27 July 2010
Stevie Wonder - Jungle Fever
The Great Jungle Fever Conundrum
I’m not sure when this phenomenon took place in my brain. I know the movie, which incidentally I have never seen, came out in 1991. Oddly enough, googling the song will turn up more Carlton Banks references than movie or song references.
Here is the mystery: using the right syntax and timing, you can turn any occurrence in the known universe that you wish to tell anyone about into the chorus of the song Jungle Fever. I have been singing this to myself for years. At least once a day something will happen in my universe and it turns into Jungle Fever. I finally let this musically fortuitous happenstance known to a few friends and I have been torturing them ever since with its usage. I am impervious to it's annoyance and steadfastness. Most are not. It's a total mindfuck. Like one of those "cannot be unseen" memes.
For example:
I am using blogger.
I am using blogger.
I am using blogger.
It. Is. Great.
See? Try it for yourself.
I know you can do it.
I know you can do it.
I know you can do it.
Try. It. Now.
I don’t know why this works or why once it happens even once in your brain, it sticks forever. It just does.
Cat’s out of the bag, fever’s out of the jungle, welcome to hell.
20 July 2010
Kate Bush - King Of The Mountain
I have cultivated many seemingly useless talents. I have taught myself how to gloss over pain and to pick myself up from heartbreak. I have an extraordinarily keen sense of impermanence. I understand my mortality. I know all too well how to appreciate the people in my life and the things that I see, love and do beyond the capabilities that most people can possibly logically comprehend. I understand beauty, love, blood, pain, death, life, faith, fear, exhilaration, and passion on a manic poet’s level. This is my blessing / This is my curse. It propels me recklessly forward; all day, every day. It causes me to crack under the pressure sometimes. It finds me only being able to relate to dead poets and rock stars; hiding in my bed for days when it all gets too overwhelming. It also brings me to tears when I am too full of love for things most people ignore; a beautiful bird on an otherwise ordinary tree, witnessing kindnesses between strangers, the right note in the right song, being at the right place at the right time, the sunrise/the sunset, itching the right spot, meeting the right person, childrens' faces, ice cream cones and ladybugs. There is so much that the majority of most humans take for granted, that i have somehow convinced myself Someone has to Appreciate it or it will all be for nothing. I believe I have taught myself how to be overwhelmed with beauty. I have taught myself how to not filter out the majesty and velocity of my little lifetime. How lucky I am! Lucky me, lucky mud!
Sometimes I find myself replaying seemingly insignificant experiences that wouldn’t make it into a single paragraph of my life’s story because there literally was no meaning, it was just a beautiful moment; it happened, I appreciated being alive to experience it, the experience stayed with me. these memories come and go; the way a certain shadow fell across the sidewalk one morning as I was walking in to work one day and I never saw it again – where did it come from? A beautiful mystery. Trying on a dress in the Kmart changing room with my mother when I was 6 years old – I do not remember the dress, I remember the feeling of the terry cloth on my stomach and the perfume my mother was wearing; White Shoulders… there are certain moments I can remember very consciously saying to myself “I am alive. No one on earth has ever had this experience and I got lucky enough to be the one to feel it and best of all, acknowledge the gift of being able to recognize how lucky I am to be here.” …Standing on the lawn front of my Granny’s house the day of her funeral and seeing the first few snowflakes fall; holding my best friend’s child for the first time; lying on my back in the grass and watching the clouds roll by – anytime, ever. I relive them, I replay them, I relish them, I appreciate them.
Oscar said: “Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the arts that have influenced us. To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty.”
One such memory that is slightly significant but is not, is somehow backhandedly related to this song. For my 30th birthday in 2007, I was given the gift of travel by my parents. I went to France (Paris, specifically) for an extended solo soul search. It was the greatest and most beautiful experience of my life. There are many moments that meant nothing which mean everything, that I replay over and over; Taking the wrong metro stop exit and coming out of the tube into a department store. Sitting in front of a café in the Pigalle whilst sipping a Franziskaner and listening to a man sing Cat Stevens with a thick French accent, watching graffiti roll by on the train from the 18th to the 7th arrondissements, bread, the sound of a car with its stereo blasting rolling down my little Rue Blanche in the middle of the night…
I, at the time of my travel, did not have an ipod. I knew music was going to play a very significant part of this experience, as I would be alone. I scavenged what I could and had a debacle of ipod buying drama back and forth on ebay. I tried purchasing an ipod 3 different times, all 3 were worthless and had to be returned, until 2 days before I was to leave, I convinced my friend to let me borrow his 6GB ipod to take with. I very specifically remember my dad picking my up at my apartment to take me to the airport and I was still trying to load just the right songs onto it. He was standing at the door, hollering for me to come on and I was still syncing…
Very specific albums and artists went on that trip with me to Paris; I spent a day in the Pere Lachaise with Debussy, he kept watch while I cried over Oscar’s grave. Tom Waits and I had a lovely evening on the Pont Neuf, watching lovers and rollerbladers by streetlight. Aimee Mann and I rekindled our romance in the Tuileries and traded lighters with a homeless man. Mel Tormé and I had a lovely lunch with Dave Eggers by the Louvre… Kate Bush and I went to Normandy on a pilgrimage.
I spent the entire time I was in France, basically in the city, except for one day when I fulfilled a lifelong-ish dream to visit the Mont St Michel. I left my room at 5am and got to the tour group office and climbed on the bus. It took us 4 hours or so to get from the City to Avranches. Along the way, somewhere around Caen we stopped at a truck stop type location for everyone to stretch and fuel up. I listened to Aerial over and over on the way up. The ethereal simplicity and descriptiveness of the ordinary turned extraordinary; it fit this dream day for me so well. I was listening to "King of the Mountain" the first moment I could see the abbey, it was breathtaking and filled me in a way little has before or since.
The truck stop, which could have been in Alabama or Maryland - it was that non-descript, sold amazing French coffees and tshirts and was like a travel mecca. I remember buying some kit-kat bar-esque candy bar and a coke. I went outside to wait for the rest of my group and have a smoke. I was sitting on a picnic table, my feet on the bench, shivering a little, staring at nothing; feeling lucky to be alive. Another bus pulls into the lot and a flood of children fly into the truck stop. There is a group of chaperones with the group, most likely on a field trip. A man, probably in his early 40s and probably a teacher, follows to the door and stops at the picnic table with me. He was wearing a tweed jacket with suede elbow patches. He had a red plaid thermos. He climbs onto the picnic table with me and lights a smoke. He opens the thermos and takes two small plastic cups out of his jacket pocket and fills them both, handing me one. I didn't think twice and took it from his hands. Why not? He turns to me and says (in French) “You are a student?” and I said “I am a pilgrim.” (I swear I did. Paris turned me into an idiot/poetry junky) and he said “let us drink to that!” and he handed me one of the cups. He said something like “this is the best coffee I have ever brewed in my life. How lucky I get to share it with someone on a spiritual quest.” And we sipped our coffee and watched the traffic roll by for a few minutes until my group began to load onto the bus. I handed his cup back to him and said thank you for the coffee. We shook hands I got onto the bus.
Later that day I climbed the 900 steps to the top of the abbey and stood on stones 2000 years old and let myself be completely overwhelmed with beauty and luck as I stared out into the ancient sea.
14 July 2010
The Rolling Stones - You Can't Always Get What You Want
Delicious irony: this is a sneaky U2 post.
I was 14 years old when U2’s ZooTV tour began in Lakeland, Florida. I had held my breath and scrimped allowance for months in anticipation. Dates were announced and there was no show close enough for me to figure out a 14 year old way to attend. I was miserable, overdramatic; throwing myself around on furniture, crying, like I do. This only fueled more angsty candlelit poetry. (One day I will dig out the box with all this mess in it and transcribe some for you, as much as I talk about it. writing on my hand right now, in fact.) MTV was blown up with footage and chatter and News Breaks about the tour. I was wild with desperation to see them. To just be in the same room. Anything!
The now country, then local classic rock radio station, 106.1, announced a contest. Be the 16th caller and you would win tickets to see the boys in Hampton, Virginia on March 7th. This prize also included transportation to and from the show. Was this a sign from God? My only problem, a way to get there, could be rectified. It was 5 days before the show, which was on a Saturday. Somehow I either convinced my parents that I had to be home that day to try and win or I faked sick, I don’t remember. All I know is on Monday I stayed home sick from school and sat in the bed with my phone on one side and my radio on the other. I don’t really remember walking to the bathroom, eating, anything; just waiting.
