Paul Westerberg & The Spiders From Bruno Mars
I'm taking a brief break from the "7 Deadly Sins" meme and doing an actual entry. I'll get to Day 3 either later today or tomorrow.
For now, I am going to get musically geeky and terribly romantic and positive. Have a bucket nearby for vomiting or a toothbrush handy from the sugary happiness that follows.
I had dinner with a friend last night and the conversation was all over the place but two common themes were relationships and music. And as someone who has never been able to separate music from any relationship -- be it love, family, friendship, or otherwise -- I am constantly tying songs, artists, or albums to even the tiniest slices of life.
Case in point: I left last night's dinner and truly splendid conversation with echoes of Paul Westerberg (solo artist, former lead singer/songwriter for the influential band The Replacements) and pop wunderkind Bruno Mars.
Westerberg and The Replacements (or The `Mats to the diehards) are one of my musical touchstones. Give me an emotion and I can find a Replacements or Westerberg song that fits for it. I have songs by that band that I listen to when I'm happy, when I'm down, when I'm pissed, when I'm hopeful, on a good day, a bad day, you name it. They're huge in my word. (Default LJ icon is a montage of Westerberg pictures and album covers.)
Bruno Mars is the latest in a long line of guilty pleasures. His album Doo-Wops and Hooligans is such a wonderful little gem of pure pop where every song was designed to be a hit. Normally I don't have a lot of use for stuff like this but there is just something about his voice, his lyrics, the sense of humor and weightlessness to his music that I just love. I've been listening to that album a lot! It is all that is good about pop wrapped up in 10 songs. :)
So last night, for reasons I don't even exactly recall, I mentioned some Replacements/Westerberg songs that really define my spirit and speak to me with the loudest voice. One is "Can't Hardly Wait", which is arguably their most heard song because there was a 90's teen comedy movie that used the song title for the film title. Another is a Westerberg solo track, "Dyslexic Heart", which first appeared and was written for the movie Singles (Cameron Crowe's follow-up to the iconic Say Anything, which also used a Replacements song on it's soundtrack).
If I made a multi-volume, box set of mix tapes or CD's defining my history of love and romance both of those songs would be in the set and both would, in terms or chronology, pre-date meeting Kelly (though "Dyslexic Heart" definitely makes me think of when I first met her). They're songs of confusion but hope; of being excited about love and life but not being sure how to juggle all the pieces that come with any life and any kind of love. They're about anticipation and nervousness and being unsure of yourself. I related to them then and I still relate to them now. I still can't hardly wait but I couldn't tell you exactly what it is I can't hardly wait for. My own analog heart still has a tough time making out the signs and the words written before me or even written by my own pen. It misses hints, clues, and expressions even when they're bright and bold.
Bruno Mars came up last ight because I mentioned it as a guilty pleasure and both my friend and I agreed that his massive hit "Just The Way You Are" is a great song. But it's also really cheesy. It's not the type of song that, for example, I would have ever put on a mix tape or dedicated to someone had it appeared in a different time or chapter of my life. Songs like that are laced with such flattery and gooeyness that, to me, they almost seemed too easy in terms of thinking about someone or tying some set of emotions or feelings for someone to them. But then my friend across the table said something to the effect of she would like to meet someone that feels that way about her and/or that she feels that way about them. If you haven't heard the song (and, really, it's everywhere so it's hard to imagine), it's basically Mars telling someone he thinks she's perfect in every way and that he loves her just as she is. The song is saccharin. It's utterly sweet and, I have to say, it's a love song that even a cynic like me can't resist. And when my friend said she hoped that's how she would feel or how someone would feel toward her all I could think was, "Yeah. It should be that way." A few years ago I might have thought, "Oh please." But not anymore.
