The English Geek

Making Happy, Music Edition

My parents didn't set an awesome musical example for my sisters and me. Kenny Rogers, Roger Whittaker, Barbara Mandrell. Actually, when I stop to think about it, I'm not sure my mom cared about music at all. My dad did, though; he was a stereophile before they invented the term. At Christmas he'd play the Christmas records of all his favorites, and even then, even at eight or nine, I'd roll my eyes and yearn for something a little more cool. It's a miracle I didn't grow up to be a country-music fan (although two of my sisters did; I do still love them but have been known to gently tease them, too).

Thank goodness some of my favorite musicians have at least one Christmas song for me to track down.

I'll confess: I've bought an entire Christmas CD just to get one song by a musician I love. (Like the nearly-completely horrid Kevin & Bean KROQ CD I bought---used, at least---just so I could have Tori Amos singing "Little Drummer Boy" on my Christmas playlist.) Of course, downloadable MP3s have made this process easier. As has the fact that Sarah M. has a Christmas CD, and then there are the bits and pieces I've found on the Very Special Christmas anthologies, and there's the Barenaked Ladies CD, and I also love the Celtic Women (who don't really fit, but whatever: It's MY Christmas playlist!)

So when I discovered, completely by accident in Walmart, that Tori Amos has a Christmas CD, I purchased it without delay. Without even doing any sort of price comparison! It's been getting fairly heavy rotation since I bought it. I don't love every song on the CD (the song "Pink and Glitter" could not be more annoying to me; when Haley heard it---playing on the stereo in the kitchen---she said "what kind of a weird song is this?), but that's OK, because most of the songs are perfect. What draws me most to Tori Amos's music is her lyrics; she has a knack for an elegant metaphor, a skill at dropping obtuse references that makes me shiver a little bit (in a good way, as in, for example, "Don't Make Me Come to Vegas"---not, obviously, on the Christmas CD---which has this lyric: don't make me pull him out of your head/Athena will attest/that it could be done and yeah: happy shiver), and a way of stringing words together that makes me think we could be friends.

So I didn't really expect her Christmas CD to just be singing the same songs everyone else sings, and I was right. Most of the traditional carols she sings are reinterpreted. In "Star of Wonder," for example, the wisemen speak: "some say we have been in exile/What we need is solar fire." Or "Coventry Carol" (a carol I both love and detest, because it puts you right into the Herod's raging) which has a sort of pre-song introduction thing. What works with the songs is that they sound like a Christmas carol should sound. Except also with the Tori-Amos sound. The new songs (written by her) do, too. "Winter's Carol" is my favorite.

It is, like the rest of my Christmas music, happy making.

Just for fun, the rest of my listen-to-all-December list:

Wintersong by Sarah McLachlan (I love, love her version of "What Child is This?" and "River" and "First Noel" and...well, the entire CD)

Celtic Women (Especially The Carol of the Bells, which is my favorite carol ever)

Joy by Jewel (I think her version of "Joy to the World" is perfect)

and these individual, long-sought-for songs:
Winter Wonderland, Jason Mraz
New York Christmas, Rob Thomas
Little Drummer Boy, Tori Amos (NOT on the new CD...this was the hardest one to find, but worth it as it gives me chills)
Winter Wonderland, Eurythmics
The Coventry Carol, Allison Moyet (Again: chills, even more than the Tori version)
Christmas Day, Dido
I Saw Three Ships, Sting (although I wonder every time I sing along: didn't the writers of Olde English ballads know that Bethlehem is, ummm, landlocked?)
Children Go Where I Send Thee, Natalie Merchant
O Holy Night, Traci Chapman
Oi to the World, No Doubt (This is Kaleb's favorite Christmas song, which never fails to crack me up)
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, Sarah McLachlan (not on Wintersong)
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Barenaked Ladies & Sarah M.
The Night Before Christmas, Carly Simon
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, The Pretenders

One of the perks of being a grown up is that I have forgiven my parents for their musical sins. Haley, I'm pretty certain, thinks that most of my music comes straight from the musical garbage heap, which I think is my bad juju for mocking Dad over his Country Christmas Allstars record. It's a good thing, listening to Christmas music your own way.

