She's My Cocaine

I am occasionally reminded more or less forcibly why I can never be a critic. I like things. I can be a fan, a gushy fan even. But I can't quibble the way that seems to be the bread and butter of the critic. I can only enthuse.

And now I must enthuse a bit. I have long considered myself a fan of Tori Amos. I enjoy the passionate honesty of her songwriting, the nearly-fey abandon of her musicality, the unfettered drama of her voice. I confess my interest began to dwindle following her 2002 album Scarlet's Walk. It is not a bad album, but even after five years' of listening I have tremendous difficulty in distinguishing one song from another on the disc; they are simply all so similar, so homogenous. I have not picked up any of her subsequent releases, though I continue to enjoy the earlier albums in my collection.

This week I checked out From The Choirgirl Hotel (1998) from the public library. To borrow a phrase from one of my favourite bloggers, this album is rock-pants awesome. I have been spinning it non-stop for three days now, something I have not felt compelled to do with an album for a long time now. There is only one 'hit' — "Spark" — which opens the album with the unforgettable line "She's addicted to nicotine patches." But the thing just keeps exploding from there. By the time we get to tracks like "She's Your Cocaine" and "Northern Lad" I am exhausted by the visceral musical energy, the production value, the sheer wonder of it all. I can't believe I don't own this album! I would write more, but I just have to keep listening to this disc...

Have to get it out of my head

What is it about the human mind that it is so prone to involuntary fixation? I do not know that I am more susceptible to this affliction than my fellow creatures, but as I am the hero of this particular blog, it is — for better or worse — my experience that guides the narrative here.

I get things stuck in my head a lot. (You may have noticed that this is a sort of theme we have going here.) Not just the latest bubblegum pop songs, but words, quotations, movie moments, fragments of past experience; all these things are candidates for getting set to "Repeat" on my mind's internal player. I have long struggled against this affliction, to varying degrees of success. (More on that another day.)

But recently I have been attempting to embrace it. It may be that I would rather rewire my internal jukebox, but it seems to be turning up some decent writing prompts of late, and perhaps they are none the worse as starting points for not being what I would have (consciously) chosen.

"Barbara Allen"

The turkeys. The turkeys are gobbling something fierce this morning. Up in the narrow strip of woods between the urban highway I walk along and the upscale residential street at the top of the rise a surprising number of Meleagris gallopavo are evidently lurking bravely. The vigourous gobbles followed fast one upon the other; at least three gobbler, and no mere jakes, either, but full-fledged toms, gobbling to beat the band.

We still dream of the wooded country life, sitting on the porch in the evening, watching the sunset and and singing folksongs to the accompaniment of my guitar. "Barbara Allen" is my tune all the way to work today, not in the least curtailed by the fact that I only know the titular name and the tune. So I hummed energetically and sang out "Barbara Allen" at regular short intervals.

Soon, my loves. Soon the rural life; I am sure of it.

wainwright

We don't talk about wrights much anymore, about makers. Lampwrights, wheelwrights, and certainly wainwrights seldom appear in everyday conversation. This may have something to do with the absence of the activity of making such things as lamps, wheels, and waggons. What hath your wright wrought for you?

Archaisms are us.

"Lips Of An Angel"

I am known to be — at least by myself — a particularly forgiving (or undiscerning) consumer of both music and movies. I have never, for example, walked out of a movie, either in the theatre or — perhaps more tellingly — in what might loosely be described as the 'home viewing experience' regardless of actual residency. I think the low point of this might have been late one Saturday night when I swung by one of the floor lounges in my dorm and stopped in to see what the guys were watching. They were just starting to watch Batman and Robin, and since I had never seen a Batman movie, I sat down to join them. Before too very long into the film, everyone else in the room had wandered off to bed or bottle, and I was left alone with what even I could see was not a very good movie. But I watched it — alone — to the bitter end. True story.

And the same with music. I may not rock out to every song that comes down the pipe, but I roll with a lot of different stuff. But then Hinder's "Lips Of An Angel" comes on the radio, and a part of me that I am not really familiar with switches on: the part of me that produces strong feelings. I hate this song, not dislike, hate. And it is a hate that has long since crossed into the realm of the irrational, which makes it not one jot less intense.