I think a lot of writers or artists -- myself included -- often look for the poetic expression or the more abstract route of "I love you" and "You're amazing" or "I think you're absolutely perfect for me". As a writer, I will always be looking for the right metaphor for such sentiments. Bob Dylan or Mr. Westerberg would wrap up those expressions in some kind of analogy open to interpretation or misinterpretation, and their route has always been the one I gravitate toward. But Bruno Mars? The message of "Just The Way You Are" is simple and direct and you can't really hear it in any other way then as a pure love song carrying flowers with it's chorus and serenading from on high in every verse. It screams "I'm nuts about you and I hope you feel the same way".
It's funny how my lyrical heroes -- and that of many music fans I know -- are not and have never been the Bruno Mars' of the world. The songwriters I admire most have always been the the ones a bit more original or clever in their wordplay. But at the end of the day I think if most of us are honest we want to feel the kind of love wrapped up in "Just The Way You Are". If "Can't Hardly Wait" is the unknown desire for something to happen then "Just The Way You Are" is the feeling we'd like to have when what we've waited for arrives. And even if Mars didn't really mean it and just manufactured it to score a hit, somewhere inside him is the wisdom to know such sentiments resonate. Songs like that have always found an audience with idealistic teenagers or hopeless romantics... but maybe there shouldn't be anything 'hopeless' in wanting romance? Maybe that idealism needs to breath beyond our youth and not be stifled as we get older.
I've made Kelly more mix tapes and mix CDs then I can count and yet there is always a "cooler than thou" part of me that puts The Replacements or The Gaslight Anthem or some other "hipper" thing in the mix. Rarely do I ever aim for the pure sugary pop song unless I'm being ironic. Granted, my mixes for her still kick ass *laughs* but in the choice between poetic and schmaltzy I tend to err on the side of the former. But maybe with Valentine's Day coming it's time to change my tune; to not make the poets and the hit makers mutually exclusive. They can co-exist. They should be together more.
I kinda want to send Paul Westerberg a copy of "Just The Way You Are" and send Bruno Mars a copy of "Can't Hardly Wait", on the assumption that each guy hasn't heard the song before. I think they'd each dig the other's work. In fact, I'm almost positive.
J
For now, I am going to get musically geeky and terribly romantic and positive. Have a bucket nearby for vomiting or a toothbrush handy from the sugary happiness that follows.
I had dinner with a friend last night and the conversation was all over the place but two common themes were relationships and music. And as someone who has never been able to separate music from any relationship -- be it love, family, friendship, or otherwise -- I am constantly tying songs, artists, or albums to even the tiniest slices of life.
Case in point: I left last night's dinner and truly splendid conversation with echoes of Paul Westerberg (solo artist, former lead singer/songwriter for the influential band The Replacements) and pop wunderkind Bruno Mars.
Westerberg and The Replacements (or The `Mats to the diehards) are one of my musical touchstones. Give me an emotion and I can find a Replacements or Westerberg song that fits for it. I have songs by that band that I listen to when I'm happy, when I'm down, when I'm pissed, when I'm hopeful, on a good day, a bad day, you name it. They're huge in my word. (Default LJ icon is a montage of Westerberg pictures and album covers.)
Bruno Mars is the latest in a long line of guilty pleasures. His album Doo-Wops and Hooligans is such a wonderful little gem of pure pop where every song was designed to be a hit. Normally I don't have a lot of use for stuff like this but there is just something about his voice, his lyrics, the sense of humor and weightlessness to his music that I just love. I've been listening to that album a lot! It is all that is good about pop wrapped up in 10 songs. :)
So last night, for reasons I don't even exactly recall, I mentioned some Replacements/Westerberg songs that really define my spirit and speak to me with the loudest voice. One is "Can't Hardly Wait", which is arguably their most heard song because there was a 90's teen comedy movie that used the song title for the film title. Another is a Westerberg solo track, "Dyslexic Heart", which first appeared and was written for the movie Singles (Cameron Crowe's follow-up to the iconic Say Anything, which also used a Replacements song on it's soundtrack).