The “game” was that the station would play the first little “Yeaaaah!” from the Man at the beginning of Desire. After you heard this, you called. If you were caller 16, you win the tickets and the trip. I remember calling the station at least 3 times during the day asking if it was going to be soon. They of course offered no hints. So I waited.
Sometime around 7pm, while I was sitting on the floor in front of my bookcase, phone on the right, radio on the left. After every song finished, I laid my hand on the phone and waited. Suddenly there it was. The “Yeeeahhhh!” ...My hand went right to the phone and started hitting redial. My heart was pounding out of my chest. The song they played right after was The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” I could hear it vaguely in the background; mostly I was only hearing my own heartbeat in my ears and the constant fast beep of the busy signal. I just remember hitting redial, hanging up, hitting redial, hanging up. It seemed like forever. There came a point where I decided there was just literally no way it could go on this long and I thought “Oh God, just one more time. PLEASE.” and I hit redial. It rang. I jumped to my feet. I started pacing. This was the conversation:
“106.1!”
“WHATCALLERAMI?”
“I’m sorry?”
“WHATCALLERAMI? WHATCALLERAMI?”
“Oh, I’m sorry babe. ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, you know…”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
“Hey, Hey, ‘But if you try sometimes, you just might get what you need. YOU’RE CALLER 16!!!!!!!”
*Falls on knees to the floor, hyperventilating.* “R-r-r-really?”
“YEAH! You got it!”
*says nothing because is crying and hyperventilating.*
“You ok over there? should we send an ambulance??”
“YOU CAN SEND THE BUS TO SEE U2 RIGHT NOW OH MY GOD AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
“HELL YES!!!”
So, yes. I won. It was the very first time I got to see the boys. My dad drove my friend Brian (who was my main U2 influence,) to the radio station that Saturday morning to get on the bus. I was 14, Brian was 15. In retrospect, my parents are kinda super-awesome to let me go that far, unchaperoned with a boy, to a rock show. It was everything I hoped it would be and more. I bought a tour program that I’ve re-read more than any stupid piece of literature in the world. I kept the ticket stub and stickers and other paraphernalia in the tour program. That night (sometime after 3 in the morning!) after we got home I took out a sheet of notebook paper and wrote out a list. I entitled it “THINGS I WILL NEVER EVER FORGET ABOUT THIS NIGHT.” I will find this list. I will scan it. also being written on the hand right now. This list included such things as "BP Fallon sitting in the Trabant", "Black Francis Screaming", "Guy dressed like the fly wandering around the coliseum freaking me out", "Drunk guy on the bus singing the 'hoo hooooo!'s from BAD over and over again on the way home."
I’ve never in the past almost 20 years heard this song without thinking of this story and the magic it stirs in my heart. it reminds me of good luck.
06 July 2010
Morrissey - The More You Ignore me The Closer I Get
I am now a central part of your mind’s landscape, whether you care or do not... I've made up your mind!
Everyone is born with special skills. Some people can turn somersaults or play the trumpet. Some people can speak clearly and make themselves understood and some people can write music. My special skill that God seemed apt to fit me with is that I have an uncanny ability to push people past their point of comfortability, causing them to throw up their hands and walk away from me. I’ve always been good at forcing people to shut me out. If I could, I would put it on my resume. I push someone so hard to get what I want, that when I don’t get it, I self destruct and force the object of my demands into a corner. It is a skill I have perfected so keenly that I don’t even realize I am doing it anymore.
Vauxhall and I came out in 1994. It is literally the soundtrack to my senior year in high school. I am a huge U2 fan, obviously, but its Morrissey tattoos that cover my arms. This man, he understands the darkness, dislocation and despondency in me more than Bono ever could. There is the sadness and surrender inside me that U2 could never touch. Sometimes I need to revel in it; sometimes I need to lie down in the mud pit of my depression and wallow around. Senior year is about the time when I finally started to realize my limitations and see all too clearly my future of loneliness to come. All my friends had boyfriends and I’d never even been on a date or barely been kissed. I didn’t let myself care when I was around other people, but I would come home at night and I would lie in my bed and dream as hard as I could. Any man that comes into my life at this point has a good 20-24 years of expectations and fantasies to contend with. How could anyone live up to it?
What happens: I have an idea of a perfect love in my head, the love doesn’t come to fruition, something in me feels like I’ve suffered enough pain and rejection in my life to get what I deserve. I don’t get it, I get obstinate, I fight back. The person who didn’t want me in the first place eventually shuts me completely out and has to ignore me forever because I can't give up. The rejection, rather than teaching me a lesson strengthens the resolve. If only I had the same tenacity for something that actually made sense or helped anyone.
Beware !
I bear more grudges than lonely high court judges
When you sleep, I will creep into your thoughts like a bad debt that you can't pay
Take the easy way and give in
IT’S WAR
The stupid thing is here, I know I do it. It’s never worked, it will never work. I’ve just been doing it for so long that I don’t know how to do anything else. I’ve expected and felt like I have a god given right to have magic and miracles. I feel like I am owed. My best friend tries over and over to teach and tell me that I can’t expect any sort of reward for kindness. I know better. Whether I allow myself to believe I am expecting it or not, which I usually do not, I can always look back and realize I always have. In two weeks I will be 33 years old. I have never been loved the way I know I deserve. I have been close, but I have always pushed. I am really good at ruining golden opportunities with outlandish expectations.
Today I realize I am more comfortable being ignored and forgotten than being strung along by my own hope. Nothing anyone else can say or do will erase the undertaking of my task and the memories of my pain. Moz understands this, the fight for my reward. One day someone is going to come along and want to deal with this mess. And If they don’t, I’ll always have my Moz. You seriously have to have gone through the amount of pain, rejection and disappointment in your life to the extremity that I have to understand and appreciate Moz. this is why I have no friends that "get" him. I guess that's a good thing; that i don't have any friends that have suffered the way i have and that i have chosen such upbeat groovy people to be my friends.
When I hear this song I am 16, I am setting a resolve in stone. I am angry at the world for not knowing how amazing I am and how much I deserve. Sometimes I think "wow, I must be a really strong person to have been through so much heartbreak and disappointment!" mostly i think, especially when i am down like i am today, "when am i going to finally going to just give up?" ... times like this are when i listen to the most Morrissey.
NOTE: the soundtrack to the past 2 weeks of my life as of this moment can be found here.
Why did you give me so much desire when there is nowhere I can go to offload this desire?
And why did you give me so much love in a loveless world when there's no one I can turn to to unlock all this love?
And why did you stick me in self-deprecating bones and skin? Jesus- do you hate me?
Why did you stick me in self-deprecating bones and skin?
do you hate me?
do you hate me?
do you hate me?
do you hate me?
do you hate me?
This turned into a much more personal and emo livejournal type entry than is less typical for this blog. sorry.
Everyone is born with special skills. Some people can turn somersaults or play the trumpet. Some people can speak clearly and make themselves understood and some people can write music. My special skill that God seemed apt to fit me with is that I have an uncanny ability to push people past their point of comfortability, causing them to throw up their hands and walk away from me. I’ve always been good at forcing people to shut me out. If I could, I would put it on my resume. I push someone so hard to get what I want, that when I don’t get it, I self destruct and force the object of my demands into a corner. It is a skill I have perfected so keenly that I don’t even realize I am doing it anymore.
Vauxhall and I came out in 1994. It is literally the soundtrack to my senior year in high school. I am a huge U2 fan, obviously, but its Morrissey tattoos that cover my arms. This man, he understands the darkness, dislocation and despondency in me more than Bono ever could. There is the sadness and surrender inside me that U2 could never touch. Sometimes I need to revel in it; sometimes I need to lie down in the mud pit of my depression and wallow around. Senior year is about the time when I finally started to realize my limitations and see all too clearly my future of loneliness to come. All my friends had boyfriends and I’d never even been on a date or barely been kissed. I didn’t let myself care when I was around other people, but I would come home at night and I would lie in my bed and dream as hard as I could. Any man that comes into my life at this point has a good 20-24 years of expectations and fantasies to contend with. How could anyone live up to it?
What happens: I have an idea of a perfect love in my head, the love doesn’t come to fruition, something in me feels like I’ve suffered enough pain and rejection in my life to get what I deserve. I don’t get it, I get obstinate, I fight back. The person who didn’t want me in the first place eventually shuts me completely out and has to ignore me forever because I can't give up. The rejection, rather than teaching me a lesson strengthens the resolve. If only I had the same tenacity for something that actually made sense or helped anyone.
