TwoBusy: For Those About To Meme (We Salute You)

February 29, 2008

For Those About To Meme (We Salute You)

Oh boy! Another stupid music meme! Fault here lies with Darren... place all blame accordingly.

So. The rulez:
1. Put your music player on shuffle.
2. Press forward for each question.
3. Use the song title as the answer to the question.
4. NO CHEATING.

Shall we begin?

Q: What does next year have in store for you?
A: Is It Really So Strange? by The Smiths
Morrissey moaning "Why is the last mile the hardest mile?" = more good times for me. Terrific.

Q: What does your love life look like next year?
A: Beggar's Blues by Mark Lanegan
Quoth the prophet Lanegan: "Well I'm draggin' lonliness and it's ten miles long/I thought I heard you scream baby/In the wheels of a train that crawls..." In other words, it's romance time at Castle TwoBusy!

Q: What do you say when life gets hard?
A: Comes A Time by Nada Surf
"I can't believe that we're really all good." Yeah, that sounds like me.

Q: Song that reminds you of good times?
A: Swamp Thing by The Chameleons
"The storm comes... or is it just another shower?" Great answer. Thanks, iTunes.

Q: What do you think when you get up in the morning?
A: June in Her Frost and Fur by The Autumns
"The truth is never quite so near as in dreams" Can you argue with that? Neither can I.

Q: What song will you dance to at your wedding?
A: Hold On To Me by The Cowboy Junkies
I swear, I'm not cheating. This is getting eerie-good. "I'll hold on to this gift we share/It is as slippery as it is rare." Damn, that's appropriate. (Almost good enough to make me wish we'd actually danced at our wedding.)

Q: Song that reminds you of your first kiss?
A: One Good Reason by Bob Mould
Ah, now we're back into angry territory. "But I'm a fool... I've been known to play the fool." This one's historically accurate, too. Hooray!

Q: Your favorite saying?
A: Sunshine by Low
An achingly sad cover of the children's song. "You'll never know dear, how much I love you."

Q: Favorite place?
A: Futures by Zero 7 (pulled from an old Flux=Rad compilation)
"Just let me know where we go after the fall." Apparently, my favorite place is Hell. Good for me.

Q: Most Missed Memory?
A: Who Was Around? by Bob Mould
Aaaaand we're back to Bob. Funny how he's becoming a recurring motif around here this month. "Why'd you abandon me? Maybe it's not for me to know." This is a very twisted way of answering the question, but it may not be entirely wrong.

Q: What song describes your best friend?
A: Parallel by Bad Religion
Not even remotely accurate, but a great song nonetheless. You haven't lived until you've grooved to a Cornell Paleontology Ph.D. singing, "Staggering like birds against a hurricane/and trying all the while to stay out of each other's way..."

Q: What song describes your ex?
A: Disgustipated by Tool
"It was daylight when you woke up in your ditch." Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Q: Where would you go on a first date?
A: I Don't Believe You by The Magnetic Fields
"So you're brilliant gorgeous and/ampersand after ampersand/You think I just don't understand..." In short, it's doesn't matter where we go -- you're clearly out of my league, and this is doomed to failure. (What self-esteem problem?)

Q: Drug of choice?
A: Someone Out There by The Cowboy Junkies
Apparently, my drug of choice is skepticism. "But what I want to know/Before you save my soul/Is who gave this power to that fucker up there?"

Q: What song describes yourself?
A: Accident Prone by Jawbreaker
I've talked about this song before -- you can hear it here. It also happens to be a completely appropriate answer to this question. "What's the closest you can come to an almost total wreck/and still walk away... all limbs intact?"

Q: What is the thing you like doing most?
A: O My Soul by Big Star
"Come on, you know it's alright/we've got all night/you're driving me mad." Make of that what you will.

Q: The song that best describes the president?
A: Earlier Than Expected by The Posies
This is a song about a child being born prematurely, so I'm dubious about how it fits the question -- although "Prepare, prevent, defend, define now" has kind of a Homeland Security ring to it.

Q: Where will you be in 10 years?
A: What Holds The World Together by American Music Club
One of my favorite songs of all time. This answer suggests that I'll be very much where I am right now. (All things considered, there could be worse responses.)

"Land ahoy -- I fill my weak lungs with this joy
Dizzy on the deck... I hope I last until we land
With an envelope burning a hole in my hand
Bearing the names of the winners who walked away
From the games that the slaves love to play
To replace the air and the sea
Leaving you no way to fly to me..."

Q: Your love life right now?
A: Numbered Days by The Meeting Places
Uh oh. I don't think I like this answer. Can I try again? "Hey, I'm nothing by myself..."

Q: What is your state of mind like at the moment?
A: Deserter by Early Day Miners
"Everything you chase/is empty without faith..." That's funny, in a really depressing way.

Q: How will you die?
A: Me & My Lover by Matthew Ryan
No surprises here: TheWife will kill me. Thank you! Good night!

(p.s. Tag: you're it.)

11:19 AM | Permalink

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Comments

Just don't blame me if TheWife kills you.

Some excellent answers there.

Posted by: Darren | February 29, 2008 at 12:26 PM

Oh, how I enjoy the Cowboy Junkies.

It alarms me to think of how many times KidzBop tracks and the "Cha Cha Slide" would come up on my iPod as I pondered my life.

Posted by: foradifferentkindofgirl | March 01, 2008 at 12:32 AM

Heh heh. I'll try to get to this later in the week.

Posted by: Jim/The Velvet Blog | March 04, 2008 at 11:16 AM

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Do You Hear What I Hear?

