I don’t think I have touched on this before, but love songs… good or bad.?
Some of my closest friends favour the song Angels by Robbie Williams, a song that used to be played frequently in the low quality nightclubs I used to partake in. Everytime I hear that particular piece of music my entire body tenses. Bird swoop from the trees and fly round and round the sky squawking and squeaking. Small forest creatures gather together and go “uh oh, leggit.!”.
You see, unsurprisingly, I detest the bloody things.
Ok that is a little bit of a generalisation. I hate slushy sloooow love songs. The sort that warble on about how lovely the other person is. How they brighten your life, continue ad infinauseum. James Cunt is a prime example. You’re Beautiful is pure sleaze to me. Like someone being slowly drowned in treacle while singing. Years ago I sang Wonderwall to my ex while dancing with her. It is not a love song but the feeling at the time created the illusion it was. Since then I have stopped and listened to so much music that creates the same sort of feeling I have come to realise that love songs aren’t about the feelings you have for someone, they are about the illusion of being with that person once again.
One of the strongest “love song” vibes I get is from Blurry by Puddle of Mudd. It means so much to me, not about anyone really but about my feelings for people in the past, how I have missed the person I am in love with etc etc. The last thing I want is a whiney diatribe that means nothing to me but everything to the toss pot singing it. (Why do I INSTANTLY think about James Cunt everytime I write a sentence tonight).?
Think of the best songs by some artists. Take That for instance (too much thinking while going to the loo I am afraid to say). Their best song was not Babe or Love Ain’t Here Anymore, it was Pray. A love song nonetheless but an upbeat one. No dirge music there. What else we got…. Ooooh The Police, Every Breath You Take. Again a faster, bouncier song than it could have been (despite the bloody awful cover version by Puff Daddy and Faith Hill). Finally Pulp. Their best love song is the divinely beautiful and incredibly realistic Wickerman. A song purely about a river running through Sheffield and the memories of a girl that it conjours up. It lasts 8 minutes 19 seconds and Every. Single. Note. brings to life the feeling of spending THAT Sunday afternoon in a working class cafe, smelling the sweet factory, hearing the water swirling alongside. In contrast Someone Like The Moon is slower and doesn’t capture the imagination at all. Still a good song in it’s own right but the mood isn’t there, the emotions are badly portrayed, there is no care for the characters.
Jarvis always gets it right with love songs. Maybe we are similar in the respect. He understands how love isn’t always about pouring your heart out about that special person. He knows it’s about the feeling you get in your stomach (RE F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E). Like you are standing on the edge of a tall building looking down. That slightly sick feeling, like when you know you were going to get into trouble at school or when you know you made a major mistake at work and have to face the consequences. I could harp on about this for ages because I can never quite express the emotive sentiment that his lyrics create. I hear East17 singing Stay Another Day and I don’t give a damn. Dido can squeal her way through White Flag but I won’t bat an eyelid because it doesn’t seem real. Maybe she feels the emotion but she can’t transmute that to the listener, Mr Cocker does that instantly. The first time you hear the words to Wickerman it seems too good to be true. That someone else can feel like that.
Despite the years apart from a certain Pika and I being together and the I Love Life album by Pulp being released I STILL to this day imagine being with her when I hear Wickerman. I am back in the park when we first got together. Freezing cold, huddled up with no where to go. Simple things like holding hands while walking to Pioneer only for her to not bother going to work and to come back to my place instead. It almost makes me cry for what I lost in her but you all know that, even if she doesn’t. But THAT is just what I am on about. If I wrote a song about it then it would be good for me not you. If Jarvis wrote it, however, then I am SURE he would make you feel what I feel now. The slight sense of loss, the stale but still potent taste of anticipation in my mouth. The uncertainty of how long it was going to last (six years as it turned out).
If I only miss two things in my entire life.
Karen. Jarvis’s Talent. You both touched me more than you will ever realise.
‘Every breath you take’ was about a stalker. hmm.. scary