Thank You

For the last few months it has become harder and harder to put out material that I believe is up to the standards I originally set out to fulfill. The analysis has slowly become shorter and less in depth. I feel as though I am saying the same thing over and over again. Of course this can't be completely avoided when dealing with such specific subject matter, but this does not mitigate the fact that I do not feel like I can keep up and give this blog the attention it deserves. So it is with this in mind that I must rest and regroup before I  continue. I need some time to determine what I want to write about and how to go about it. It may come that I will continue with this blog a few months down the road, or it may be that I start a new one. I will let you know as soon as I do.

Thank you to everyone that has enjoyed this blog. Even in the age where publishing one's self is so simple that it renders the weight of being published meaningless, it has still been an immense privilege to write for you twice a month for the last year and a quarter. Thanks mostly to my friends that are readers. You were often the reason I kept going, pushing myself become a better writer and find more music to analyze. Just knowing that there were real people out there reading and having opinions about work that I put out has been amazing. It would have been a much shorter run without you.

I will return.

Thank you,
Jeremy

Like A Friend

I forgot about this week's song for a long time. I first heard it in the 1998 movie Great Expectations in the background of the most arousing scene my seventeen year old brain had ever seen. You'll see the scene inter-spliced in the video below, but essentially it goes like this: "Hello Ethan Hawk, childhood friend with which sexual tension was shared, here I am, the grown up Gweneth Paltrow. I hear you're an artist, please draw me. Oh yeah, to your surprise I'm gonna get nude first." Actually, I think the scene earlier in the movie, with Chris Cornell's "Sunshower" in the background is a little more, let's say exciting, but they're both good.

"Like A Friend" by Pulp from Great Expectations Soundtrack

http://youtu.be/snouZdW2IWg 

This song recently came back onto my radar due to it's use in the TV show The Venture Bros. Season 4 finale "Operation P.R.O.M." Check it out here: http://youtu.be/9E4yrqGGLPo. Forget for a moment that the song's material perfectly matches the content of the episode and just watch how brilliantly the action and music escalate with each other. It is one small piece of evidence that this show is pure brilliance. If you're not watching Venture Bros. you're really missing out on something special.

The song opens with windchimes, clean open guitar chords in a large reverbed space, and the lyric "Don't bother to say you're sorry. Why don't you come in, smoke all my cigarettes again?" We automatically get the feeling that we are in this person's head. These are the things he can't bear to say out loud. Come in and use me. "Every time I get no further. How long has it been?" When was it? When did that door open? When did you close it? How many times did you open it again just because you knew you could, just because you knew I'd be there? "Go on in now, wipe your feet on my dreams."

"You take up my time like some cheap magazine when I could have been learning something. Oh well, you know what I mean." I do it, it's my choice. I suppose I must like to, but in the end I'm just wasting time. "I've done this before," a million times, "and I'll do it again," a million more. "C'mon and kill me baby while you smile like a friend." You know you do it too, though. You'll never stop, and I know why, because "...I'll come running just to do it again."

The song kicks hard. Drums, Bass, and Keys join in. The guitar distorts and chunks away at power chords. A biting three note guitar lead emerges as a simple and heart wrenching ostinato. What follows lyrically has to be a collection of some of the best and most simply effective metaphors since "Juliet is the sun."

"You are the last drink I never should have drunk." - but my judgment is impaired by then. You intoxicate me and I can't help myself.

"You are the body hidden in the trunk." - you're a dark secret, something I can't take back. I really need to face it but all I can do now is hide it.

"You are the habit I can't seem to kick." - I've tried a million times, but there you are again.

"You are my secrets on the front page every week." -It's obvious. Everyone can see, everyone knows, and I just wish I could hold it in.

"You are the car I never should have bought." - A waste from the beginning. I never should have done this and now I spend all my time working on it and if I can ever fix one thing then another goes wrong immediately.

"You are the train I never should have caught." - It takes me the wrong way.

"You are the cut that makes me hide my face." - I don't want to be seen. I am such a failure that it makes me ashamed.

"You are the party that makes me feel my age." - You're in a different world and I feel so out of place. When I'm around you I become an odd spectacle, an exercise in juxtaposition, something to be gawked at.

"You're like a car crash I can see but I just can't avoid." - In slow, chest tightening, adrenaline pumping anxiety.

"Like a film that's so bad, but I've just got to stay 'till the end." - because, somehow, I've become emotionally invested.

"Let me tell you know it's lucky for you that we're friends."

Yeah, ... 'I'm so lucky to have a friend like you.' Maybe. Maybe you are. I wish I had someone who ..., well, it's not important.

The song falls into an ambient lull, an emotional purgatory, to mull over our catharsis, and then kicks back in one more time. It's a vicious cycle, a perfect circle. There is no beginning, no end. It just is. It will always be.

As always feel free to comment, complain, or suggest here or at suicidesongs@communistdaycarecenter.net. Also comment or email if you want to talk about the use of this song in The Venture Bros, or anything Venture Bros. related at all.