Beware !
I bear more grudges than lonely high court judges
When you sleep, I will creep into your thoughts like a bad debt that you can't pay
Take the easy way and give in
IT’S WAR
The stupid thing is here, I know I do it. It’s never worked, it will never work. I’ve just been doing it for so long that I don’t know how to do anything else. I’ve expected and felt like I have a god given right to have magic and miracles. I feel like I am owed. My best friend tries over and over to teach and tell me that I can’t expect any sort of reward for kindness. I know better. Whether I allow myself to believe I am expecting it or not, which I usually do not, I can always look back and realize I always have. In two weeks I will be 33 years old. I have never been loved the way I know I deserve. I have been close, but I have always pushed. I am really good at ruining golden opportunities with outlandish expectations.
Today I realize I am more comfortable being ignored and forgotten than being strung along by my own hope. Nothing anyone else can say or do will erase the undertaking of my task and the memories of my pain. Moz understands this, the fight for my reward. One day someone is going to come along and want to deal with this mess. And If they don’t, I’ll always have my Moz. You seriously have to have gone through the amount of pain, rejection and disappointment in your life to the extremity that I have to understand and appreciate Moz. this is why I have no friends that "get" him. I guess that's a good thing; that i don't have any friends that have suffered the way i have and that i have chosen such upbeat groovy people to be my friends.
When I hear this song I am 16, I am setting a resolve in stone. I am angry at the world for not knowing how amazing I am and how much I deserve. Sometimes I think "wow, I must be a really strong person to have been through so much heartbreak and disappointment!" mostly i think, especially when i am down like i am today, "when am i going to finally going to just give up?" ... times like this are when i listen to the most Morrissey.
NOTE: the soundtrack to the past 2 weeks of my life as of this moment can be found here.
Why did you give me so much desire when there is nowhere I can go to offload this desire?
And why did you give me so much love in a loveless world when there's no one I can turn to to unlock all this love?
And why did you stick me in self-deprecating bones and skin? Jesus- do you hate me?
Why did you stick me in self-deprecating bones and skin?
do you hate me?
do you hate me?
do you hate me?
do you hate me?
do you hate me?
This turned into a much more personal and emo livejournal type entry than is less typical for this blog. sorry.
01 July 2010
The Greatest and Best Blog Post I Ever Posted
This is going to be a doozy, folks. hold on.
Those who know me and have known me for any length of time know two distinctly defining facts about me: I am the biggest U2 fan on the planet other than maybe the band’s actual family and it is next to impossible to listen to any two or three songs in a row without me having a story or trivia fact about one of them, not only U2 songs. Very often, when any two or three U2 songs are played in a row, I am most likely telling you a story and a fact about all three. Then I probably get choked up and cry because the story is so intensely personal to me.
This oral regurgitation of self validation through having deeply connected memories to songs is how I relate to the world. I use music to say the things I cannot and do not know how to say. One of the reasons I am such a huge U2 fan is because these boys have said the clearest and most frequently accurate things I’ve ever wanted to say. I think there is only one U2 memory posted so far in this blog, but if I allowed it to happen; every other post would be about a U2 song. I try and refrain.
I was walking back from the capitol building today and feeling pretty low. There are many things in the world wrong right now for me. My heart, my faith, my finances, my friendships, my health; everything is just a little bit off. I’m feeling like if just the wrong Jenga piece is moved my whole life is going to come crashing down, so it’s a very delicate balancing act for me at the moment. I was drawing nearer to my office and the song “Last Night on Earth” from the Pop album came on my iPod. I remembered things, how bad life could be for me, if I let it get that low, and how in comparison this is a cake walk. Then I started thinking of all the U2 songs that could fill this blog if I let them. U2 songs are my band-aids for life. They are good for what ails me. They are always my cure-all.
Then I started thinking about my “Bono Stalks Me” theory and laughed. This is all in fun, to an extent. But if you are close enough to me for me to tell you some real heavy shit and the right U2 song happens to come on the radio, you will hear all about this theory. I thought about breaking this entry down into individual songs, but I think one big Epic “Bono Stalks Me” post will suffice; get all the hilarity out at once. And by hilarity, I mean TOTAL SERIOUSNESS.
The theory is this: Since the release of Achtung Baby, Bono has secretly stalked me and written one strikingly perfectly specific song for me on each album as a secret message to not give up and to remind me I am on the right path… or something like that. On Each album, including Achtung, there has been at least one song that is so profoundly appropriate for whatever I am going through or have just gone through in my life, that it makes me think that Bono either has spies, reads my livejournal, or is my father somehow (this is my fav. explanation. This is why when I see The Man on TV and such I yell, “Oh, Daddy!”).
I shall now break down for you by album the specific songs that were special gifts just for me. (A few of my friends [basically only summer and J9] and my brother have heard this list before. Please know that 99% of this is for fun. The other 1% believes in that kind of magic, of course. The sincerity of the deep meaning these songs have for me is most definitely there. And now through the power of supposed anonymity, I will share with you! )
THE FLY
I have told the story in 100 different ways about how I found The Boys. A kid in church, Brian, was one of my life long besties and I thought I had a crush on him. He tells me about this new album he’s rocking out so hard to; I of course immediately go buy it. I see Mysterious Ways about 1,000 times on MTV and fall head over heels. 1991: I am 13. I spend the next few months in a haze, my brain expanding to this sound. I’m also going through puberty, so I’m highly susceptible to suggestion. I rush home every day after school to lock myself in my room with my stereo blasting and I burn candles and write bad 13 year old poetry. I start doubting everything I am doing because I am fat and awkward and I can’t get boys to pay attention to me, but I am an artist. I am a writer. Look at how smart I am and what exceptional taste I have! I start to realize that the majority of the kids around me are beneath me intellectually, aesthetically, spiritually, existentially, and emotionally. On every level. I find one or two kids I connect with, I fiercely cling to them. I start to understand art for art’s sake and the joy of aphorisms.
This is the first of the stalking songs, so it came up slowly. I didn’t recognize it at first. The most important lesson we (I) can take from this song is one very significant line “Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief” – art is art, it is all resurrected and regurgitated and it is what it is. I start checking out Mapplethorpe and Warhol and Yeats. I fall helplessly in love with Oscar Wilde, Morrissey, and Siouxsie Sioux. I start accepting new levels of absurdity and profundity. My vocabulary expands, I buy fly shades, I swagger, and I start caring less and less about what people think and more about expressing myself at every possible turn. There's a lot of things, if I could I'd rearrange.
The FACTS: I remember reading an interview in Rolling Stone (I think) where Bono said this song was “the sound of four men chopping down a Joshua Tree.” The B-Side to this single, Alex Descends Into Hell for a Bottle of Milk / KOROVA 1 still remains to this day one of the most fucked-up and mind blowing things I’ve ever heard. I still play it for a select few and say “GUESS WHO THIS IS YOU WILL NEVER GUESS!!1!!11” Then I laugh about how it was on the stupid damn Johnny Mnemonic Soundtrack (Oh brother.) One day, before I had my driver’s license, obviously, I sat down with my vcr, a frame by frame remote (dad had bought some fancy thing) and my VHS copy of Live from Sydney and literally wrote down every word and phrase that came across the screens during this song. (Note to the universe: Where is this hat and why can’t I have this hat? Or at least a reasonable reproduction.) This song also has the world’s best guitar solo and this cannot be denied under penalty of law. Edge also makes the world’s sexiest faces in this video. (See mins 2:25 and 4:12 – HOLY GOD. WANT TO TOOCH.) I have spent years looking for edge's necklace from this video. i bought a bedazzler SPECIFICALLY to make those pants. I fell so helplessly in love with this band i want to look and act and feel and sound just like them. Practically every fashion decision I've made since 1991 had been in direct correlation to Bono. I love and appreciate men so much i want to look like them, in general. I sometimes wonder how the hell I'm not a lesbian.
OTHER ACHTUNG NOTABLE MENTIONS:
Trying to throw your arms around the world: my brother bought twelve’s for the trunk of his Prelude SPECIFICALLY for the bass on this song. This is one of the reasons why I love my brother so much. It was literally the first song we listened to with them.
Zoo Station: I am virtually incapable of hearing the opening of this song and not time traveling to March 7, 1992 at the Hampton Coliseum.
