Rock Is Dead. Long Live Rock!

You ain't gotta defend nothin'. And, yes, you are Pete Towshend.

I had a similar affirmation moment when I first went to a Magnetic Fields show and saw people who liked his music as much as I did. Before that, I felt pretty alone. It wasn't a thousand screaming fans, though, but maybe 60 quiet fans. That was enough for me. And Tommy was there, too. And Ben Lee. And Ancient Chinese Garden.

Double-Meanings

I tend to think the skirting and flirting in lyrics is just people trying to hard not to say anything because they don't know how to say it or because they don't have anything really to say or because they're trying to make the thing they're saying more deep than it really is. I don't appreciate complete abstractions too much. One way they work are in some of the better R.E.M. songs, though. Like "Losing My Religion." The song is just about not wanting to say to much to someone you have a crush on, but the not-quite-saying-it makes it a better song (where you can ignore the "real" meaning altogether and make it about religion or whatever you like). However, the reason it works is because of the specificness of the lyrics. It's not the abstraction. In fact, it's pretty darn specific: "Oh no, I've said too much. I haven't said enough." Early R.E.M. songs are good like this too. Like "Fall On Me." It's an environmental song, and it addresses the issue straight on, but it doesn't use the common words. It doesn't use words that the EPA would use. That's what makes it art in addition to being a environmental song.

So I dislike songs telling you what to do, too, but I think it's bad songwriting when it's just too abstract to mean anything, or when it uses symbols (usually symbols) so common the song can mean absolutely anything. Like "I'm sinking in a sea of darkness and my eyes are blind to the light that would bring me up into the sky so I have to keep falling forever and forever" or shit like that.

Neutral Milk Hotel

Neutral Milk Hotel is a perfect example of using very very specific words and images to get across meanings that couldn't possibly be told in a "normal" language. But listen to the specifics: "And she was born in a born in a bottle rocket, 1929, with wings that ringed around a socket right between her spine, all drenched in milk and holy water pouring from the sky" to pick one random line. They do what myth-writers do. But all myth-writers use specifics too. They're never abstract.

The Royal Tenenbaums

I still like Rushmore the best of the Wes Anderson movies (you know, Tommy's favorite movie). I liked The Royal Tenenbaums a little better the second time, though I'm still annoyed by the same things I was the first time: the nothing-but-symmetry shots and the way that everything is so overly-precious so that the real problems these people have are just kind of being toyed with and snickered at with intellectual snickering. But, yes, I think it's a good movie too.

Nerd?

Am I a dork for reading "Tommy Said" as Tommy Sah-eed at first?

Farto McTurdstink.