I can't quite put my finger on why I feel so strongly about this particular song. It is not a bad song in the strictest sense of the word. It is insipid and palpably commercial, but so are a hell of a lot of other songs that still bring at least moderate enjoyment to this listener. It is not the band itself: the band is respectable and not ridiculously-heavy, the vocals are decently-executed, and I very much like their previous single, "Get Stoned", which I am listening to right now in an as-yet fruitless attempt to banish the song in question from my intolerant mind.

I am tempted to think that it is the content of the lyrics that I react so adversely to. I am for some reason very uncomfortable with the story. It seems silly for a devotee of Marilyn Manson such as myself to raise a moral objection to the lyrics of a song, but nevertheless. Manson's lyrics are over the top and densely-layered masterpieces of shock, schlock and scathing social commentary; Hinder's song is an utterly straightforward expression of very pedestrian emotions of longing for a previous sexual partner, even (or especially) in the proximity of one's current main squeeze. Maybe I am getting old and stodgy, but I just don't rock that way.

I just wish this song would leave me alone.

She married him

Huh.

Every so often (at ever lengthening intervals, I am glad to report) I get the inclination to Google the name of my first girlfriend. This morning was one of those occasions, and I had the bright idea to try her first name in combination with the last name of the guy she dumped me for. And there they were: Mr and Mrs, him and her, on a list of donors to the Catholic high school from which he graduated. At last, an answer to that little question.

Well, that's nice. Just as I am glad to continue to believe that my major life choices have been for the best, that I am indeed following the path that I am truly called to tread, so, too, I take real and sincere comfort in the knowledge — reliable or not — that once-beloved others are making the right decisions in their lives. She thought that they — she and he — were far more compatible than we — she and I — could ever be. I believe she was right.

Of course I certainly didn't agree with her at the time. But after long, anguished months filled with pathetic attempts to "win her back" I came to grudgingly respect her decision and out of necessity tried to move on with my own life, a life without her.

So I've got Jude in my head today. I remember that back in that dismal Spring of 2000 there would be days where I would set the cd player to "Repeat" and listen to "I Do" over and over and over and over, for hours at a stretch, struggling to internalise the emotional state that the persona of the song has achieved:

But there's just one more dream
that I have left for you
I hope you're smiling when
he turns around and says "I do"
I do

"Gone To The Movies"

The final track on Semisonic's 1998 release Feeling Strangely Fine is a superb conclusion to a superb album. And especially appropriate for a snowy day like today.

It makes me want very badly to learn to play it on the guitar, and to start playing guitar again, period. I wonder if anything will come of that.

"Oh Lord It's Hard To Be Humble"

A post by Blogagaard had me savouring the tune to "King Of The Road" for much of yesterday, even though I couldn't recall many of the lyrics. Somehow by evening this had led my mind to the classic Mac Davis hit "Oh Lord It's Hard To Be Humble," which I have not thought of in quite some time, either. It has long been a sort of ancestral theme song in the McCutcheon clan; my father and my father's father before him were wont to bellow this out while cleaning the barn or shovelling snow, and I frequently contributed my rendition to the college dorm shower experience back in the day. It has been a long time since then, so I dusted it off on our snowy walk last night, causing Mrs. Mac to laugh uproariously and (shockingly) to say she had never heard it before.

For her benefit and that of others who may be rusty, here are the powerful and moving lyrics:

Oh, Lord it’s hard to be humble, when you’re perfect in every way
I can’t wait to look in the mirror, ‘cause I get better lookin’ each day
To know me is to love me, I must be a hell of a man
Oh, Lord it’s hard to be humble, but I’m doing the best that I can

I used to have a girlfriend, but I guess she just couldn’t compete
with all of these love-starved women who keep clamoring at my feet.
Well, I probably could find me another, but I guess they’re all in awe of me
Who cares? I never get lonesome, ‘cause I treasure my own company.

I guess you could say I’m a loner, a cowboy outlaw, tough and proud
Oh, I could have lots of friends if I wanna, but then I wouldn’t stand out from the crowd
Some folks say that I’m egotistical, hell, I don’t even know what that means
I guess it has something to do with the way that I fill out these skin-tight blue jeans

Truer words have seldom been spoke or sung.