(no subject)
First, I should say what my songs are not about. They are not about going down any long roads. They are not generally addressed to an old man from the perspective of a young man. The Neils (Young, Diamond and Sedaka) and the Bobs (Dylan, Seger and Springsteen) have already said everything you could possibly say about those topics. I've been on long roads, on some hot nights, and I've talked to quite a few old men, but there wasn't anything I took from those experiences that caused me to burst into song. Also, my songs are not about third world debt relief.
Really, they're all about "being with someone." Obviously, a lot has already been said about this in songs, but in this case I never felt like the great body of pop music had covered all the bases. There are plenty of songs that say, "I'm a get with you," and plenty that say "I love you, whoa, yeah," and a few that say, "You bitch!" but the topic still has legs.
I've never been able to say, "I'm a get with you," and keep a straight face. Possibly because I generally only use hip-hop slang while impersonating Winston Churchill. It's not that I don't want to "a get" with "you," nor am I so "sensitive" that every come-on is phrased as a question, as in: "You look really hot tonight?" It's just that the relationships I've had have always felt more like conspiracies. It's you and me, my dear, and we are secret spies. The bond and the emotion are derived a lot more from knowing glances and secret touches than much in the way of "love, whoa, yeah," or booty humpin', or moustache rides, or whatever. At least in public.
But conspiracies are dangerous. Relationships can end up feeling like crime scenes. If all you promised was to "love her all night long," well, you're going to fail at that probably in direct proportion to how much you talk (or sing) about it in advance. But if you say, "When we step through this doorway, the shit is going to hit the fan, but I've got your back and, if you've got mine, we've at least got a chance," well, shit, there are so many possible outcomes where one partner is left holding the bag. As I wrote more songs, I realized they were full of suspicion, that the love was unspoken, there was resignation and doubt. I tried to leaven them with some hope, some happy endings, but I kept coming back to the "straight face" problem. Being "with someone" isn't simple, and the world of platitudes in song, the "I'll love you forever," or the "you're the only one for me," are all first-date sentiments, the stuff you shout in someone's ear on a dance floor. How do you sing, "Why do you keep buying this cereal you know I hate?" and put hope in it?
I mean, I could describe what the song "Ultimatum" is about, the specific incident, but it would be belaboring the obvious. Everyone has been in that situation, where you really want to be with a person, you want to hold them and you think about them all the goddamn time, and you see it in their eyes that they're feeling the same way, and you can feel them gearing up, preparing to say "I love you," and you don't want it, you don't want that moment to come. It's not that you don't want to hear it, or that you don't love them back, it's that the spell is going to break the second they put it to those words. Don't be in love with me right now, not yet. Just want me, passionately, for a little longer.
I've written a few songs about petty crime, bungled thefts and screwed-up heists, but they're always really about "being with someone." There's always a moment in the song, when the chips are truly down, that the actual truth of the relationship is revealed. It's not that difficult, or unusual, to fall in love. Why is it that so many people's "one true love" just happened to go to their same small high school? Unless you believe that God is so bored that he's playing yenta to 17-year-olds everywhere, you have to admit that falling in love is not the hard part. The hard part is staying in love when your partner devises a half-assed plan to rob a jewelry store, then botches even that, and the cops are closing in, and he's thinking, "We're going down together, babe," and you're thinking, "If I testify against him, I bet I can get off with probation."
I'm not really interested in describing relationships that "work." Who cares about those people, the bastards. They don't need pop songs written for them, they're busy helping each other in the kitchen and having their kid's friend's parents over for a glass of wine. What would I say? "Tupperware this, recipe that?" The people that need pop songs, the ones who pore over them, are the people asking themselves, "Why in God's name am I home listening to records on Saturday night instead of kissing someone passionately on a fire escape while the neighbor across the alley plays the saxophone?"
Really, they're all about "being with someone." Obviously, a lot has already been said about this in songs, but in this case I never felt like the great body of pop music had covered all the bases. There are plenty of songs that say, "I'm a get with you," and plenty that say "I love you, whoa, yeah," and a few that say, "You bitch!" but the topic still has legs.
I've never been able to say, "I'm a get with you," and keep a straight face. Possibly because I generally only use hip-hop slang while impersonating Winston Churchill. It's not that I don't want to "a get" with "you," nor am I so "sensitive" that every come-on is phrased as a question, as in: "You look really hot tonight?" It's just that the relationships I've had have always felt more like conspiracies. It's you and me, my dear, and we are secret spies. The bond and the emotion are derived a lot more from knowing glances and secret touches than much in the way of "love, whoa, yeah," or booty humpin', or moustache rides, or whatever. At least in public.
But conspiracies are dangerous. Relationships can end up feeling like crime scenes. If all you promised was to "love her all night long," well, you're going to fail at that probably in direct proportion to how much you talk (or sing) about it in advance. But if you say, "When we step through this doorway, the shit is going to hit the fan, but I've got your back and, if you've got mine, we've at least got a chance," well, shit, there are so many possible outcomes where one partner is left holding the bag. As I wrote more songs, I realized they were full of suspicion, that the love was unspoken, there was resignation and doubt. I tried to leaven them with some hope, some happy endings, but I kept coming back to the "straight face" problem. Being "with someone" isn't simple, and the world of platitudes in song, the "I'll love you forever," or the "you're the only one for me," are all first-date sentiments, the stuff you shout in someone's ear on a dance floor. How do you sing, "Why do you keep buying this cereal you know I hate?" and put hope in it?
I mean, I could describe what the song "Ultimatum" is about, the specific incident, but it would be belaboring the obvious. Everyone has been in that situation, where you really want to be with a person, you want to hold them and you think about them all the goddamn time, and you see it in their eyes that they're feeling the same way, and you can feel them gearing up, preparing to say "I love you," and you don't want it, you don't want that moment to come. It's not that you don't want to hear it, or that you don't love them back, it's that the spell is going to break the second they put it to those words. Don't be in love with me right now, not yet. Just want me, passionately, for a little longer.
I've written a few songs about petty crime, bungled thefts and screwed-up heists, but they're always really about "being with someone." There's always a moment in the song, when the chips are truly down, that the actual truth of the relationship is revealed. It's not that difficult, or unusual, to fall in love. Why is it that so many people's "one true love" just happened to go to their same small high school? Unless you believe that God is so bored that he's playing yenta to 17-year-olds everywhere, you have to admit that falling in love is not the hard part. The hard part is staying in love when your partner devises a half-assed plan to rob a jewelry store, then botches even that, and the cops are closing in, and he's thinking, "We're going down together, babe," and you're thinking, "If I testify against him, I bet I can get off with probation."
I'm not really interested in describing relationships that "work." Who cares about those people, the bastards. They don't need pop songs written for them, they're busy helping each other in the kitchen and having their kid's friend's parents over for a glass of wine. What would I say? "Tupperware this, recipe that?" The people that need pop songs, the ones who pore over them, are the people asking themselves, "Why in God's name am I home listening to records on Saturday night instead of kissing someone passionately on a fire escape while the neighbor across the alley plays the saxophone?"