Love is like...

[muckefuck]

(a) a razor blade.
(b) a bottle of gin.

Although I've been avidly following the song meme raging through LJ at the moment, I've no real desire to participate. For starters, it's much to much of a commitment. (I don't have a very good track record with extended series of posts.) Less important (but still a factor), I'm not sure if I want to put out my insipid song choices for all and sundry to mock. I'd much rather your low opinion of my taste by based on conjecture rather than irrefutable evidence. All the same, the whole business has got me thinking of my relationship to the music I listen to for pleasure. I do tend to strongly associate songs with certain times and places (which may be quite removed from those under which they were produced or released).

This past weekend, for old time's sake, I listened to a smattering of songs from the summer I turned twenty. As usual, I had a mess of albums I played occasionally and a small subset I played to death and beyond. Four stand out in my memory:

1. Two recently-released albums by favourite groups scammed from friends back-to-back on the same cassette: Depeche Mode's Violator and Oingo Boingo's[*] The dark at the end of the tunnel.
2. Squeeze's Singles 45 and under
3. An EP of Ministry remixes ("Everyday Is Halloween", "All Day", "The Nature of Love", and a fourth one)

Although I was very album-oriented at the time, I was of course drawn to certain songs more than others--generally the radio-friendly singles, since I'm shallow that way. "Enjoy the Silence" was the gay dance hit that summer, at least as far as I was concerned. In retrospect, DATEOTT was probably the most boring Boingo release ever, but there was a particular xylophone riff on "Flesh 'N Blood" that I simply couldn't get enough of and I listened to the filler around it because, well, it was on a cassette. "Tempted" was the only Squeeze song I knew previously, and I'd never really cared for it, so I was delighted to discover the existence of such ridiculously hooky numbers as "Pulling Mussles from the Shell" and "Another Nail for my Heart".

But even more strongly than the associations with times and places are the attachments to particular people. I can never listen to The Chameleon's "Tears" without thinking of my best friend from sophomore year of high school and wondering what's become of him or to The Woodentop's "Good Thing" without thinking of my one ever date for a semi-formal dance who against all odds still keeps in touch with me. But since sad songs are my therapy whenever a relationship goes sour (or even founders on the shoals, only to make it to deep water again) the most numerous and powerful associations are provided by my various love affairs.

Every couple has "their song", but I can't seem to listen to any decent romantic song without wondering which of my loves (and which stage of the relationship) it would best describe. As you can well imagine, 69 love songs was a motherlode in this regard--and since I got my copy when I was crazy with love for monshu, I wonder if I'll ever be able to listen to it after he's gone without bawling my eyes out from the first moody moog to the last tinny tinkle. And though there's a sense of déjà-vu with every new affair, I feel strongly about not reusing songs. So even when a situation comes around that a previous favourite perfectly encapsulates, I'll still be thinking at the back of my mind, "This is really a song about Nuphy" (or whoever).

It's natural to identify with the narrator of a love song. You're always the wronged party, and in the rare cases where you aren't, there's that subgenre of "I'm so sorry" songs to turn to. But since I can't turn off that analytical part of my brain which tries to fit lyrics to real-life situations, lately I've been rotating the point-of-view in my head to see if it makes for a better match. Maybe I'm the idiotic lying asshole instead of the faithful wounded gallant? If nothing else, it's an antidote for the self-pity that comes of always questioning everyone else's motives but your own.


[*] See, damnation in your eyes already.

Comments

Eighties Alert!

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

My copy of Singles 45 and Under was on a cassette tape. That somebody copied for me.