Now if I could just get over feeling guilty for failing to provide a constant stream of MoTab all December, all would be peaceful and bright.

What's on your Christmas playlist?

PS: writing about music is HARD. Unless you, the reader, has heard the song I am writing about, none of this matters. Must learn more about writing about music!
 

U2

"I know it would be totally expensive," our friend Steve asked us a few weeks ago, "but if you had the chance, would you see U2 in concert?"

I didn't hesitate with my answer. "Only if they agreed to only play music they wrote before 1990. Nothing that came after 'Achtung Baby.'" Because old U2? SO GOOD. The new U2? I can't stand it. I mean---I love that they have transcended their 80s fan base, that twenty years later they're still going strong. I think Bono's great and it does cheer me up to hear his voice on the radio, even if I hate the song. The U2 concept? Great stuff.

But the new music?

Stinks, in my opinion. It all sounds the same. Big arena rock. No longer intimate. But I thought about Steve's question, and I've been trying. I've been listening to their newer CDs. I have developed an affection for some of the songs. "Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own" and "Miracle Drug" are OK. "Walk On" is good, and I can confess to loving "In A Little While." (Who couldn't love a lyric that goes "when the night takes a deep breath, and the daylight has no end"?)

I think a large chunk of my resistance is the emotional connection I have to the old U2 songs. They're not just songs; they're an aural representation of my feelings. I don't just listen to them, I feel them. (And, less I sound like an absolute U2 fanatic, it's not just U2's music that holds those feelings for me.) At the senior end of my 30somethings, I don't define myself with music quite so much anymore. I've moved beyond the days when a song's lyrics were all I needed to explain how I felt. So it's probably not about the quality of the new U2 music. It's probably more about me.

But I'm not 100% on that last statement, either. U2 just isn't an edgy band anymore. (Ironic, yes, considering they still have their Edge?) They're not angry and victorious and torn apart anymore. They're not raw. And I suppose it's unfair of me to expect my favorite bands to remain rooted in rawness while I settle for middle-aged complacency. But I won't stop wishing Bono et all could still write songs like "Bad" and "In God's Country," "One Tree Hill" and "Dancing Barefoot." "Spanish Eyes." "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Not to mention my personal favorite U2 song, "Running to Stand Still," which I loved even before life taught me exactly what it meant.

"But you went to The Police concert last summer," Steve argued back. He's right. But I wouldn't have gone to a Sting concert. I went to The Police because it was The Police, in all their moody 80s glory. A little spot of time travel. They wouldn't play any of their new stuff because they don't have any new stuff. I went to reconnect, which I couldn't do at a U2 concert.

Unless they promised to play "Running." I think I'd still pay to see that one performed live. Maybe.

(And now I'm going to quit hesitating over the "save" button, and just post this thing. I'm not sure if it will make sense to anyone but me! But...if you, too, are a U2 fan---what's your favorite?)

The Police: A Concert Review of Sorts

This summer marks the 20-year anniversary of my friend Chris and I meeting. Something far larger than me made sure we were in the same group at our telemarketing jobs, and we became instant friends—kindred spirits, you might say. She was one of my adolescent years’ biggest blessings; it is hard to explain what she means to me. Like no one else in my group of high-school friends, she had my back. She knew me and loved me and even took care of me when I was at my most unlovable phase. She is the keeper of all my past secrets. But we don’t get to see each other enough, now that we’re all grown up. So when the chance came up—even though I felt guilty about leaving my kids for the night—I went to The Police concert with her.

And I am so glad I did.