Aereogramme: My Heart Has a Wish That You Would Not Go
I never would have expected that my son would start demanding that I intersperse repeated playings of Ra Ra Riot's debut with a song called "A Conscious Life for Coma Boy," but that's what Aerogramme has brought to my life: a realization that my kid loves intricately layered, thematically complex music as much as I do. Or, at least, that he loves singing "I don't know how to get there... I don't know how to get there" right along with me. In any case, Aerogramme is a terrific Scots band who I only recently discovered - despite the fact they broke up several years ago - and this album, their finale, is as solid a summary of their appeal as you'll find: drama-saturated musicianship with arresting lyrics and gorgeous vocals that comes thisclose to going over the top... but ends up being just spectacular instead.
Sunn O))): Black One
I'm not sure how to describe this other than to say that it is, quite simply, the most nightmarish soundscape I've ever encountered, or want to encounter. In the most tremendously dark, disturbing and unhealthy sense possible, this is a remarkable accomplishment.
Mono: Hymn to the Immortal Wind
I know it's only May, but I have no doubt that this is a strong contender for the best album of 2009: a staggeringly emotional and powerful work that fuses the epic guitar spiral of Explosions in the Sky at their best with great symphonic washes and impeccable sense of drama of Sigur Ros. Yes, it's Japanese post-rock. Yes, there are no vocals. Yes, it's probably outside of most people's comfort zone. And yes: it really is so good that none of that matters in the least.
Tom Verlaine: Flash Light
God, I'd forgotten how much I love this album. Yes, the cover is horrifying - maybe not quite Mew/And the Glass Handed Kites horrifying, but awful nonetheless - but the music inside encompasses what may be the single best compendium of songwriting and guitar playing Tom Verlaine ever created. Which, I realize, is heresy: "Ohhh, Television... you can't say the first Television album isn't a classic of edgy 70s NY rock and the twin-guitar blahblahblah." Yeah, well: to be honest, I find Marquee Moon a little on the dull side. But Flash Light? Wow. The album moves from strength to strength, integrating his supple guitar playing with fantastic lyrics and the most emotive vocals Verlaine ever recorded. The high points: "Song" and "The Scientist Writes A Letter" -- both of which are as odd, poignant and lovely as any love songs I've encountered. Outstanding... and no, I can't believe I waited this long to finally pick it up on CD.
Mark Kozelek: The Finally LP
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Reading is Fundamental

Graham Roumieu: Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir
Pure, naked, hairy genius. By turns hysterically funny and surprisingly sad, this episodic autobiography of everyone's favorite cryptohominid is accompanied by moving and frequently distressing drawings (Bigfoot attempting a creepy Tom Cruise smile is one of my favorites), as well as first-person recollections of his struggles with fame, his search for his father, and his time on the Japanese sumo circuit. This is beyond highly recommended. (Special thanks to FADKOG for making this a part of my life.)
Michael Gates Gill: How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else
A mom at my girls' preschool lent me this book, and I have to say that 80pgs in... I'm hating this guy like there's no tomorrow. "Oh, I had a bigtime advertising job that I lucked into because of my Yalie connections and kept for years because of the old boys club atmosphere and I was a complete racist and sexist snob the entire time I was doing it but when agencies started getting lean and mean they realized I was completely redundant so they canned my ass - the nerve! - and then I reacted by cheating on my wife and having a baby (despite the fact that I completely ignored my other 3 kids while they were kids) with my mistress, who then decided she couldn't stand me and left (not long after my wife kicked me out)... so I ended up so desperate and alone that I took a job at Starbucks, where I was the only white employee and I learned: hey, I don't have to be scared of minorities and dismissive of people who aren't privy to the country club lifestyle. And now I'm all sensitive and shit." Fucking jackass. P.S. He may have made his living for decades as a copywriter, but given the hack quality of his writing here... I'm stunned he lasted as long as he did.
Mo Hayder: The Devil of Nanking
In 1937, Japanese soldiers invaded the Chinese city of Nanking and proceeded to unleash a host of atrocities that claimed more than 300,000 civilian lives. This true, historical event forms the backdrop for this fascinating and frequently disturbing novel. Switching back and forth between a diary describing the events of 1937 with the story of an unbalanced British woman trying to uncover the truth of Nanking in modern-day Toyko, Hayder keeps you riveted and repulsed and completely unable to put the book down. (As is true of all Hayder books: NOT for the faint of heart.)
Suzanne Finnamore: Split: A Memoir of Divorce
Wow. Just... wow. In the opening chapter of Split - Finnamore's third memoir - her husband comes home, changes his shirt, throws back a couple of martinis, then announces that he wants a divorce. What follows is her dissection of life after the apocalypse: each brief chapter renders in beautiful, razor-cut detail a snapshot of this new, unwanted life, presented in unflinching detail and with a profoundly dark and bitter sense of humor that leaves me cackling far more often than is probably appropriate or healthy. Finnamore's debut "Otherwise Engaged" was one of the best books I've read in years, and "Split" - incredibly - lives up to that standard. I repeat, with all due force and persuasive intent: wow.
Iain Banks: Complicity
Banks does some interesting things in this novel, where he parallels the journeys, misdeeds and misadventures of a muckracking Scottish investigative journalist with those of a brutal serial killer, whose chosen victims seem to mirror those targeted in diatribes by the journalist in question. Are killer and journalist one and the same? The title of the novel is key, as Banks makes it clear that by virtue of both the great and terrible things we do in life, we are all complicit and responsible for the events that result, ripple outward and fall away across the years. Ultimately, I think I'm appreciating this more as a conceptual exercise than enjoying it as a novel, but still: that's something.