Rah Rah Oooh La La

I know - you're sick of the song. Everyone's sick of the song. At last count, "Bad Romance" had 230,000,000 views on YouTube - more than two-thirds of the entire population of the United States. But - this blog is about songs that get in your head and try as you may - you can't get them out.

I should first say that I was not a fan of Lady Gaga before "Bad Romance." I saw her as having far more style over substance. But then after hearing "Bad Romance," I couldn't help but think - this is the perfect pop song for our age. It's a pop song that couldn't have come out at an earlier time, even though technology-wise, anyone could have easily made this song after 1995.

The song's zeitgest appeal comes from its ability to weave so many pop elements into one moment. You have the inescapable pop chorus that comes with some of the best pop music. You have a Missy Elliott-like freakout midway through when the lyrics switch to French, and those lyrics. Seriously, for a moment pretend "Bad Romance" doesn't exist and you come across some random lyrics. "I want your ugly / I want your disease." "I want your love / all your love is revenge / You and me could write a bad romance." Sounds like early Cure to me.

Perhaps most important of all is that for all its eye-popping "wow", "Bad Romance" contains the signature element of all great pop songs: an air of ache tucked in its sweet exterior. Bands like The Beach Boys, The Replacements and Big Star have made some of the prettiest songs in rock, but a read from their lyric sheet reveals a person with a newly-broken heart. Distilled, "Bad Romance" is about the age-old problem of falling in love with someone you shouldn't be falling in love with. Who can't relate to that?

Your Velvet Heaven.

The chilling vocals of Dave Gahan and the eerie synthetic instrumentals merge to manufacture one of the greatest songs that everyones' playlist has at least played a couple good hundred times.

Originally Composition of Sound, this one band will always be the public guilty pleasure that I will find myself listening to. Sure, call me the gothic boy from NJ because I listen to Depeche Mode and The Cure. Go ahead, but I also listen to other bands like London After Midnight, Stabbing Westward, Gravity Kills --- oh, I just proved your point. Well, let's counterbalance that with the fact that I'm also a Clash, Dire Straits, Relient K, Skillet, Jimmy Eat World, and a ton more of other bands that aren't gothic/stoic/etc.

So what makes Depeche Mode's "Only When I Lose Myself" so pretty special? The eerie reality that it brings to the listener. It's a song about someone you shouldn't love but you do. It's a song about that person you want to forget but you cannot bring yourself to. It's about loving someone who is out of bounds. It's love at its truest form.

I think Depeche Mode knows the definition of love in this song so perfectly well. This song is about love, taking all the associated risks involved with love, losing control, and giving yourself to another person. Sure that simples but you cannot always try to be in control of everything; including who your heart goes out to. Depeche Mode recognizes that part of this song perfectly well and then adds in another part that makes this song even more amazing; the fact that there is a complete happiness when you fall into this hypnotizing state. It's like you're giving up all control and happiness should be the exact opposite feeling that you're experience but yet, for some reason, you're fine with it all.

I can feel the emptiness inside me fade & disappear

There's a feeling of content that now you are here

I feel satisfied

I belong inside

Your velvet heaven

It's those moments like this that make life worth living for. The eeriness of this song is hypnotic; like you're paralyzed by the trance of the songs meaning. 

I'm not in love at the moment. But it's an experience I believe I had a couple times before and hope to share again. Will I? Hopefully. Will you? It's something to aim for.  And so should you with this sensual song. 

Also, watch the video! 

WARNING: Tangent ahead. 

So what brought on this lovey dovey stuff today? I put on Depeche Mode on my iTunes and got a couple remixes of this song and decided to listen to all of them since each remix/remake/etc captures this message. 

Truth be told: I'm feeling very very Oingo Boingo!  

That's How It Starts...

I'm reading JR Moehringer's astoundingly good The Tender Bar right now. It's the story of a young man whose father abandoned him. In addition to his strong and loving mother, he found refuge in the unlikeliest of places: a bar in Manhasset, New Jersey. The regulars (most all male) taught JR the lessons in life that would have normally come from a father. As the product of a single-parent environment, the book obviously strikes a chord. What's more astounding is that Moehringer, despite some horrendous economic hardships, managed to snag a scholarship to Yale and eventually graduated.

It's the sumer. I should be attempting to read Infinite Jest or try to plod through a Norman Mailer book. As a journalist, I've been told repeatedly by English professors that journalism is disposable and on a lower level than literature. If it's easy to read, then it's not challenging and somehow, that lowers its status. But as a journalist, you're taught to shape your story so that a person with an eighth grade education can easy grasp your story. To me, if you can make a high school dropout understand an article about nuclear waste disposal, you've done your job.

The best type of journalism reverts back to storytelling. And not by coincidence, so does some of the best songwriting. I'll concede that Kurt Cobain was a good songwriter. As was Elliott Smith. But there's something transcendent when a song unfolds like a novella. Be it Jarvis Cocker's story of a school age boy's crush on a girl who doesn't feel the same way, some of Nick Cave's Biblical-focused songs or John Prine's goofy anecdotes.

For today's song, it's James Murphy's (LCD Soundsystem) "All My Friends". Its themes of futilely halt the advancement of age have been addressed in countless other songs. But few songs have been able to encapsulate the feeling, the moment, in such a concise way.

The song begins with a simple piano chord that repeats through the six-minute duration of the song. Eventually, a few other instruments show up, mainly drums. Then Murphy says "That's how it starts / we go back to your house."

Like a great writer, Murphy is guiding the listener through the song, setting up some noticeable landmarks.

About a third of the way through, Murphy sings:

You spend the first five years trying to get with the plan / And the next five years trying to be with your friends again

But friends come and go. Some friends you outgrow. Other friends mature faster than your pace. Others are home with their newborns. And the pace keeps accelerating.

You drop the first ten years just as fast as you can / And the next ten people trying to be polite

Finally, Murphy repeats

Where are your friends tonight?

If I could see all my friends tonight

The topic and the ache of trying to recapture a moment that cannot be replicated sounds depressing, and on paper, it is. But the music continues, building up to an amazing finish. Getting old isn't pretty, but in this case, Murphy makes the mess sound triumphant.

Summer of '89

Kind of of back. Kind of not back. Just trying to figure out somethings. I know I owe a 65daysofstatic post but this song really hit me today. Like really hit me out of nowhere. I was listening to some Angels and Airwaves and this song popped up. I figured I'd listen to it but it turns out it's not an Angels and Airwaves song but an error with the meta tagging. Still an awesome song for the summer time and worth listening to. I think we can all go back to this era.

Great lyrics and generic rock sound but just the perfect summer sound. I'll be checking into this band now!