Because going to a concert like that reminds me of how it felt to be my old self. The scents of beer, cigarette smoke, bodies, warm grass, surrounded by pieces of conversation and laughter, and then the music: a sensory time-machine that made me remember things I forgot I had forgotten. I kept thinking that everyone else should be there, not just me and Chris, but all the friends I had sloughed off of me through processes of betrayal and back-stabbing. In between the opening act (Elvis Costello, who did a cool version of "Allison" with Sting himself) and the main event, we set off to find the bathrooms but instead actually did discover an old friend, Jennifer. If Chris is the keeper of my old secrets, then Jenn is the keeper of my hardest self. During our senior year Jenn and I were always together (Chris was working in Maryland as a nanny then), rebellious and angry and stupid. I made many life-changing decisions that year, and the Amy Jenn knew was almost nothing like the Amy I am now.

Jenn and I both nearly cried when we saw each other. Maybe we both felt the same way: that the other held memories that almost no one else does. What I wanted the reunion to feel like was equal, three old friends comparing life stories. A scene from a book. Instead I felt vaguely ashamed of my current existence, the smallness of a small-town librarian and mother. What happened to all that fiery ambition we both used to have? She’d done something with hers (ad-agency employee approving press passes and doing other glamorous things), but it was hard to confess I still haven’t managed to accomplish much. Plus, she’s still rail-thin (she always was) while I am...well, not.

After Chris and I said good-bye to Jenn (with promises of keeping in touch) and finally made it to the bathroom, I found myself thinking about that Amy I used to be, the one whose environment was founded in rebellion-as-religion. My greatest contempt was for people who seemed to be pretending. (Still is, really.) And yet, standing there surrounded by ghosts, dancing a bit to "Message in a Bottle," I wondered: when was I pretending? Was my down-with-church, vodka-drinking self who I really am? Or is it the person I am now, trying to live my religion and be a good mother, feeling guilty over not achieving housewifery-goddesshood? They are two nearly black-and-white different versions of myself, and I’m not sure which is the authentic one.

But what I did decide: I wasn’t ever pretending when it came to music. That is the truest face of my goth-girl incarnation, loving good music. How many concerts have Chris and I gone to together? Erasure and Boingo and Depeche Mode and INXS and Book of Love. Jenn and I, too: PIL, Peter Murphy, Ministry at the Speedway Café. I still listen to a ton of the same music I listened to at 17, or to musicians who were influenced by those bands. It wasn’t until the first encore, though, that I remembered just exactly what I loved most about The Police: their song "King of Pain." When they played it, another mini time-travel machine shoved me back to my despondent adolescent nights, when my soul really did feel like a black spot caught up there. It is good, despite my unsurity of authenticity, to no longer feel that black despair.

Twenty years ago, when Chris and I went to see Erasure together, going to a concert wasn’t just about the music. It was also about keeping an eye out for spottings of The Boy (the one you loved beyond reason or hope), or perhaps even sitting with him for a few minutes and feeling that never-to-be-repeated feeling of pure, hormone-edged adoration; about illegal substances snuck into the concert in the hidden inner pockets of leather jackets; about wild abandon. Now, of course, it’s about hanging out with old friends and telling yourself you deserve an evening away, worrying about traffic afterwards, checking the cell phone for missed calls from the kids. And about old friendships themselves, how they carry that unseen bundle of memory and old selves. How they matter as much because of the past as of the present. But it’s still about the music, how it weaves, somehow, around nearly every one of those old memories and old selves. Along with Chris, it was music I took with me from that Amy version, and I am glad to have both.

I Need to Pick Your (musical) Brain!

So. I'm rebuilding my MP3 playlist, as my dumb little MP3 player (we officially Do Not Believe in Mac Products---iPods included---in this house) was not very happy, and its unhappiness---expressed by randomly shutting itself off every three minutes or so---was affecting my running. Anyway. As I've been shuffling through all the tons of music I have on my computer, I have started to see this trend. *I* think I have great taste in music, of course, but my tastes seem to run towards the slightly...well, I've dubbed it "lyrical" music. (The DH calls it something else.) It's great for almost everything I do. But I want something fast, upbeat, and energetic to dump onto my (hopefully-happy-now) player, to entertain me while I'm running.

