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Questions and Answers - Part 3

  
  

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Happy Dave Has Left
13:14 / 13.06.07
Saveloy - to work out who has linked to your flickr picture, navigate to the picture, copy the URL, then go to www.technorati.com and paste it in to the search box. This will tell you who has linked to that URL.
 
 
Sebastian Flyte
13:15 / 13.06.07
I would nominate There She Goes by the La's.

Even though it might actually be sweet and not about heroin after all.
 
 
Papess
13:22 / 13.06.07
"Being Alone Together", by David & David
 
 
Saveloy
13:38 / 13.06.07
Thanks, 7's!
 
 
Eloi Tsabaoth
13:40 / 13.06.07
"If you don't love me I'll kill myself" by Pete Droge.
 
 
Evil Scientist
13:42 / 13.06.07
"F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E" by Pulp is mondo stalker-romantic.
 
 
grant
13:46 / 13.06.07
does anyone have suggestions for the mixtape?

This merits a thread of its own - most of my favorite songs (including ones by me and by friends of mine) fit snugly into this category.

"Care of Cell 44" by The Zombies would be a nice fit -- it's so sunny. She's coming home soon! The name kind of gives away the game, though.

"Art Lover" by the Kinks would be too obvious - it's clear from the outset that it's about a creepy voyeur - but "Better Things" off that album (Give the People What They Want) has always struck me as being brilliantly off. It's a straightforwardly optimistic song, but it's on an album in which every other song is about some kind of wrongness, making its overwhelming optimism wrong by implication.

"Beautiful World" by Devo should probably find a place on yer mix.
 
 
Jack Denfeld
14:08 / 13.06.07
Bob Dylan, you belong to me. Or Dean Martin's version. Or the Duprees version. Sounds creepiest by Dylan's era though.
 
 
Happy Dave Has Left
14:19 / 13.06.07
Every Breath You Take, the Police?
 
 
Happy Dave Has Left
14:20 / 13.06.07
Oh, balls, read the question properly Dave.

*smacks forehead*
 
 
Papess
14:21 / 13.06.07
To be fair, Sting has said himself that "I'll be watching You" is a song about unhealthy obsessions. He said something about how it disturbed him when couples come up to him and tell him "it's our song!".

Yep. A bit disturbing.
 
 
Papess
14:21 / 13.06.07
Yeah, "Every Breath You Take". Doh!
 
 
MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!
14:49 / 13.06.07
At the risk of stating the obvious, "I Will Follow Him" by Little Peggy March is an early bubblegum song with some definitely creepy undertones.
 
 
Happy Dave Has Left
15:09 / 13.06.07
I actually saw it played as a first song at a wedding. I sniggered a bit.
 
 
spectre
15:21 / 13.06.07
pretty much anything by the misfits - the first time I heard "last caress" was on a lengthy car-ride during a conversation. I remember thinking that it was a nice, melodious song. I didn;t learn the lyrics until much later.
 
 
grant
16:38 / 13.06.07
I think it was Fluxblog (or maybe Matthew's REM blog) that talked about how the R.E.M. song "The One I Love" was a messed up "our song" to play at weddings, since it's addressed to "a simple prop to occupy my time" and fairly clearly about unhealthy obsession masquerading as affection.
 
 
grant
16:43 / 13.06.07
There's something parallel going on with "Shades of Gray" in both the Robert Earl Keen version and the CryCryCry cover. It *sounds* like a fairly straightforward bluegrass tune about a kid on the wrong side of the law (tried and true theme for the genre), but winds up actually being about the Oklahoma Federal Building bombing.

You have to listen close to the lyrics (and know that's what happened in Oklahoma, April '95) to catch the reference, but when it clicks, it throws the whole narrative into a new dimension. (The narrator isn't the bomber, in case you were wondering.)
 
 
Mistoffelees
16:48 / 13.06.07
Another mix-tape suggestion:
The Shangri-Las´ "The Leader Of The Pack"; it´s about a gang leader having a relationship with a schoolgirl he met at a candy store.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
16:52 / 13.06.07
Back-to-back renditions of "Let's Do it" by Eartha Kitt and Joan Jett. Two of my favourite takes on the song, and seems totally mix-tape-wedding-able.
 