Ultraviolet: this is a spinning song (note, turn volume on left video all the way up, turn volume on the right all the way down. welcome to my brain.) I have a hard time not spinning when I hear this song. I have spun to this song more than any other song. I think I've explained the spinning in this blog before.
Acrobat: very much one of my very fav songs by the boys. It is beyond me at this juncture to explain why.
DADDY’S GONNA PAY FOR YOUR CRASHED CAR
There are two very distinct levels of awesomeness for me with this song.
First, the easy one: The glitter devil. The rise of MacPhisto; excess, temptation and gold lamé. After seeing Sydney on Pay-per-view (yes I paid $40 to watch a u2 concert on TV and THEN bought the vhs, THEN the DVD) and witnessing the backstage transition of the Man into the Devil, the mind she was blown. I was totally corrupted by this persona. I dressed as him for Halloween that year and have had a hard time talking myself out of dressing like him every year since. People who are heavy duty U2 fans have a strangely deep affinity for this character, me included. He is the personification of all things extravagantly glamorous in the age of the Zoo.
There is a lot of …debate about the true meaning of this song. Could be as simple as a dad always bailing his kid out. Lots of people believe since the live version is preceded by the serenade from the spacebaby singing the Red Army version of La Rocher Sur La Volga, it has something to do with the fall of the Berlin wall or something political. Lots of people believe it has something to do with drug addiction.
For me personally, it’s a little bit from column A and Column C. Zooropa came out in 93. I was still in high school, and this song was always a fav, but it didn’t dawn on me that it was written for me until much later, after I had left home for college and was on my own for the first time in my life. After I had dove head first into the world of panic disorder and insomnia. (More on this part when we get to Pop.) I was a daddy’s girl my whole life. My dad, even now bails me out when I need him. I can take this song very literally. Or I can work the interpretation skills and read into how dependent I became on benzodiazepines and psychotropic medications when I dropped out and came home to Raleigh. I started out on Prozac and then went into Imipramine for my panic attacks, which were, at this time, on a pretty constant basis. At least two or three a day. If I missed a dose, I was “a baby's fist”. Sometimes I think Bono/MacPhisto mocks me with this song, but it doesn’t in any way impede me from believing it wasn’t specifically written for me.
OTHER ZOOROPA MENTIONABLES:
Numb: a close second. See above mentioned psychotropic medication addiction.
Dirty Day: inexplicably one of my most favorite U2 songs, as well. For years if I am in the right mood, I can listen to this song and lose my shit.
LAST NIGHT ON EARTH
Oh my, it’s so hard to choose the ONE song on Pop that speaks to me on the deepest level. I have another personal journal I’ve kept online for many years (I’ve made mention of it here before) and have had many a tirade or confessional session about the Boys. One of the biggest mindfucks in the world for me was the transition from Pop to ATYCLB. I have SUCH an issue with it. Pop, to me, was probably the pinnacle of “how far can we push it and people still think we’re sane” U2machine. This is a concept I can get down with. An excerpt from the other journal, 10/27/04:
“So Achtung Baby... brilliant fucking album. After rattle and hum, who knew this is what you would get next? This craziness! This randomness! The awesome outlandishness of it all. The excess and ultimate beauty of ZooTV. No one knew where it was coming from, but most of us who understood, just held on for the ride and the album, well, just fucking rocked. Then came Zooropa. This was one step closer to the pure, virginal future of rock music. This album was getting so close to the band u2 was destined to be. Some amazing tracks. Amazing! I didn't think they could surpass what they did with some of the songs on that album. Then came POP.
The band has gotten some crap for pop. People didn't understand it, didn't want to take the time to learn it. Here it is, years later and I still discover new things about it all the time. And one thing I do know is that POP is the album that u2 was destined to create. If you listen to songs like mofo or please... god. I don't even know how to describe. Epic, amazing, perfect. These are the songs that is what rock music was supposed to become. This was the album that was supposed to change everything we believed about pop music. The fullness and ingenuity of each song. After hearing pop the first few times, I already couldn't wait to see where the hell they were going to take us next. Every album was consistently getting more and more outrageous, unbelievable, silkysmooth... the next album should've blown us out of the water. ..."MoFo...to me, that's a reason to go out and play live, that song." Bono 1997
but then came "all that you can’t leave behind". On its own, a good album. Some really great songs. A couple. Yes. But this is the album that should've been the bridge between rattle and hum and Achtung Baby. The first time I heard it all the way through, I knew it. I knew they had taken a step back. That they had taken just a little too much criticism for pop, an album 90% of the population wasn't ready for. So they tried to remake Joshua tree. Or write a follow up album to it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great album, I just think they didn't follow the path they were meant to.”
I think I can pretty much still completely agree with this. (PS- looky here for completely unrelated fun.)
The thing people also like to forget that two of the most amazing songs in the universe were released as singles between Zooropa and POP: Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me (deserves its own post soon) and Miss Sarajevo (ditto). Two songs from entirely different planets. Then you suddenly get this single, “Discothèque” and it’s like … "What the hell? Is he srsly singing about bubble gum? Ok yes, let’s do this now." We know how it goes, they release that first goofy super exciting single first to get outsiders hooked then you buy the album for the mindblowers. (Vertigo? Numb? Sexy Boots? What? I wouldn’t release these songs as singles ever. But that’s me. I’m a snob.) I’m digressing so badly here. Sorry.
SO… Last night on earth.
I haven’t ever really made it a secret here or in real life to anyone who cares to listen. There are two really defining characteristics to me that I should probably be ashamed of but I wear like a scarlet letter with some sort of quirky pride. I have Panic disorder. I am a Christian (a really “technically” bad Christian, yes.) to run with the 30 something single hipster rock crowds and be totally down with talking about the Jesus, yes, this is shame worthy, and I only assume this because no one but me does it. I may be drunk and screwing a dude when I’m doing it, but I think He gets the general idea.
I was 14-ish when I had my first panic attack. It’s something I’ve struggled with my whole life. Most of the songs Bono writes for me have a lot to do with me conquering the fear or telling my story. This song, more so than any other song he has written for me, blows my mind in the most obvious sense. If I was doing this in importance order rather than chronological, this song would be #1.
So panic disorder. Most people who suffer from this disease turn into agoraphobics; avoiding specific situations, hiding in the house, turning into associated manic depressives. I will admit to going through phases of these behaviours, but I am so god damned stubborn. My sense of denial is unbelievably strong. I have spent years ‘forgetting’ that I am going to panic in very specific phobia-inducing situations. Or, I know I’m going to do it, and I don’t care. I test people, I push limits, but only because I expect so much of it out of myself. I will try anything once. I will fly anywhere, even though it’s the thing I hate and fear the most. Fuck it. How else am I going to get there?
While in college, I pushed so hard that I overloaded myself. I tested so many limits within a year or so period that I almost crippled myself with repressed anxiety. Basically, for about 4 months I stopped sleeping entirely. I was running and living as hard as I could because I knew so intently how quickly it could all be over. I drank, I smoked drugs, I fucked dudes, I went to parties, I wrote and read slam poetry, I took walks in scary neighborhoods alone in the middle of the night, I met strangers and wandered off with them, and I auditioned for shows and came home on the weekends. I literally convinced myself that if I fell asleep, I would die. That was how wild my brain was then. I would find myself passed out every once in a while in a computer lab or on a friend's couch or in the bed, etc and I would wake up utterly panicked, jump, and run. I wasted time. I lost however long that was when I could be experiencing life. (Someone somewhere is going to understand what this all means. If Bono did, someone else will, too.)
Years later, I came home, Pop came out, I heard this song and I listened to the story of the last 6 months I was at ECU. Every night I was living like it was the last night on earth. I was giving away everything I had because I understood how well possessions were unimportant. I was waiting at the bus stop any hour of the day or night to just ride or explore (I didn’t have a car in Greenville.) I knew I was living on borrowed time. Sometimes it’s hard for me to not still think like this, believe it or not. I go through phases. I listen to this song and I’m right back in it. It’s good and bad.
She hasn't been to bed in a week
She'll be dead soon then she'll sleep
POP honors:
MOFO is amazing. I listen to this song A LOT. It could possibly be the U2 song on my iPod with the highest play count, after Window in the Skies (le sigh!).
Staring at the Sun is my brother’s favorite U2 song. This baffles me as I would never have pegged him as an optimist. Ever, ever, ever. Every time I listen to this song at some point I will think about it being my bro’s fav and I’ll say out loud, “Really???”