That's where the picking of your brain comes in. I (and my MP3 player and my wanting-to-be-useful running muscles) would be ever-so-grateful to any of you blog readers who'd be kind enough to suggest some tunes. What are your favorite fast, upbeat, and/or energetic songs (that are not rap, or country, or overly annoying)? Or, if you're a runner/hiker/biker/elipitical-trainer-er/whatever who listens to music (even on an iPod!) while you're exercising, what's on your playlist?

My quads thank you.

Rewind

The radio station I listened to for about 35% of my adolescent years (45% of the time was given to listening to tapes; do the math and that leaves about 15% of my life left over to silence), KJQ, would, early on Sunday mornings, play an album that was going to be released later that week. My friend Jennifer and I spent many nights up late, waiting to hear that week's album. Bauhaus, Depeche Mode, the Cure, the Pixies, REM, Love & Rockets, the Cult, Xymox, Peter Murphy---some of the albums that influenced my very way of thinking and feeling, I heard first at about two a.m. on a Sunday morning. Jenn's stereo was way better than mine, so she'd always tape the program while we listened, so we could hear the songs again, up until we could finally buy an official copy. (I still have most of those tapes in a box downstairs, which is silly since I don't even own a tape player anymore, but I can't bear to get rid of them---they really wouldn't mean anything to anyone but me.)

I found myself remembering those album previews tonight, while I was making dinner. (Crispy chicken, homemade mac 'n cheese, and mixed veggies if you were curious!) I had the radio on, and they were doing a review of the new REM CD, the one that is supposed to sound (finally!) like the old REM. That idea was something the DJ discussed quite often: whether or not the new songs sounded like the old REM, the band we all loved when we were young and the band was young. Even a few of the people who called in to comment on the CD discussed whether or not the band achieved their old sound.

In between making bread crumbs, cleaning up raw chicken, moderating arguments between kiddos, and fielding about ten phone calls from Kendell, I didn't get to hear much of the CD. What I did hear, I liked, and I even thought it did sound a bit like old REM. But what I found myself caring about more than the music was the idea of a band sounding like it used to. I think having that desire is less about the band itself and more about wanting to feel like you felt when you first heard their music. And I don't think that's something you can ever really achieve. In a way, we end up loving the music or albums out of pure coincidence; they enter our lives when we're experiencing something and then end up jiving with that emotion. We become attached to that band because they resonate with who we are at that moment.

Take Jenn and me, and our primitive 80's method of downloading songs (lol...those taped copies were always so scratchy). I don't think I'll ever feel the way I did when we first listened to Peter Murphy's Deep, when I was just on the cusp of my last big rebellion, and starting to maybe settle down a bit, and staring down the barrel of my life's biggest heartache so far. When I listen to that album now---and just for old time's sake, I've got "Cuts You Up" playing as I write---the way it felt to be that version of myself comes rushing back.

But I've stopped wanting old bands to sound like they used to. I don't want the emotions to get muddied, for one thing---every time I listen to, say, Music for the Masses, I want to remember how it felt during the summer I was 16 and I listened to it for the first time. If I were to buy a new Depeche Mode album, I want it to remind me why I love the band---but I don't want it to sound exactly the same. A new album from an old band needs to be about both memory and new experience, but not in equal doses, for me to want to listen to it. It needs to create some new emotional resonance. And it's also that I am not the same person, and neither are they; the band is obviously going to come to their creativity from a different mindset with each album. They are going to evolve, and sometimes I am going to resonate with that evolution. And sometimes not.

So, yeah: I'll confess to bemoaning the fact that the current U2 sounds nothing like the U2 I love. But then, I'm not the girl who listened to Lani Pickering's copy of The Unforgettable Fire until the tape quite literally broke, either. But I'm also able to separate the two bands: my U2 and someone else's. I'm starting to be able to let go of wanting to re-feel an emotion and to trust in the strength of memory. To not need a new REM CD to remember sitting in my bedroom and rewinding "Swan Swan H" over and over while waiting for a pebble to be flung against my window and wondering what happiness might be.