Tag: 80s

This morning I was listening to the awesomely cheerful and cheesy first (and eponymous) album by Book of Love. I have to say of all the joys of civilization, aside from bathtubs, my favorite thing might be singing in the car to loud music. The privacy means I can totally belt out “Starman” while mangling the lyrics without being drunk or having a karaoke machine, but also that I can call up various embarrassing pieces of music to play at top volume without annoying anyone else.

As I sang “Happy Day” this morning I realized that when I listen to heinous pop music sometimes I’m mentally editing it, interpolating way more meaning or different meaning into it. There’s a whole category of songs I have to do this for, ones that are great but then burst into a verse that’s way too specific, like the verse about jumping into someone’s pool in Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Incentive Dealers’ “I Will Deny” or completely wrong. Book of Love is usually not so much wrong as it is simple like a coloring book. So my enjoyment of the fingerpainted lyrics and sweepy new wave music is usually enhanced by a sort of internal Greasemonkey script that shovels in the equivalent of “Howl” and several highly compressed Ani di Franco songs. I don’t think about this, it’s just what happens in the infinite spaces in between the actual lyrics, like the time compression in a dream. They’re like a shape and it’s like I”m having a complicated form of synesthesia (which I actually do get if I have some focus and can close my eyes). This morning I ended up noticing and observing my interpolations because they were so absurd. Yes. It’s like I’m high all the time and I have to suppress it actively. But everyone does that, right? Anyway!!! It went something like this, but way longer:

Can’t describe
What it was
yes exactly i can’t describe it because nothing is describable omg but here let me give it a try (long complicated holo-poem abstraction)
What shined
Shined so bright
flaming meteorites! but sort of fractal! phosphenes! some sort of magic fantasy world psychic power aura that reveals a giant glowing floating futuristic city in an alternate universe that’s infinitely complicated and sort of galaxies exploding and colliding

Hold on to the light
light! why do we hold onto it? what? LION!
Safe from the night
long thought about Novalis I don’t have time to explain
I can see
When you walk with me
but not “you” like a romantic you because that is all wrong but more like The Universe and stuff
Time to begin again
REVOLUTION!!!!!!! SWEEP IT ALL CLEAN! YEAH!!!

Lead us to a happier day
Except leaderlessly in a totally egalitarian way anarchically because that would be the best happiness!!!!!!
Happy day
Happy day

Say goodnight
Wake up you’re late for tomorrow
I’d like nothing to do
well not really
I would dream
Dream about you
YES, YOU, ANARCHY UTOPIA
Lead us
LEADERLESSLY WITH EVERYONE “LEADING” OF COURSE
To a happier day
HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY NYANCAT OF THE FUTURE REVOLUTION!!!!