettie’s giddy energy said, ‘Heck, no, it’s fun!’”
“‘This is the part of the brain involved in knowing that you want something,’ she said. ‘When people who are not adjusting well are having these sorts of thoughts about the person, they are experiencing this reward pathway being activated. They really are craving in a way that perhaps is not allowing them or helping them adapt to the new reality.‘” It’s darker than you know in those complicated shadows…A new study finds that unrelenting grief works on the brain differently than the usual kind of post-traumatic depression. “The same brain system is involved in other powerful cravings, such those that afflict drug addicts and alcoholics…It’s like they’re addicted to the happy memories.“
“Pity the would-be Romeo who earnestly confesses middlebrow tastes: sometimes, it’s the Howard Roark problem as much as the Pushkin one. ‘I did have to break up with one guy because he was very keen on Ayn Rand,’ said Laura Miller, a book critic for Salon. ‘He was sweet and incredibly decent despite all the grandiosely heartless “philosophy” he espoused, but it wasn’t even the ideology that did it. I just thought Rand was a hilariously bad writer, and past a certain point I couldn’t hide my amusement.’” In the NYT, Rachel Donadio looks at relationships undone by differing book tastes (and, along the way, quotes a college friend of mine, Christian Lorentzen.)
Funnily enough, my last serious relationship, lo, 18 months ago now, didn’t end because of book taste, but — like Laura Miller above — I always considered the Ayn Rand citation on her Friendster profile an ominous red flag (and, in the clear light of retrospect, I was absolutely correct in this regard.) In the relationship before that, things started out ok, and then, eight or nine months in, we daringly ventured to trade lists of recommended books. At first, all was well: She seemed to dig All the King’s Men, and I finally got around to reading Moby Dick (I liked it, but also found most of it the longest…Atlantic piece…ever…) But we got on shakier ground when I didn’t cotton at all to her favorite tome, Thomas Wolfe’s Look, Homeward Angel. (If you’ve never read it, here’s the short version: I, the protagonist, am more brilliant and tortured than absolutely everybody here in fake-Asheville, NC, and thus noone will ever understand me. After 500 pages of complaining about it, I will leave, and seek my fortune elsewhere.) Meanwhile, she was so embarrassed to be seen with Dan Simmons’ Hyperion — a book I don’t love, but thought might make a good intro to decent sci-fi yarns for someone with highbrow sensibilities, what with all the Chaucer and Keats nods therein — that she’d hide it from people on the train. Whether all this brought about or hastened the end, I know not…but it surely didn’t help. The point being, be wary, young lovers: The book collection can be a minefield, as the Donadio essay attests.
I’m not going to cover all the sordid details of the Spitzer case here — he’s gone, so, politically speaking, there’s not much else to say about it (and — for the moment anyway — the search for a possible campaign funds connection sounds likes a fishing expedition.) Nevertheless, regarding the news coverage here in the Apple, it — to no one’s surprise, I guess — has already pushed past prurient to wallow in the tacky. When the feeding frenzy first locked on to “Kristen’s” MySpace page (5 million hits in a day), I actually felt sorta bad for the poor girl. (Ok, I know, she’s not poor — she makes $5500/hr. Still.) Prostitution is illegal, true, but she’s still basically a troubled kid engaged in a seedy enterprise, and I think it’d be pretty hard for any personal site — this one included — to withstand that level of withering, snark-heavy scrutiny from the entire world at large. That being said, from front-page, come-hither portfolios all over NY today to 200 large made on music downloads overnight, I have a feeling the last thing Ms. Dupre needs right now is anyone’s pity. Oh well. Milk it, I guess.
Just be clear, I’m not saying the coverage is anywhere near as repellent as the media aftermath to the Virginia Tech killings, and I know sex has sold newspapers since the dawn of the printing press. (I mean, the tabloids caught my attention this morning.) But, c’mon now. In any case, I’m guessing Silla Wall Spitzer is having a truly terrible day.
