random post
I have taken a job at Susquehanna in Philadelphia. So for now (until the older kids graduate from high school), I am commuting weekly and coming home on the weekends.
Sometimes I will take the train, but the first two weeks I've driven; the first week because I was carrying a bunch of stuff down there, and the second week so that I could be SURE to be able to stop and watch the US/Portugal game, which I did in a rest stop on the NJ Turnpike. :)
Anyway, driving home is usually late at night, and so I am always thinking of disjointed things that I should blog about, but then never blogging them. So I finally will, you know, do that.
The main route I take into Connecticut is I-684 north to I-84 east, which goes through Danbury and all that. I haven't driven that way in a long time, and I felt sad when I passed Exit 10: Newtown / Sandy Hook.
This week, though, that highway was closed for some stupid reason, so I drove from NYC to New Haven on the worst highway ever. Maybe the 710 in LA is worse, I don't know. But I-95 is just plain awful.
Often I listen to audiobooks or NPR but on this trip home I had grabbed a stack of CDs from my childhood (like 90s music, back when I would buy a CD, or at least get them for 1c from Columbia House). I listen to four albums all the way through on the drive. Two of them seemed to me to have aged pretty well. One was okay. The other was kind of meh. These were all albums that I liked a lot as a teenager. Also I make no claims about my musical taste. You can laud it, criticize it, I will be unmoved.
I thought I would turn this into a game. So I picked up four of my favorite lyrics from each album, and arranged them from "probably obscure," like something off a deep cut that it might be hard to recognize unless you really know (or maybe I have no idea how obvious they all are), up to "kind of mainstream," where if you were listening to the radio in the 90s you might get it. So you can try at each level, and then continue on and refine/confirm your guesses, etc. The letters persist (so album A is the same album in each case). Name the albums, and the songs for extra credit!
**probably obscure**
A)
And for sure we have danced in the risk of each other
Would you like to dance around the world with me?
B)
I am I, myself alone
Realize I never need to use noone
Money, power, Holy Roads
Freedom puts my faith in none of the above
C)
So I stretch myself across like a bridge
And I pull you to the edge
And stand there waiting
Trying to attain
The end to satisfy the story
D)
IQ is no problem here
We won't be playing Scrabble for
Her hand, I fear
**maybe recognizable**
A)
Inside a crowd, five billion proud
Willing to punch it out
Right, wrong, weak, strong
Ashes to ashes all fall down
B)
From where I stand
The truth isn't black and white
Alone we live and die
We love and fight
C)
But as the scenery grows
I see in different lights
The shades and shadows
Undulate in my perception
D)
He deals the cards to find the answer
The sacred geometry of chance
The hidden law of a probable outcome
The numbers lead a dance
**was probably on the radio**
A)
If green should turn to grey
Would our hearts still bloody beat
If a mountain tumbled away, river dried
Would it stop the stepping feet
B)
Mine, immaculate dream made breath and skin
I've been waiting for you
Signed with a home tattoo
Happy birthday to you was created for you
C)
But, oh, it's so evil, my love
The way you've no reverence to my concern
So I'll be sure to stay wary of you, love
To save the pain of once my flame and twice my burn
D)
You could say I lost my faith in science and progress
You could say I lost my belief in the holy church
You could say I lost my sense of direction
You could say all of this and worse
**kind of mainstream**
A)
The week ends the week begins
She thinks, we look at each other
Wondering what the other is thinking
But we never say a thing
And these crimes between us grow deeper
B)
Papers in the roadside tell of suffering and greed
Fear today, forgot tomorrow
Besides the news of holy war and holy need
Ours is just a little sorrowed talk
C)
I've got to make a play
To make my lover stay
So what would an angel say
The devil wants to know
D)
I never made promises lightly
And there have been some that I've broken
But I swear in the days still left
We'll walk in fields of gold, we'll walk in fields of gold
(I thought A and C aged well, D okay, and B not so well.)