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February 21, 2006

How I Listen to Music

I'll be the first to admit -- I get into ruts. I like my ruts. My ruts are comforting. They're comfort food for my obsessive-compulsive disorder.

One way this shows up in my day-to-day life is the way I listen to music. I get a new disc or a new iTunes download (this blog does not publicly endorse the free download of music -- even though free music exchange and increased music sales seem correlated, and even though freely exchanging music is a wonderful way for bands to acquire new, fanatically-devoted fans). Then I listen to that disc or song. Over. And over. And over.

The repeat button is my friend.

I suspect that there are lots of people like me out there, but in this age of 60meg iPods, not listening to your entire CD collection seems somehow ... wrong.

My latest song addition/addiction is She Wants Revenge's latest single, "Tear You Apart." (Oh, did I mention that I like angry/depressed teenager music? Well, I do.) SWR isn't a particularly innovative band. The iTunes Music Store describes them as a mix of Joy Division, New Order, and The Cure. I find this particular song to be much more in line with Peter Murphy's dark delights. But this is beside the point.

How To Goth-Dance, Step 1: "[whips his hair back into place] Goth kids dance to express pain and suffering."*

The song is notable for its profanity. It seems to present the story of a disturbed (and weren't we all,really?) guy who is infatuated with a girl. The lyrics may be instructive, here:

Either way he wanted her and this was bad
He wanted to do things to her it was making him crazy
Now a little crush turned into a like
And now he wants to grab her by the hair and tell her

I want to hold you close
Skin pressed against me tight
Lie still, and close your eyes girl
So lovely, it feels so right

I want to hold you close
Soft breasts, beating heart
As I whisper in your ear
I want to fucking tear you apart

The song's title, "Tear You Apart," is of course, an abbreviated form of the final line in this excerpt, and the multivocality of the word "fucking" is crucial to its rhetorical impact. It's a true double entendre, as the word has to function as both a profane intensifier and as an indication of sexual acts. That's the crux of the "sex" problem for teens (heck, now it's probably only a problem for the Elementary School set... sigh) -- the drive toward sex is so insistent, so intense, so ... infuriating that the conjunction of sex and violence seems inherent to the desire itself. Sex drove Natalie Wood mad in Splendor in the Grass. Those painful feelings have to come out somehow.

How To Goth-Dance, Step 2: "The only cool way to dance is to keep your hands at your sides and your eyes looking at the ground. Then every three seconds you take a drag from your cigarette. [leans his head to the right for two beats, leans it to the left for two beats, leans it to the right for two beats while taking a drag, leans it to the left for two beats, repeats.]"*

I like this song because I miss Peter Murphy (and that whole angry/distanced/depressing genre), because I think "Tear You Apart" is really trying to say something about teen lust/frustration, and because it makes me think of South Park.

As the quotes and images above show, goth dancing is really the only appropriate response to She Wants Revenge's "Tear You Apart." But it gets even better. Check out these lines from the lyrics:

Wanna make out and kiss hard, wait nevermind

Late night, in passing, metioned it flip to her
bestfriend, it's no thing, maybe it slipped
but the slip turns to terror and the crush to like
when she walked in he throws up, believes it's the fright

One of the more amusingly disgusting recurring gags (pun intended) in the first several seasons of South Park involves Stan Marsh's conflicted feelings for Wendy Testaburger. As with the subject of "Tear You Apart," when Stan sees Wendy, his desire for her and his fear of her (she is a girl, after all, and Stan is an 8-year-old boy) cause him to throw up. Often directly on her.

Now, the almighty Internet is itself conflicted on the issue of the "Tear You Apart" boy's unfortunate purgation. Of the top 5 Google search results for the song's lyrics, A-to-Z Lyrics, Lyrics Mania, and N1 Lyrics all report the line as: "when she walked in he froze up, leaves it to fright."

However, Only Lyrics, Lyrics and Songs, and -- most importantly -- my lovely "Sing That iTune!" widget all go with the "throw up" interpretation.

Besides, I like the "throw-up" version better. And that's what really important when I'm listening to music.

As an aside, while working on this post -- a little bit last night (when I thought it was going to be a 4-line quickie post), a little bit this morning after prepping for teaching today's classes (on Aristotle's Poetics), and then in brief snatches this afternoon in between students dropping in on my office hours (lots and lots of students, for a welcome change) -- I've been listening to "Tear You Apart." It's really helped me get and stay in the posting mood. It's also helped me get to the point where I can move on to my next song obsession.

The early leader seems to be The Sighs' "Think About Soul," which I was pointed at by the excellent Stereojoe.**

Used to think that I would never be the fool again
Then I realized my limited defense
Close my eyes
I'm never going back again
Change my mind
But now I only think about soul

And so the cycle begins again...

* -- All quotes about goth dancing come from South Park, episode 8.04 - "You Got F'd In The A." You can read the script here.

** -- Although The Black-Eyed Peas are gaining rapidly on The Sighs. "My Humps" is coming up quickly from behind, so to speak...

Posted by reparent at February 21, 2006 6:48 PM