WHEN I LOOK AT THE WORLD
I swear I almost want to claim the UK import and say “Ground Beneath Her Feet” is the song off this album for me. But that’s just not playing fair. (See previous album tirade for explanation of my exasperation with this album.) I can’t HATE this album; there are a couple real gems, but so many stinkers for me. If this album was a picture my kid did at school and I really hated it, I would STILL hang it on the fridge and be like, “Good job, buddy!” but then I’d hide in a drawer after a week while he’s taking a nap. Yes, I know Walk On is on the album. Sometimes I really like that song and it really touches my soul; most times I feel like I am being coddled.
Two songs save this album for me: WILATW and Grace. (Quickie on grace: I love the whole idea and concept of God’s Grace. Also I want to have a daughter and name her Grace one day. That’s all really.) However, When I look at the World: Somehow between the constant vigil of my own deathclock via my panic disorder and having the Grace of God in my heart at all times, I have managed to live my life with this ridiculously intense view of Love. I am the eternal optimist. Sometimes I get really down (if I have somehow been disappointed by the unrealized manifestations of my own expectations, for example) but the majority of my life is lived with the whole motto, “Love first, ask questions later.” This doesn’t always work out, but most of the time it does. People always need love. If you’re just going to smile at them in the drive-thru, donate a kidney, do dirty things to their bodies, or give them a new car, extra smoke or a damn quarter… always with love; consequences be damned. Life is too short and God is too good. I really hope that makes sense. My most favorite quote in the universe explains it pretty well. If you know me, I’ve referenced this same quote a million times. I love this little girl more than words can say:
“It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery, and death...and yet...I think...this cruelty will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.” - Annelies Marie Frank
This song is for me and Anne. I am so honored to share her name. Just got choked up here, time for a break…
MIRACLE DRUG
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes. Redemption. How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb is the album that should have come after Pop. I love to think of it as hard proof of the guys saying “My bad, here you go, this should make up for that mess.” and oh my it did. I have a tendency to say my favorite U2 album is “whatever one came out last” because that is the one I am listening to the most. I LOVE No Line on the Horizon. LOVE IT. But man, there is just something about HTDAAB that I WORSHIP. I listen to it probably more than any other album since it came out.
I have a tradition that I started with Pop. U2 new album release days, I take the entire day off work, go buy the actual disc at the store first thing and spend the day driving around, bonding (people, please do not underestimate my level of fandom here. I usually tell people "take the biggest fan of any band that you know, multiply that by 5, that's me with U2.) Usually there is a song or two that stops me dead in my tracks and I literally have to pull off the side of the road and cry my little heart out over. This is usually the Stalker song. For HTDAAB, that song is Miracle Drug. (note: the first BIG note in No Line on the Horizon, the actual song, i almost went off the road it hit me so hard... haha!)
Before I get into the Ego-aspects of the song, a few facts. The song was written about the Writer Christopher Nolan. As Bono says: “We all went to the same school and just as we were leaving, a fellow called Christopher Nolan arrived. He had been deprived of oxygen for two hours when he was born, so he was paraplegic. But his mother believed he could understand what was going on and used to teach him at home. Eventually, they discovered a drug that allowed him to move one muscle in his neck. So they attached this unicorn device to his forehead and he learned to type. And out of him came all these poems that he'd been storing up in his head. Then he put out a collection called Dam-Burst of Dreams, which won a load of awards and he went off to university and became a genius. All because of a mother's love and a medical breakthrough.” …Isn’t that beautiful? Also it’s one of the very very rare songs in which we get to hear Larry sing, always a bonus.
As for me, I’ve talked about my anxieties and how every album seems to have a “you can do it, keep going!” song for me on it. Miracle Drug is just about the most obvious of these songs. Around the time of the album’s release, I had finally found a prescription that made life bearable and the panic disappear for a while. This was called Effexor. I was on this SSRI for almost 3 years. It was my miracle drug. I eventually got off of this drug because I was just happy enough to not have any panic attacks, but then I was just happy enough to not face any consequences for my actions. It’s a delicate operation, but I eventually got to this place where I was like “ok I need to either accept this part of myself or repress it forever.” And life, friends and family intervened and I eventually went through a month of pretty serious cold turkey withdrawals. I’m happy to say without the occasional (mostly recreational) benzo and with the help of the most amazing therapist in the world, I’ve been daily med free since and have barely had any panic attacks in the past few years.
When I hear this song I hear Bono begging me to take a chance on life and take all this shit bulging out of my head and get it all down. This song is one of the reasons why this blog exists. It’s why all the journals are floating around the web and overflowing on my bookshelves. It’s why all the crappy-ish typographical art clutters my walls and I have a bazillion tumblr posts of nothing really significant to anyone else but me.
One of my favorite lyrics of all time:
“I am you and you are mine
Love makes nonsense of space
And time... will disappear
Love and logic keep us clear
Reason is on our side, Love!”
SO MANY MENTIONABLES ON THIS ALBUM!!!!
Vertigo: this song makes me speed. I have never been in the car with this song on that I don’t look down and see I am at least 20 mph over the speed limit.
Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own: first time I heard this song, I broke down. I know its Bono singing to his Da, but my brother and I both know it is my song to him. Also the video was filmed in the ambassador theater in Dublin, where I saw Morrissey in 2002. Also Bono is wearing a red shirt when that part happens. I like to think this is a secret message for me, as red is my favorite color.
Love and Peace or Else: I always think about this article in Blender mag before the album came out that said this song sounded like “Led Zeppelin playing Rockabilly in a dumpster.” I LOVE THAT LINE AND I’M SO MAD I DIDN’T COME UP WITH IT!
City of Blinding Lights: December 12, 2005. The second time I was with them. This was the first song they played. Magic. Favorite lyrics ever: “Blessings not just for the ones who kneel… Luckily!”
All Because of You: this song traumatizes me. The Bro and I have a joke. When we sing it (hard to grasp this one without audio, but try to follow,) we always sing, “All because of you!!! WROOOOOONG NOTE because of yoooou!” I hate that note. I love this song, I never skip it, but that is worst note in the history of all notes. I don't know if we were going for irony here, but how that one snuck past Lillywhite is beyond me.
Crumbs from Your Table: this is such an overtly political song but it has been my “fuck you why you gotta break my heart” song for ages now.
Yahweh: FUCK YES. (Please appreciate my ironic enthusiasm)
UNKNOWN CALLER
God. This album. It is prolific to me. It is like, ok if the Boys never released another one, if this was the last one I ever got, I think I would be ok with it. I honest to God don’t know how it could get any better than this. Unknown caller isn’t necessarily my *favorite* song on the album, but it is most definitely the one he stalked me HARDCORE to write for me. Like, it is effing EERIE with this one. Fav song on the album? Breathe... Come on now, let's not be silly.
This song is basically Bono letting me go. I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s like he is telling me that I can do it alone now. To briefly explain: I gave up the prescriptions and excuses and dove headfirst into a year of intensely effective Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I worked very hard to overcome a lot of demons and made serious progress with the help of the most amazing woman I’ve ever known with my best friend on the sidelines. At the end of the year, I was a completely different person. As a reward to myself for the progression and accomplishment, also as a gift for my 30th birthday, I went on a trip. My brother had gotten Lasik surgery for his 30th, my dad asked me if I wanted the same. I asked for a trip instead. My best friend being a travel agent and having a budget of about $3k, I did some quick thinking and made the decision to go where I knew my heart belonged all along: Paris.
In September of 2007 I packed up and left by myself to Paris. I was gone for a few weeks, I saw amazing things, I found my heart and left it there; I came back inspired and beautiful and always planning a way back. I never found a home like I found in Paris. I read back on my journal entries and look at the photos of that time and I miss it like a lover. My Toulouse-Lautrec, my Oscar, my Moulin, my Sacré-Cœur … There has never been one place where all the things I cherished the most were within walking distance. And I was all alone, I was free. Except apparently, Bono was watching.
I was lost between the midnight and the dawning
In a place of no consequence or company
3:33 when the numbers fell off the clock face
Speed-dialing with no signal at all
I was alone; I had no consequences for anything I chose to do while I was there. I had tentative plans yet always wandered off in the wrong direction and found treasures. Fuck it. I was jet lagged, my sleep schedule was whacked. The first night I slept in Paris I woke up sometime after 3 in the morning, spent a few minutes digging for my cell phone, deciding to call my parents. In my sleep daze I sat there completely baffled as to why the call wouldn’t go through. I suddenly remember I'm on the other side of the world and wandered down to the lobby and pay 2 Euros for a can of soda, which at the time was about $3. Honest to god, this really happened.