If I made a multi-volume, box set of mix tapes or CD's defining my history of love and romance both of those songs would be in the set and both would, in terms or chronology, pre-date meeting Kelly (though "Dyslexic Heart" definitely makes me think of when I first met her). They're songs of confusion but hope; of being excited about love and life but not being sure how to juggle all the pieces that come with any life and any kind of love. They're about anticipation and nervousness and being unsure of yourself. I related to them then and I still relate to them now. I still can't hardly wait but I couldn't tell you exactly what it is I can't hardly wait for. My own analog heart still has a tough time making out the signs and the words written before me or even written by my own pen. It misses hints, clues, and expressions even when they're bright and bold.
Bruno Mars came up last ight because I mentioned it as a guilty pleasure and both my friend and I agreed that his massive hit "Just The Way You Are" is a great song. But it's also really cheesy. It's not the type of song that, for example, I would have ever put on a mix tape or dedicated to someone had it appeared in a different time or chapter of my life. Songs like that are laced with such flattery and gooeyness that, to me, they almost seemed too easy in terms of thinking about someone or tying some set of emotions or feelings for someone to them. But then my friend across the table said something to the effect of she would like to meet someone that feels that way about her and/or that she feels that way about them. If you haven't heard the song (and, really, it's everywhere so it's hard to imagine), it's basically Mars telling someone he thinks she's perfect in every way and that he loves her just as she is. The song is saccharin. It's utterly sweet and, I have to say, it's a love song that even a cynic like me can't resist. And when my friend said she hoped that's how she would feel or how someone would feel toward her all I could think was, "Yeah. It should be that way." A few years ago I might have thought, "Oh please." But not anymore.
I think a lot of writers or artists -- myself included -- often look for the poetic expression or the more abstract route of "I love you" and "You're amazing" or "I think you're absolutely perfect for me". As a writer, I will always be looking for the right metaphor for such sentiments. Bob Dylan or Mr. Westerberg would wrap up those expressions in some kind of analogy open to interpretation or misinterpretation, and their route has always been the one I gravitate toward. But Bruno Mars? The message of "Just The Way You Are" is simple and direct and you can't really hear it in any other way then as a pure love song carrying flowers with it's chorus and serenading from on high in every verse. It screams "I'm nuts about you and I hope you feel the same way".
It's funny how my lyrical heroes -- and that of many music fans I know -- are not and have never been the Bruno Mars' of the world. The songwriters I admire most have always been the the ones a bit more original or clever in their wordplay. But at the end of the day I think if most of us are honest we want to feel the kind of love wrapped up in "Just The Way You Are". If "Can't Hardly Wait" is the unknown desire for something to happen then "Just The Way You Are" is the feeling we'd like to have when what we've waited for arrives. And even if Mars didn't really mean it and just manufactured it to score a hit, somewhere inside him is the wisdom to know such sentiments resonate. Songs like that have always found an audience with idealistic teenagers or hopeless romantics... but maybe there shouldn't be anything 'hopeless' in wanting romance? Maybe that idealism needs to breath beyond our youth and not be stifled as we get older.
I've made Kelly more mix tapes and mix CDs then I can count and yet there is always a "cooler than thou" part of me that puts The Replacements or The Gaslight Anthem or some other "hipper" thing in the mix. Rarely do I ever aim for the pure sugary pop song unless I'm being ironic. Granted, my mixes for her still kick ass *laughs* but in the choice between poetic and schmaltzy I tend to err on the side of the former. But maybe with Valentine's Day coming it's time to change my tune; to not make the poets and the hit makers mutually exclusive. They can co-exist. They should be together more.
I kinda want to send Paul Westerberg a copy of "Just The Way You Are" and send Bruno Mars a copy of "Can't Hardly Wait", on the assumption that each guy hasn't heard the song before. I think they'd each dig the other's work. In fact, I'm almost positive.
J