(By the way, if anyone cares about my own editorial decision to post a pic of Ashley Dupre here, I did so to be fair to Ms. Iseman, of McCain fame. The lesson here seems to be: If you must get caught in a sex scandal (or what the NYT thinks might be a sex scandal), try to keep the seamier-type pics off of the Internets.) Update: Client 9 radio? Um, yeah.
Apparently Natalie Portman loves her some prequels. In case you’re desiring to see Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited, or at the very least more of Ms. Portman than was disclosed in Closer, Anderson’s 13-minute short film, Hotel Chevalier, starring Jason Schwartzman and the former Queen Amidala, is now available free on iTunes. Cute…dare I say precious?
“Kinsey’s pioneering work is still one-of-a-kind because in all the time since, only a handful of sex researchers have even tried to match his breadth, depth, and scale. For all our obsession with sex, we’re skittish about studying it. There’s one major exception: a large survey, conducted in the 1990s, that far outdid Kinsey in terms of statistical reliability. It’s the most authoritative sexual self-portrait the country has. But you’ve probably never heard of its author, because unlike Kinsey, he has worked hard to keep it that way. Alfred Kinsey may have gotten the biopic, but according to Slate‘s Amanda Schaffer, it’s the University of Chicago’s Edward Laumann we should now be turning to for reliable data on carnal matters. “Kinsey’s data aren’t the last word on matters sexual, but they’re sometimes still the first.“
Happy Valentine’s Day. In keeping with a GitM tradition started last year, and since y’all out there, dear readers, are once again my Valentines for the day whether you like it or not (I long ago stopped delving into personal detail around these parts — Suffice to say that, my fellow Americans, the State of the Love Life is, um, not good. In fact, like those pesky WMD, its existence has been almost entirely theoretical for some time…Ah, well.) — I’ve thrown up more tunes for your holiday perusal. At any rate, as per the usual mp3blog rules: the files will be only up for a day or two, right-click to save them, and please don’t link to them directly. Otherwise, enjoy!
Another lonely night
Stare at the TV screen
I don’t know what to do
I need a rendezvous
For sundry reasons involving the Internet Age, Kraftwerk’s “Computer Love” has taken on all kinds of ulterior meanings since it first debuted on 1981’s Computer World, when 300 baud modems (“I call this number for a data date“) and TRS-80s operating on tape decks were the order of the day. When these German electronica pioneers weren’t creating the music of the future, it seems, they were presciently anticipating our current era of Instant Messaging, online dating sites, and the like. Still, its newer resonances notwithstanding, I’ve always found something giddily innocent about this track. While the lyrics suggest a much more downbeat affair, the chirps and whistles in this song never fail to bring a big goofy grin to my face — particularly in this clubbier 1991 remix version, when those syncopated synths take off like a bird in flight. There are some songs that just make ya happy, no matter what — for me, this is one of those.
Computerlove — Kraftwerk (6.2MB, 6:37)
(song removed)
From The Mix.
[Update:]
***
And I feel your warmth
And it feels like home
And there’s someone
Calling on the telephone
Let’s stay home
It’s cold outside
And I have so much
To confide to you
As I’ve wrote in this review of Ultra years ago, Depeche Mode is a band that’s been misunderstood and misunderestimated by a lot of people here in America. Which is not to say they’re some hidden secret — obviously, they’re one of the biggest bands in the world, and have had a huge US following for decades now.
Still, even today, in the reviews of DM’s recent Playing the Angel, rock critics trod out the doom-and-gloom “Depressed Mode” copy that’s been circulating since at least 1986’s Black Celebration. But they miss the point. Very few DM songs — Ok, “Satellite,” from A Broken Frame is one — are out-and-out depressing in the way, say, most Nine Inch Nails songs are. Rather, almost all of the songs on Black Celebration, one of my Desert Island discs, work in the same groove, including this one, “Here is the House.” As one review of “Enjoy the Silence” summed it up, it’s “me and you against the world.”