I was right there at the top of the bottom
On the edge of the known universe
Where I wanted to be
I had driven to the scene of the accident
And I sat there waiting for me
One of my last days. I went back up to the Basilique (my hotel was so close to it, I went several times.) the Sacré-Cœur, apart from the Eiffel Tower is one of the highest points in the city. I sat at the top part of the bottom escaliers. Not two hours later, I was sitting outside the Pont de l'Alma tunnel, crying my heart out for Diana and reading memorials. I made some sort of life decision to be a princess of humanity or something then. I flip flop on that, but I remember it vividly. I sat there for a long time. That was the day I *meant* to go the Pompadou but wound up at Shakespeare and Co (the only time i spoke English the whole time i was there!) and then sitting outside watching street musicians for the rest of the day.
Best. Day. Ever.
Restart and re-boot yourself
You're free to go
This was Bono basically telling me, here is your reward; Live long and prosper. Live every day like its Paris and Here is one more song just for you. How could he ever top this one?
Thanks, daddy. xoxox
Those who know me and have known me for any length of time know two distinctly defining facts about me: I am the biggest U2 fan on the planet other than maybe the band’s actual family and it is next to impossible to listen to any two or three songs in a row without me having a story or trivia fact about one of them, not only U2 songs. Very often, when any two or three U2 songs are played in a row, I am most likely telling you a story and a fact about all three. Then I probably get choked up and cry because the story is so intensely personal to me.
This oral regurgitation of self validation through having deeply connected memories to songs is how I relate to the world. I use music to say the things I cannot and do not know how to say. One of the reasons I am such a huge U2 fan is because these boys have said the clearest and most frequently accurate things I’ve ever wanted to say. I think there is only one U2 memory posted so far in this blog, but if I allowed it to happen; every other post would be about a U2 song. I try and refrain.
I was walking back from the capitol building today and feeling pretty low. There are many things in the world wrong right now for me. My heart, my faith, my finances, my friendships, my health; everything is just a little bit off. I’m feeling like if just the wrong Jenga piece is moved my whole life is going to come crashing down, so it’s a very delicate balancing act for me at the moment. I was drawing nearer to my office and the song “Last Night on Earth” from the Pop album came on my iPod. I remembered things, how bad life could be for me, if I let it get that low, and how in comparison this is a cake walk. Then I started thinking of all the U2 songs that could fill this blog if I let them. U2 songs are my band-aids for life. They are good for what ails me. They are always my cure-all.
Then I started thinking about my “Bono Stalks Me” theory and laughed. This is all in fun, to an extent. But if you are close enough to me for me to tell you some real heavy shit and the right U2 song happens to come on the radio, you will hear all about this theory. I thought about breaking this entry down into individual songs, but I think one big Epic “Bono Stalks Me” post will suffice; get all the hilarity out at once. And by hilarity, I mean TOTAL SERIOUSNESS.
The theory is this: Since the release of Achtung Baby, Bono has secretly stalked me and written one strikingly perfectly specific song for me on each album as a secret message to not give up and to remind me I am on the right path… or something like that. On Each album, including Achtung, there has been at least one song that is so profoundly appropriate for whatever I am going through or have just gone through in my life, that it makes me think that Bono either has spies, reads my livejournal, or is my father somehow (this is my fav. explanation. This is why when I see The Man on TV and such I yell, “Oh, Daddy!”).
I shall now break down for you by album the specific songs that were special gifts just for me. (A few of my friends [basically only summer and J9] and my brother have heard this list before. Please know that 99% of this is for fun. The other 1% believes in that kind of magic, of course. The sincerity of the deep meaning these songs have for me is most definitely there. And now through the power of supposed anonymity, I will share with you! )
THE FLY
I have told the story in 100 different ways about how I found The Boys. A kid in church, Brian, was one of my life long besties and I thought I had a crush on him. He tells me about this new album he’s rocking out so hard to; I of course immediately go buy it. I see Mysterious Ways about 1,000 times on MTV and fall head over heels. 1991: I am 13. I spend the next few months in a haze, my brain expanding to this sound. I’m also going through puberty, so I’m highly susceptible to suggestion. I rush home every day after school to lock myself in my room with my stereo blasting and I burn candles and write bad 13 year old poetry. I start doubting everything I am doing because I am fat and awkward and I can’t get boys to pay attention to me, but I am an artist. I am a writer. Look at how smart I am and what exceptional taste I have! I start to realize that the majority of the kids around me are beneath me intellectually, aesthetically, spiritually, existentially, and emotionally. On every level. I find one or two kids I connect with, I fiercely cling to them. I start to understand art for art’s sake and the joy of aphorisms.
This is the first of the stalking songs, so it came up slowly. I didn’t recognize it at first. The most important lesson we (I) can take from this song is one very significant line “Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief” – art is art, it is all resurrected and regurgitated and it is what it is. I start checking out Mapplethorpe and Warhol and Yeats. I fall helplessly in love with Oscar Wilde, Morrissey, and Siouxsie Sioux. I start accepting new levels of absurdity and profundity. My vocabulary expands, I buy fly shades, I swagger, and I start caring less and less about what people think and more about expressing myself at every possible turn. There's a lot of things, if I could I'd rearrange.
The FACTS: I remember reading an interview in Rolling Stone (I think) where Bono said this song was “the sound of four men chopping down a Joshua Tree.” The B-Side to this single, Alex Descends Into Hell for a Bottle of Milk / KOROVA 1 still remains to this day one of the most fucked-up and mind blowing things I’ve ever heard. I still play it for a select few and say “GUESS WHO THIS IS YOU WILL NEVER GUESS!!1!!11” Then I laugh about how it was on the stupid damn Johnny Mnemonic Soundtrack (Oh brother.) One day, before I had my driver’s license, obviously, I sat down with my vcr, a frame by frame remote (dad had bought some fancy thing) and my VHS copy of Live from Sydney and literally wrote down every word and phrase that came across the screens during this song. (Note to the universe: Where is this hat and why can’t I have this hat? Or at least a reasonable reproduction.) This song also has the world’s best guitar solo and this cannot be denied under penalty of law. Edge also makes the world’s sexiest faces in this video. (See mins 2:25 and 4:12 – HOLY GOD. WANT TO TOOCH.) I have spent years looking for edge's necklace from this video. i bought a bedazzler SPECIFICALLY to make those pants. I fell so helplessly in love with this band i want to look and act and feel and sound just like them. Practically every fashion decision I've made since 1991 had been in direct correlation to Bono. I love and appreciate men so much i want to look like them, in general. I sometimes wonder how the hell I'm not a lesbian.
OTHER ACHTUNG NOTABLE MENTIONS:
Trying to throw your arms around the world: my brother bought twelve’s for the trunk of his Prelude SPECIFICALLY for the bass on this song. This is one of the reasons why I love my brother so much. It was literally the first song we listened to with them.
Zoo Station: I am virtually incapable of hearing the opening of this song and not time traveling to March 7, 1992 at the Hampton Coliseum.
Ultraviolet: this is a spinning song (note, turn volume on left video all the way up, turn volume on the right all the way down. welcome to my brain.) I have a hard time not spinning when I hear this song. I have spun to this song more than any other song. I think I've explained the spinning in this blog before.
Acrobat: very much one of my very fav songs by the boys. It is beyond me at this juncture to explain why.
DADDY’S GONNA PAY FOR YOUR CRASHED CAR
There are two very distinct levels of awesomeness for me with this song.
First, the easy one: The glitter devil. The rise of MacPhisto; excess, temptation and gold lamé. After seeing Sydney on Pay-per-view (yes I paid $40 to watch a u2 concert on TV and THEN bought the vhs, THEN the DVD) and witnessing the backstage transition of the Man into the Devil, the mind she was blown. I was totally corrupted by this persona. I dressed as him for Halloween that year and have had a hard time talking myself out of dressing like him every year since. People who are heavy duty U2 fans have a strangely deep affinity for this character, me included. He is the personification of all things extravagantly glamorous in the age of the Zoo.
There is a lot of …debate about the true meaning of this song. Could be as simple as a dad always bailing his kid out. Lots of people believe since the live version is preceded by the serenade from the spacebaby singing the Red Army version of La Rocher Sur La Volga, it has something to do with the fall of the Berlin wall or something political. Lots of people believe it has something to do with drug addiction.
