31 Songs about love that are neither cynical nor heartbreaking:
1. The Walkmen - “In the New Year”
This song is so jarringly optimistic that it practically scolds you to look on the bright side.
Following:
STFU, Conservatives31 Songs about love that are neither cynical nor heartbreaking:
1. The Walkmen - “In the New Year”
This song is so jarringly optimistic that it practically scolds you to look on the bright side.
31 Songs:
2. The Velvet Underground - “I Found A Reason”
No video, but I guess it’s for the better because I can’t see anything shot on grainy film without being reminded of Lana Del Rey now. And that makes me want to throw up in my mouth a lot. Thanks Lana Del Rey!
— I…I just get really tired of doing actual research for reviews so my brain ends up pooping copious amounts of this.
We talk about our friends behind their backs. We do. Ask any social scientist who has studied human communication behaviors. Even you admitted to doing this. Our friends are witness to our attributes and flaws, our bad habits and good qualities, our contradictions and our contrivances. That they need to occasionally discuss the negative aspects of our lives and personalities in terms less than admiring is to be expected. Like anything, there are healthy and constructive ways to do this and unhealthy and destructive ways.
A healthy way is rooted in respect and love. In this case, we make critical assessments and uncomplimentary observations entirely within the context of our affection and concern for the individual in question.
”—
Dear Sugar,
I haven’t been reading ANYTHING that isn’t on The Rumpus. I have a lot of feelings, okay?!
— Stephen Elliott, today’s Daily Rumpus
31 Songs, and a good morning to you:
4. The Dorques - “Waltzing Away”
It just never gets old! Unless you lost your sense of humor somewhere between 26 and 35. In that case, you’re the one getting old.
Skip to 2:20 for maximum sing-along POWER.
31 Songs, and now the top 5 love songs:
5. The Mountain Goats - “There Will Be No Divorce”
The rain fell all night and it kept me awake, still falling by morning, it was hard to take, and you were sleeping on the floor, breathing free and even. If I ever wanna drive myself insane, all I have to do is watch you breathing. And at 5 am, I turn the radio on. And an old man’s voice sang a short sweet song, and then the static roared again - it was hungry for blood. I could hear the rain falling from rain spout down, down, down, down into the sweet, wet mud. And you punched out all the windows, and the wind began to wail. And you gathered your hair behind your head, like god was gonna catch you by the ponytail. And the old voice crackled through the static, and I felt young and alive, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck, we were rising from the grave again.
I like how you can cut those lines any way you want and the song would still make sense. Also, it reminds me of this passage from Joe Hagan’s “Transit Byzantium”:
Can beauty cause cardiac arrest? “That’s what it felt like to me,” my wife says. “Cardiac arrest or maybe a lightning bolt to the sternum.”
This is how it started: She worked in town but lived in the country, requiring a long solitary drive that gave her time enough to wonder why she was spending her twenties alone in a Vermont farmhouse. Disquieted, reaching no good answer, she hit SCAN on her radio. A change in frequency, a change in thought. And there he was: ONe man and one guitar. A circular melody, a high lonesome voice, lyrics of plaintive confession.
The passage is actually about Bill Fox’s “My Baby Crying”, but it could just as well be about The Mountain Goats’ “There will be no divorce.”
—
― Paul Auster, via Slaughterhouse 90210