Yes, Celebration argues, this earth can be a cruel, unrelenting place, filled with misfortune and disappointment. But, maybe, just maybe, you and I can rise above all that, and together light a candle that’ll warm us both through another unforgiving night. In sum, DM’s best romantic ballads aren’t depressing so much as poignant and ever-so-slightly hopeful. I’ll be the first to admit that the band has come close to over-mining this particular mode after 25 years, but still, when they do it right, it’s a thing of beauty. (Also, since I’m sure a lot of people out there already have this song in their collection, I’ve also posted Martin’s early demo version, which actually fits the song really well in a lo-fi Magnetic Fields kinda way.)
Here is the House — Depeche Mode (4.1MB, 4:19)
Bonus Track: Here is the House (Demo) — Martin Gore (4.3MB, 4:35)
The blood of eden keeps running through me
running through my veins
the blood of eden keeps rushing through me
when I’m sure there’s none that remains
I had a hard time figuring out which song I wanted to post from Peter Gabriel’s sublime rumination on romance, Us (1992), ’cause almost every song — particularly on the A-side — is a certifiable classic. (A younger friend of mine once musically conflated Gabriel’s oeuvre with that of his Genesis bandmate Phil Collins, which almost drove me to apoplexy. I mean, I don’t hate Phil Collins or anything, but, c’mon now — Gabriel is a lot more than just “Sledgehammer,” and even “Sledgehammer” isn’t “Susudio.”)
In the end, I opted for this cut of “Blood of Eden” from Wim Wender’s Until the End of the World (which for some odd reason was left off that otherwise great soundtrack.) The Us version is disarmingly beautiful, but the lack of Sinead O’Connor’s backing vocals here lend the track a different resonance.
On the album, you can actually hear “the union of the woman and the man” in O’Connor and Gabriel’s lush harmony, but here, with Gabriel plaintive and alone, it’s just a fading memory, the echo of happier times. And yet, at certain moments (such as in the bridge), the memories come flooding back. “The blood of eden keeps rushing through me, when I’m sure there’s none that remains.” With love in the rear-view mirror, disappearing over the horizon, Pete still has the echoes of the past to keep him keepin’ on.
Blood of Eden (Wim Wenders Version) — Peter Gabriel (6.2MB, 6:40)
(song removed)
From Blood of Eden (Single).
[Update: The Wim Wenders version is hard to find on the tubes, but below is the original version with Sinead O’Connor.]
***
Most of the time
It’s well understood,
Most of the time
I wouldn’t change it if I could,
I can’t make it all match up, I can hold my own,
I can deal with the situation right down to the bone,
I can survive, I can endure
And I don’t even think about her
Most of the time.
Speaking of which, nobody does keep-on-keepin’-on like its coiner, the inimitable Bob Dylan. From “Don’t Think Twice” to “Like a Rolling Stone” and Blood on the Tracks to Time out of Mind, one of Bob’s career trademarks has been the post-mortem relationship song. Some are angryandvindictive, some are haunted, some are jauntyandcouldcare less, some are resignedandreflective, some are (love)sickwithremorseandregret. There are so many great songs that could have gone here, but I ended up choosing “Most of the Time,” from the somewhat underappreciated Oh Mercy (1989), the forerunner to Dylan’s recent revival. In this song, Bob’s basically got his act together and has moved on from an old love…most of the time. In direct contrast to Gabriel in “Eden,” the past here is treacherous. (“Most of the time, I can’t even be sure, if she was ever with me or if I was ever with her.“) Dylan’s learned to live with his scars, but at any moment — a passing haircut, a fleeting remembrance, a scent of perfume in the air — and he is undone once again, as if it were yesterday. After all, even for a guy like Bob Dylan, who once seemed to carry the weight of the world as if it were nothing, you don’t get very far in life without some ghosts in the machine.
Most of the Time — Bob Dylan (4.5MB, 5:03)
(song removed)
From Oh Mercy.
[Update:]
Ok, hopefully five tunes won’t kill my bandwidth…Have a safe and happy Valentine’s Day out there, y’all. (And, as a side note, if you’re looking for more quality music, be sure to check out the splendiferous Fluxblog almost-daily, and don’t miss out on the Max Music Mixes every month at Lots of Co.)