For me personally, it’s a little bit from column A and Column C. Zooropa came out in 93. I was still in high school, and this song was always a fav, but it didn’t dawn on me that it was written for me until much later, after I had left home for college and was on my own for the first time in my life. After I had dove head first into the world of panic disorder and insomnia. (More on this part when we get to Pop.) I was a daddy’s girl my whole life. My dad, even now bails me out when I need him. I can take this song very literally. Or I can work the interpretation skills and read into how dependent I became on benzodiazepines and psychotropic medications when I dropped out and came home to Raleigh. I started out on Prozac and then went into Imipramine for my panic attacks, which were, at this time, on a pretty constant basis. At least two or three a day. If I missed a dose, I was “a baby's fist”. Sometimes I think Bono/MacPhisto mocks me with this song, but it doesn’t in any way impede me from believing it wasn’t specifically written for me.
OTHER ZOOROPA MENTIONABLES:
Numb: a close second. See above mentioned psychotropic medication addiction.
Dirty Day: inexplicably one of my most favorite U2 songs, as well. For years if I am in the right mood, I can listen to this song and lose my shit.
LAST NIGHT ON EARTH
Oh my, it’s so hard to choose the ONE song on Pop that speaks to me on the deepest level. I have another personal journal I’ve kept online for many years (I’ve made mention of it here before) and have had many a tirade or confessional session about the Boys. One of the biggest mindfucks in the world for me was the transition from Pop to ATYCLB. I have SUCH an issue with it. Pop, to me, was probably the pinnacle of “how far can we push it and people still think we’re sane” U2machine. This is a concept I can get down with. An excerpt from the other journal, 10/27/04:
“So Achtung Baby... brilliant fucking album. After rattle and hum, who knew this is what you would get next? This craziness! This randomness! The awesome outlandishness of it all. The excess and ultimate beauty of ZooTV. No one knew where it was coming from, but most of us who understood, just held on for the ride and the album, well, just fucking rocked. Then came Zooropa. This was one step closer to the pure, virginal future of rock music. This album was getting so close to the band u2 was destined to be. Some amazing tracks. Amazing! I didn't think they could surpass what they did with some of the songs on that album. Then came POP.
The band has gotten some crap for pop. People didn't understand it, didn't want to take the time to learn it. Here it is, years later and I still discover new things about it all the time. And one thing I do know is that POP is the album that u2 was destined to create. If you listen to songs like mofo or please... god. I don't even know how to describe. Epic, amazing, perfect. These are the songs that is what rock music was supposed to become. This was the album that was supposed to change everything we believed about pop music. The fullness and ingenuity of each song. After hearing pop the first few times, I already couldn't wait to see where the hell they were going to take us next. Every album was consistently getting more and more outrageous, unbelievable, silkysmooth... the next album should've blown us out of the water. ..."MoFo...to me, that's a reason to go out and play live, that song." Bono 1997
but then came "all that you can’t leave behind". On its own, a good album. Some really great songs. A couple. Yes. But this is the album that should've been the bridge between rattle and hum and Achtung Baby. The first time I heard it all the way through, I knew it. I knew they had taken a step back. That they had taken just a little too much criticism for pop, an album 90% of the population wasn't ready for. So they tried to remake Joshua tree. Or write a follow up album to it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great album, I just think they didn't follow the path they were meant to.”
I think I can pretty much still completely agree with this. (PS- looky here for completely unrelated fun.)
The thing people also like to forget that two of the most amazing songs in the universe were released as singles between Zooropa and POP: Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me (deserves its own post soon) and Miss Sarajevo (ditto). Two songs from entirely different planets. Then you suddenly get this single, “Discothèque” and it’s like … "What the hell? Is he srsly singing about bubble gum? Ok yes, let’s do this now." We know how it goes, they release that first goofy super exciting single first to get outsiders hooked then you buy the album for the mindblowers. (Vertigo? Numb? Sexy Boots? What? I wouldn’t release these songs as singles ever. But that’s me. I’m a snob.) I’m digressing so badly here. Sorry.
SO… Last night on earth.
I haven’t ever really made it a secret here or in real life to anyone who cares to listen. There are two really defining characteristics to me that I should probably be ashamed of but I wear like a scarlet letter with some sort of quirky pride. I have Panic disorder. I am a Christian (a really “technically” bad Christian, yes.) to run with the 30 something single hipster rock crowds and be totally down with talking about the Jesus, yes, this is shame worthy, and I only assume this because no one but me does it. I may be drunk and screwing a dude when I’m doing it, but I think He gets the general idea.
I was 14-ish when I had my first panic attack. It’s something I’ve struggled with my whole life. Most of the songs Bono writes for me have a lot to do with me conquering the fear or telling my story. This song, more so than any other song he has written for me, blows my mind in the most obvious sense. If I was doing this in importance order rather than chronological, this song would be #1.
So panic disorder. Most people who suffer from this disease turn into agoraphobics; avoiding specific situations, hiding in the house, turning into associated manic depressives. I will admit to going through phases of these behaviours, but I am so god damned stubborn. My sense of denial is unbelievably strong. I have spent years ‘forgetting’ that I am going to panic in very specific phobia-inducing situations. Or, I know I’m going to do it, and I don’t care. I test people, I push limits, but only because I expect so much of it out of myself. I will try anything once. I will fly anywhere, even though it’s the thing I hate and fear the most. Fuck it. How else am I going to get there?
While in college, I pushed so hard that I overloaded myself. I tested so many limits within a year or so period that I almost crippled myself with repressed anxiety. Basically, for about 4 months I stopped sleeping entirely. I was running and living as hard as I could because I knew so intently how quickly it could all be over. I drank, I smoked drugs, I fucked dudes, I went to parties, I wrote and read slam poetry, I took walks in scary neighborhoods alone in the middle of the night, I met strangers and wandered off with them, and I auditioned for shows and came home on the weekends. I literally convinced myself that if I fell asleep, I would die. That was how wild my brain was then. I would find myself passed out every once in a while in a computer lab or on a friend's couch or in the bed, etc and I would wake up utterly panicked, jump, and run. I wasted time. I lost however long that was when I could be experiencing life. (Someone somewhere is going to understand what this all means. If Bono did, someone else will, too.)
Years later, I came home, Pop came out, I heard this song and I listened to the story of the last 6 months I was at ECU. Every night I was living like it was the last night on earth. I was giving away everything I had because I understood how well possessions were unimportant. I was waiting at the bus stop any hour of the day or night to just ride or explore (I didn’t have a car in Greenville.) I knew I was living on borrowed time. Sometimes it’s hard for me to not still think like this, believe it or not. I go through phases. I listen to this song and I’m right back in it. It’s good and bad.
She hasn't been to bed in a week
She'll be dead soon then she'll sleep
POP honors:
MOFO is amazing. I listen to this song A LOT. It could possibly be the U2 song on my iPod with the highest play count, after Window in the Skies (le sigh!).
Staring at the Sun is my brother’s favorite U2 song. This baffles me as I would never have pegged him as an optimist. Ever, ever, ever. Every time I listen to this song at some point I will think about it being my bro’s fav and I’ll say out loud, “Really???”
WHEN I LOOK AT THE WORLD
I swear I almost want to claim the UK import and say “Ground Beneath Her Feet” is the song off this album for me. But that’s just not playing fair. (See previous album tirade for explanation of my exasperation with this album.) I can’t HATE this album; there are a couple real gems, but so many stinkers for me. If this album was a picture my kid did at school and I really hated it, I would STILL hang it on the fridge and be like, “Good job, buddy!” but then I’d hide in a drawer after a week while he’s taking a nap. Yes, I know Walk On is on the album. Sometimes I really like that song and it really touches my soul; most times I feel like I am being coddled.
