The words of this song are about *me*...

So... Cousin of mine, you have partially "stolen" my idea - note the quotation marks - and ordinarily, this would be the cause for an immense magnitude of unleashed wrath.

... but hey, I'm so impressed by your telepathic thievery that I'll let it slide this time. No harm done. [grin]

In any case, as I walked towards the Mess Hall yesterday for dinner (or was it lunch? I've been down here so long, I've lost track of what meals I've eaten and what meals I haven't, and for someone who enjoys food as much as I do, that's a feat.) with a few other bass players, one of them mentioned the tendency to notice the music of a song before even registering the lyrics. "Much more natural," said he, "to first concentrate and be fixated by the flow of the notes and harmonies before a decision can be made over how cheesy - er... fitting - the words are."

True - but what we never got a chance to debate around, thanks to the introduction of cafeteria style Chicken Parmesan with Succotash! was what happened when the two came together. Not chicken and lima beans, mind you - music and words. Though the first two are delicious, the second two can be utterly soul-explosive. Maybe it's just me, but there are quite a few bands out there who, in an attempt to sound "deep" and "meaningful", have begun to put out albums that look like this:

Chicken Soup for Battered Souls above the Plains of War - the sophomore album from Used Listerine!
1. I Have Longed for your Breath on My Toast in the Morning
2. The Unbearable Heaviness of Having Emotions To Go with My Mohawk
3. The Government Killed My Father, And Yet I Am a Congressman
4. Tolstoy
5. How to Save Car Batteries for Your Soul Chevrolet
6. My Mother Won't Like this Song
7. Fuck
8. My Heart Exploded and Became the Stars in Your Eyes, But This Is Not a Pick Up Line
9. Sex for The Chaste
10. I Wish I Was a Dinosaur, They Had no Inner Turmoil
11. Darkness and Pencil Tips

Has it occurred to any one of these bands that we won't give a fudge about what sort of bent they have about using obscure metaphors if their music sounds like a rusty bicycle chain dragging across frozen tundra in the middle of a cold, rare, Frosty July in Alaska?!

(okay, fine, that was a simile, but cut me a little slack and let me make my point.)

Often, the title - and thus, the lyrics - become so ridiculously twisted and mental that it's literally impossible to tell what you're supposed to be feeling. Singing in the shower starts to resemble AP Literature 12.
"Okay, so in line one, he's against drug use, as it seems to have killed his ex-girlfriend."
"Good point, but in line two, doesn't he clearly state several times that he snorts crack in order to avoid the pain of her demise?"
"A valid point - but as you may have noticed, in line three, he suggests that he wrote this all in a haze of LCD - so the girlfriend AND the crack could clearly be his hallucinations working against him."
"Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh.... of course."
"I gotcha - wait.... but Sir, than how to we explain line four?"
"That, Mr. Johnson, will have to addressed after we explore lines eight, fifteen, and three-seven 3/4, because we won't be able to fully discover why he tattooed the opening line from "Red Fish, Blue Fish" until AFTER we discuss his obsessive compulsions about Sushi."

... it has occurred to me that one of the most brilliant things about my major... and hopefully, in a few years, my job... is that I am expected to *feel*, but not necessarily to articulate via verbiage. For example, take Debussey's "La Mer" - we're playing it this Sunday in concert, and I can almost feel the brine in my veins.* (to be taken to mean: Dear Sweet God, I love this piece) Being in that orchestra... feeling everyone move and breathe around me and show their souls so naturally to their fellow players and their audience... it doesn't need words. Doesn't need titles. Doesn't need an explanation, it just needs to feel , and ... it does. For twenty minutes or so, I am the ocean, and I am at peace. Debussey gives a brief title to each movement, but he does not go so far as to assume that we need a full explanation... we just need to hear the music.

I just wish certain bands understood the brilliance of simplicity. Where the music comes from within, and suddenly, even without meaning to, without even picking up a pen or shooting ideas off, you understand what you should be singing, if singing anything at all.

Sometimes words are overrated.

.... (I just hope I don't persuade you to stop reading.)