 
Dark side of the Moonfrog1
17:08 / 13.06.07
Perfect Day by Lou Reed

Personally, it's my favourite song about heroin that's been inappropriately covered for charity.
 
 
grant
17:15 / 13.06.07
Pentangle has a few old English folk songs about grim murders that sound very fey and jangly and acousticky. The first one I remember really falling for was "Cruel Sister." It's a bit long for a mix tape, but very much in the same mode. Oh, listen to the peace-lovin' hippies singing about sisters and kings and harp players and... uh... drownings and... oh, dear... making instruments out of dead bodies....
The chorus is actually "fa la-la la la la-la la-de-da." And there's a sitar.
 
 
grant
17:25 / 13.06.07
Oh, and if (American) patriotism is your thing, Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" is popularly imagined to be a "Go, America!" anthem when it's (probably famously) really about a broken Vietnam vet fighting a losing battle with despair.

Tom Petty's "American Girl" has a similar, "Hey, ain't it grand?" feeling to it, but is actually about a UF student who jumped out of a window in Beatty Towers, a dormitory that was also the tallest building in Gainesville. Take it easy, baby. Make it last all night.
 
 
Mistoffelees
18:43 / 13.06.07
Plus that last song is sung by the politician´s daughter just before she gets kidnapped by Buffalo Bill in Silence of the lambs.
 
 
Sibelian 2.0
18:49 / 13.06.07
"Don't Worry, Be Happy". Bobby McFerrin.

Seriously. Most people don't listen all the way through.
 
 
M.a.P
20:58 / 13.06.07
"I don't like mondays" by the Boomtown Rats!!!
 
 
sorenson
21:39 / 13.06.07
Disco -

Again, maybe obvious, but Golden Brown by the Stranglers - another heroin song that sounds very innocent indeed.
 
 
Mon Oncle Ignatius
21:45 / 13.06.07
And all the more morbid somehow if you just change the first lines to "Gordon Brown/Texture like sun".
 
 
Evil Scientist
21:48 / 13.06.07
"I'm Just A Killer For Your Love" by Blur. Bit too obvious?
 
 
pony
00:13 / 14.06.07
"I Want You", Elvis Costello.

Not terribly subtle about the dark undertones, but still a bit of a sweet surface if you're not paying attention.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
15:46 / 14.06.07
Yeah, "Every Breath You Take". Doh!

Double doh!

This is awesome! I think it does deserve its own thread. grant, I'd really like to put your track on the mixtape... maybe you can upload it to yousendit or something? Stories about people playing these kind of songs at their weddings are even more awesome.

I hate to be pedantic but "Perfect Day" is about Lou Reed's crush on Andy Warhol, not on heroin. At least that's what I heard. (Hang on, no, sorry, it's "Satellite of Love" that's about Andy. I stand corrected. By myself!)

Also, I think heroin songs are a genre of their own, and could easily number a mixtape. Give me stalker songs, people! About psycho killers who weally wuv you!
 
 
grant
18:21 / 14.06.07
I don't actually have mp3s of myself on my work computer, but I should be able to find them on the web...


Follow My Signs (on garageband.com, and possibly too obvious).

Burn at Both Ends (is for sale cheap!)

62 miles (is also for sale cheap!)
 
 
Jack Fear
13:32 / 15.06.07
grant saith: Tom Petty's "American Girl" ... is actually about a UF student who jumped out of a window in Beatty Towers, a dormitory that was also the tallest building in Gainesville.

Snopes saith: Urban legend, herewith busted.
 
 
grant
13:51 / 15.06.07
I REFUSE!
 
 
Ex
14:31 / 15.06.07
There's a fantastic parody of the romantic ballad/stalking genre by two of Barbelith's very own - Beauty and the Bitch.

They'll have to forgive me if I mangle my tribute. I recall the lyrics in part as including: "I will find you... Well, you can run but you can't hide, I will find you.... You'd better sleep with one eye open, I doooooo..." If they have a recording you could half-inch, it's superb.

The More You Ignore me is too blatant, presumably. I can't believe I can't think of any more subtly sinister ones.
 
 
Mon Oncle Ignatius
16:12 / 15.06.07
Also, I think heroin songs are a genre of their own, and could easily number a mixtape.

Or almost an entire Spacemen 3 back catalogue (the rest of their songs are about hallucinogens).
 
  

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