Two songs save this album for me: WILATW and Grace. (Quickie on grace: I love the whole idea and concept of God’s Grace. Also I want to have a daughter and name her Grace one day. That’s all really.) However, When I look at the World: Somehow between the constant vigil of my own deathclock via my panic disorder and having the Grace of God in my heart at all times, I have managed to live my life with this ridiculously intense view of Love. I am the eternal optimist. Sometimes I get really down (if I have somehow been disappointed by the unrealized manifestations of my own expectations, for example) but the majority of my life is lived with the whole motto, “Love first, ask questions later.” This doesn’t always work out, but most of the time it does. People always need love. If you’re just going to smile at them in the drive-thru, donate a kidney, do dirty things to their bodies, or give them a new car, extra smoke or a damn quarter… always with love; consequences be damned. Life is too short and God is too good. I really hope that makes sense. My most favorite quote in the universe explains it pretty well. If you know me, I’ve referenced this same quote a million times. I love this little girl more than words can say:
“It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery, and death...and yet...I think...this cruelty will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.” - Annelies Marie Frank
This song is for me and Anne. I am so honored to share her name. Just got choked up here, time for a break…
MIRACLE DRUG
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes. Redemption. How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb is the album that should have come after Pop. I love to think of it as hard proof of the guys saying “My bad, here you go, this should make up for that mess.” and oh my it did. I have a tendency to say my favorite U2 album is “whatever one came out last” because that is the one I am listening to the most. I LOVE No Line on the Horizon. LOVE IT. But man, there is just something about HTDAAB that I WORSHIP. I listen to it probably more than any other album since it came out.
I have a tradition that I started with Pop. U2 new album release days, I take the entire day off work, go buy the actual disc at the store first thing and spend the day driving around, bonding (people, please do not underestimate my level of fandom here. I usually tell people "take the biggest fan of any band that you know, multiply that by 5, that's me with U2.) Usually there is a song or two that stops me dead in my tracks and I literally have to pull off the side of the road and cry my little heart out over. This is usually the Stalker song. For HTDAAB, that song is Miracle Drug. (note: the first BIG note in No Line on the Horizon, the actual song, i almost went off the road it hit me so hard... haha!)
Before I get into the Ego-aspects of the song, a few facts. The song was written about the Writer Christopher Nolan. As Bono says: “We all went to the same school and just as we were leaving, a fellow called Christopher Nolan arrived. He had been deprived of oxygen for two hours when he was born, so he was paraplegic. But his mother believed he could understand what was going on and used to teach him at home. Eventually, they discovered a drug that allowed him to move one muscle in his neck. So they attached this unicorn device to his forehead and he learned to type. And out of him came all these poems that he'd been storing up in his head. Then he put out a collection called Dam-Burst of Dreams, which won a load of awards and he went off to university and became a genius. All because of a mother's love and a medical breakthrough.” …Isn’t that beautiful? Also it’s one of the very very rare songs in which we get to hear Larry sing, always a bonus.
As for me, I’ve talked about my anxieties and how every album seems to have a “you can do it, keep going!” song for me on it. Miracle Drug is just about the most obvious of these songs. Around the time of the album’s release, I had finally found a prescription that made life bearable and the panic disappear for a while. This was called Effexor. I was on this SSRI for almost 3 years. It was my miracle drug. I eventually got off of this drug because I was just happy enough to not have any panic attacks, but then I was just happy enough to not face any consequences for my actions. It’s a delicate operation, but I eventually got to this place where I was like “ok I need to either accept this part of myself or repress it forever.” And life, friends and family intervened and I eventually went through a month of pretty serious cold turkey withdrawals. I’m happy to say without the occasional (mostly recreational) benzo and with the help of the most amazing therapist in the world, I’ve been daily med free since and have barely had any panic attacks in the past few years.
When I hear this song I hear Bono begging me to take a chance on life and take all this shit bulging out of my head and get it all down. This song is one of the reasons why this blog exists. It’s why all the journals are floating around the web and overflowing on my bookshelves. It’s why all the crappy-ish typographical art clutters my walls and I have a bazillion tumblr posts of nothing really significant to anyone else but me.
One of my favorite lyrics of all time:
“I am you and you are mine
Love makes nonsense of space
And time... will disappear
Love and logic keep us clear
Reason is on our side, Love!”
SO MANY MENTIONABLES ON THIS ALBUM!!!!
Vertigo: this song makes me speed. I have never been in the car with this song on that I don’t look down and see I am at least 20 mph over the speed limit.
Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own: first time I heard this song, I broke down. I know its Bono singing to his Da, but my brother and I both know it is my song to him. Also the video was filmed in the ambassador theater in Dublin, where I saw Morrissey in 2002. Also Bono is wearing a red shirt when that part happens. I like to think this is a secret message for me, as red is my favorite color.
Love and Peace or Else: I always think about this article in Blender mag before the album came out that said this song sounded like “Led Zeppelin playing Rockabilly in a dumpster.” I LOVE THAT LINE AND I’M SO MAD I DIDN’T COME UP WITH IT!
City of Blinding Lights: December 12, 2005. The second time I was with them. This was the first song they played. Magic. Favorite lyrics ever: “Blessings not just for the ones who kneel… Luckily!”
All Because of You: this song traumatizes me. The Bro and I have a joke. When we sing it (hard to grasp this one without audio, but try to follow,) we always sing, “All because of you!!! WROOOOOONG NOTE because of yoooou!” I hate that note. I love this song, I never skip it, but that is worst note in the history of all notes. I don't know if we were going for irony here, but how that one snuck past Lillywhite is beyond me.
Crumbs from Your Table: this is such an overtly political song but it has been my “fuck you why you gotta break my heart” song for ages now.
Yahweh: FUCK YES. (Please appreciate my ironic enthusiasm)
UNKNOWN CALLER
God. This album. It is prolific to me. It is like, ok if the Boys never released another one, if this was the last one I ever got, I think I would be ok with it. I honest to God don’t know how it could get any better than this. Unknown caller isn’t necessarily my *favorite* song on the album, but it is most definitely the one he stalked me HARDCORE to write for me. Like, it is effing EERIE with this one. Fav song on the album? Breathe... Come on now, let's not be silly.
This song is basically Bono letting me go. I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s like he is telling me that I can do it alone now. To briefly explain: I gave up the prescriptions and excuses and dove headfirst into a year of intensely effective Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I worked very hard to overcome a lot of demons and made serious progress with the help of the most amazing woman I’ve ever known with my best friend on the sidelines. At the end of the year, I was a completely different person. As a reward to myself for the progression and accomplishment, also as a gift for my 30th birthday, I went on a trip. My brother had gotten Lasik surgery for his 30th, my dad asked me if I wanted the same. I asked for a trip instead. My best friend being a travel agent and having a budget of about $3k, I did some quick thinking and made the decision to go where I knew my heart belonged all along: Paris.
In September of 2007 I packed up and left by myself to Paris. I was gone for a few weeks, I saw amazing things, I found my heart and left it there; I came back inspired and beautiful and always planning a way back. I never found a home like I found in Paris. I read back on my journal entries and look at the photos of that time and I miss it like a lover. My Toulouse-Lautrec, my Oscar, my Moulin, my Sacré-Cœur … There has never been one place where all the things I cherished the most were within walking distance. And I was all alone, I was free. Except apparently, Bono was watching.
I was lost between the midnight and the dawning
In a place of no consequence or company
3:33 when the numbers fell off the clock face
Speed-dialing with no signal at all
I was alone; I had no consequences for anything I chose to do while I was there. I had tentative plans yet always wandered off in the wrong direction and found treasures. Fuck it. I was jet lagged, my sleep schedule was whacked. The first night I slept in Paris I woke up sometime after 3 in the morning, spent a few minutes digging for my cell phone, deciding to call my parents. In my sleep daze I sat there completely baffled as to why the call wouldn’t go through. I suddenly remember I'm on the other side of the world and wandered down to the lobby and pay 2 Euros for a can of soda, which at the time was about $3. Honest to god, this really happened.
I was right there at the top of the bottom
On the edge of the known universe
Where I wanted to be
I had driven to the scene of the accident
And I sat there waiting for me
One of my last days. I went back up to the Basilique (my hotel was so close to it, I went several times.) the Sacré-Cœur, apart from the Eiffel Tower is one of the highest points in the city. I sat at the top part of the bottom escaliers. Not two hours later, I was sitting outside the Pont de l'Alma tunnel, crying my heart out for Diana and reading memorials. I made some sort of life decision to be a princess of humanity or something then. I flip flop on that, but I remember it vividly. I sat there for a long time. That was the day I *meant* to go the Pompadou but wound up at Shakespeare and Co (the only time i spoke English the whole time i was there!) and then sitting outside watching street musicians for the rest of the day.
Best. Day. Ever.
Restart and re-boot yourself
You're free to go
This was Bono basically telling me, here is your reward; Live long and prosper. Live every day like its Paris and Here is one more song just for you. How could he ever top this one?
Thanks, daddy. xoxox
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