Monday, January 30, 2006

All These Things That I've Done, by The Killers


It's still early to realize the effects this song will have in popular culture or at least in MY personal popular culture. I walk the streets of my neighbourhood, the iPod is playing this song over and over (just like the lyrics say) and I can't stop thinking how good it gets everytime. Maybe it will be the sort of song only I will enjoy and will become my personal anthem in years to come, just like "Jellybelly" by the Smashing Pumpkins or "Freeloader" by Throwing Muses have. Brandon Flowers's guitar and his voice repeating, then the gospel choir kicking in: "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier". Yes, I ain't no soldier and yes, I do have a soul. Just like when Kristin Hersh sang: "I'm headed for the trees, over there. If that's not a destination, I don't care". Sometimes I'm rather misunderstood because of what I consider a great pop song...

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Tainted Love, by Soft Cell



It's the sheer simplicity of it all. Just a realization. What everyone who is not in it can see. That's the truth of things: one turns blind. "Can't you see?", they say. Marc Almond sings with all the emotion it was allowed in the times he had to deal with. It was more than twenty-two years ago, I think, that he called it quits. He tried luck with other names. But once you suffer from a heartbreak like that, well, it's difficult to recover. It took him two decades to find himself, to accept his own name. Marc Almond, behind the cold machinery of inspired nights with synthetised dreams, lived in his own flesh the attempt to materialize theoretical problems by incarnating the oxymoron. His was, after all, a soft cell: trapped inside his own body, within an island, he managed to make the human voice, the heart, come through. Over the clean, sharp, now-classic new wave beats, there were no automated thoughts; no mathematical, scientific pretentiousness. It was a heart on the palm of a hand, more than twenty years ago. Like waking up from a dream. Opening eyes, at last, and seeing. One had to run away. The pain was there, but it may have had other names. The task he managed: he came out with the sounds to describe it in an era which ignored him. Now, the heart still beats. Taught us a lesson. There comes a moment in everyone's life in which one has to run away, to escape from pain. An optimistic, yet wounding, open door towards the light. A voice drowning in darkness and sorrow. If you think about it, Marc Almond is a hero. He gave us wings. In times of coldness and "intelligent design", he joined the opposites without merging them. He shared with us a special knowledge, a wisdom, of the body and the soul. Tainted Love: a hymn for those seeking their wings.


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One Hundred Bars

Last night, in a warm, semi-drunken conversation with Argel and Evelio, we thought it would be a nice idea to start a collective blog dedicated to short ficciones about pop songs.

The idea is to post little essays/commentaries/short stories inspired by songs we like. Every post must be titled with the song's name.

Let's see how this works out. I think it might be fun. Posts can be in either English or Spanish.

Hope to see you around!