Sometimes I get obsessed with something...
And I keep watching it or listening to it over and over. Currently, that thing is a song I heard on Queer As Folk. I don't have cable, so I don't have Showtime, so I can't see it "live"... so I'm still on Season 3. Well, I just finished it last weekend, actually.
That's when I found the coolest song (of the moment). All right, I was a total sucker and they set me up. The whole season had a sometimes-subplot-sometimes-main-plot dealing with the battle against Stockwell, a homophobic cop (not just a cop, the chief of police, if I remember) who was running for mayor. (If this sounds at all like the Blind Pig universe, or Bush's campaign... you're not wrong.) So at the very end, through the combined efforts of Brian (who, in a touching display proving that he's not as bad-ass as he'd like us to think, gave up everything to run an anti-Stockwell ad), Justin and Debbie, Stockwell is defeated. So everyone on Liberty Avenue goes out into the street to party.
That's only the beginning of the 'set-up'. I'm telling you, usually I can resist it when a show or movie is so painfully obviously trying to manipulate my emotions. Usually it takes a (slightly) subtler hand to keep me from rolling my eyes. Well, when it involves symbolism anyway. I mean, really, really obvious symbolism.
Like, oh, for example... the street being shot in black and white as all the revelers pour out to celebrate... until someone raises a new pride flag, which becomes color, followed by more and more objects regaining their hues... until the whole street is painfully bright.
Obvious and heavy-handed, a bit, but somehow it worked. I was happy for them. I was happy myself. I was happy that good had won out over evil and heck, I would have danced in the streets too.
There was a song playing over all the celebration. It really 'caught my ear', I guess. The more I listen to it, the more I like it. Well, I don't know if I could actually like it more. But you get the picture.
The song is "True Faith", originally by New Order. The best I can decipher, (before I go back, rent the DVD again and watch the credits) the version on the episode is by Natalie Browne. The full lyrics are here - True Faith
I'll just excerpt my favorite lines here...
My morning sun is the drug that brings me near
To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear
When I was a very small boy,
Very small boys talked to me
Now that we've grown up together
They're afraid of what they see
Not only is it appropriate to the situation on the show, but I relate to it, too. I'm probably not interpreting it the way the lyricist wrote it... and I may be influenced by where I heard it. But I'll hear what I want to hear, that's the beauty of music. And I hear something I understand in this one. I tried to explain it to my mate. When I described the song as "painfully good", despite my ensuing explanation, I think he just heard that it was 'really really good'. I meant, as I tried to explain, that it's good, it's got a peppy beat, and it's not super depressing or depressed... but there's just that feeling, between the music and the lyrics, that it was inspired by, or created from pain. It may not be painful anymore - I think a lot of times even if a songwriter started out hurting, the simple act of getting it out there relieves some of the pain. Then, when I listen to it, it's a good song, I like it, I want to listen to it, and it brings a certain amount of joy... but it also brings up some conflicting feelings, too. A lot of good songs do that. Just make me kind of emotional even as I'm loving the song.
I just get it, those parts I highlighted. How you can be robbed of childhood, and have those same people who hung out with you when you were a kid turn their backs on you later. And all just because you're a little 'different'.
Bottom line - good song, I like it, and I obviously have a lot of emotional issues to work out.
That's when I found the coolest song (of the moment). All right, I was a total sucker and they set me up. The whole season had a sometimes-subplot-sometimes-main-plot dealing with the battle against Stockwell, a homophobic cop (not just a cop, the chief of police, if I remember) who was running for mayor. (If this sounds at all like the Blind Pig universe, or Bush's campaign... you're not wrong.) So at the very end, through the combined efforts of Brian (who, in a touching display proving that he's not as bad-ass as he'd like us to think, gave up everything to run an anti-Stockwell ad), Justin and Debbie, Stockwell is defeated. So everyone on Liberty Avenue goes out into the street to party.
That's only the beginning of the 'set-up'. I'm telling you, usually I can resist it when a show or movie is so painfully obviously trying to manipulate my emotions. Usually it takes a (slightly) subtler hand to keep me from rolling my eyes. Well, when it involves symbolism anyway. I mean, really, really obvious symbolism.
Like, oh, for example... the street being shot in black and white as all the revelers pour out to celebrate... until someone raises a new pride flag, which becomes color, followed by more and more objects regaining their hues... until the whole street is painfully bright.
Obvious and heavy-handed, a bit, but somehow it worked. I was happy for them. I was happy myself. I was happy that good had won out over evil and heck, I would have danced in the streets too.
There was a song playing over all the celebration. It really 'caught my ear', I guess. The more I listen to it, the more I like it. Well, I don't know if I could actually like it more. But you get the picture.
The song is "True Faith", originally by New Order. The best I can decipher, (before I go back, rent the DVD again and watch the credits) the version on the episode is by Natalie Browne. The full lyrics are here - True Faith
I'll just excerpt my favorite lines here...
My morning sun is the drug that brings me near
To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear
When I was a very small boy,
Very small boys talked to me
Now that we've grown up together
They're afraid of what they see
Not only is it appropriate to the situation on the show, but I relate to it, too. I'm probably not interpreting it the way the lyricist wrote it... and I may be influenced by where I heard it. But I'll hear what I want to hear, that's the beauty of music. And I hear something I understand in this one. I tried to explain it to my mate. When I described the song as "painfully good", despite my ensuing explanation, I think he just heard that it was 'really really good'. I meant, as I tried to explain, that it's good, it's got a peppy beat, and it's not super depressing or depressed... but there's just that feeling, between the music and the lyrics, that it was inspired by, or created from pain. It may not be painful anymore - I think a lot of times even if a songwriter started out hurting, the simple act of getting it out there relieves some of the pain. Then, when I listen to it, it's a good song, I like it, I want to listen to it, and it brings a certain amount of joy... but it also brings up some conflicting feelings, too. A lot of good songs do that. Just make me kind of emotional even as I'm loving the song.
I just get it, those parts I highlighted. How you can be robbed of childhood, and have those same people who hung out with you when you were a kid turn their backs on you later. And all just because you're a little 'different'.
Bottom line - good song, I like it, and I obviously have a lot of emotional issues to work out.