Oreo is doing the most ridiculous thing - she just crawls across the bed when she's halfway through stretching out and it looks hilarious. She knows I'm laughing at her and I am earning a reproachful look *shakes head*
So yeah, the album. I really think of it as a summer album, and hence I feel this falling in love with it again is a bit premature. It's been cold and wet all week, not appropriate for the album's tone at all. Where is summer? I'm tired of spring's mediocrity. The result of this clash is that a vacillate between listening to Fast Times, and listening to The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me - because it is raining, and Brand New are my quintessential rainy day band, and because that album speaks to a part of me that I don't think I can fully express or understand. It is still my most listened to album according to last.fm.
Top 5 Fast Times songs:
♪ About a Girl - predictable choice perhaps, being the main single. But it's catchy, and sing-a-long and encapsulates the tone of the album so perfectly.
I'm not in love, this is not my heart, I'm not going to waste these words about a girl. I'm not in love, this is not your song, I'm not going to waste these words about a girl.
♪ His Girl Friday - it's the same deal as the previous one really. It sums up why I feel this album is entirely successful in what it tries to be, a throwback to those 80s teen films like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles. It's the romanticised hollywood high school experience, tapping into a joyful quality of our shared consciousness without falling into nostalgia.
Call on a Monday, come on a Tuesday, they'll never know. Pop off a cork for a Wednesday, stay with me Thursday, but she'll always be his girl, his girl Friday.
♪ The Test - slow it down, it's time for angst. There's a visceral quality to the album, I can see it, I can feel it. Here, there's that sense of walking the streets alone at night and giving in to over-thinking. Its resignation that plays out across a scene characterised by routine, a scene that is oppressive in all that it holds.
If this is a test, I'm losing my shit, would it kill you to care as much as I did? If this is a test, I'm wasting my breath. You're a stranger I know well, and not at all.
♪ Coppertone - arguably my favourite track, I love the flow of the lyrics, the repetitious imagery. There's a hopefulness to it...but hopeful is not the right word. It's anticipatory almost, submissive yet determined, and to me it seems to suggest a contentment with the changeable nature of everything and the risks that requires.
But this charade is never going to last, so pick the poison and pour yourself a glass, I still feel the same, no one's to blame.
♪ One more weekend - This one is such a giant hopeful sing-a-long chorus type song that it's almost sickening in its overtness. BUT it is the last song on the album and bookends the whole thing so perfectly that it's sort of hard not to get into it - Fast Times does feel like it spans across the last year of high school, and even though my high school experience was absolutely nothing like this, thanks to movies and tv it's still instinctively recognisable. Maybe it isn't musical genius, but it is so effective in the scene it conjures, that first taste of freedom in your life, that all I want to do is turn it up and drive around with the windows down and the sun at my back to nowhere in particular.
You'll go off, you'll forget, you'll grow out of hanging from the edges, breaking off the past. You'll know when to move on, you'll know when to take all the right chances, never looking back.
Top 5 The Devil and God songs:
♪ Jesus Christ - I've been staring at this for longer than I should have, trying to figure out what I can say about this song. The ones I did before came quickly, and without much thought, but this...I don't know. I've been listening to this album for four years, you'd think I'd have a better grip on its appeal. But sometimes I think music touches upon things that are hard to articulate, and because it does, I find it hard to articulate how it appeals to me. I have a weird affinity with Jesse Lacey. So perhaps it's a wasteful exercise trying to pinpoint why I love the songs on this album, and it will just have to suffice that I do. Also, I will be quoting favourite lines for this, instead of just the chorus.
Well Jesus Christ, I'm not scared of dying, I'm a little bit scared of what comes after. Do I get the gold chariot, do I float through the ceiling? Do I divide or fall apart? Cause my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark. This ship went down in sight of land, and at the gates does Thomas ask to see my hands?
♪ Sowing Season - The second verse of this song is taken from the Rudyard Kipling poem If. That poem was printed in the back of our high school diary in SA. Random facts.
Do you miss the blend, of colour she left in your black and white field, and do you feel condemned just for being there? I am not your friend, I am just a man who knows how to feel. I am not your friend, I'm not your lover, I'm not your family.
♪ The archers bows have broken - With this song, it's the chorus. It's just always worked for me. And I love the intensity the song carries throughout, it's constant and exhausting, as it should be.
What did you learn tonight? Shouting so loud, you barely joyous, broken thing, you're a voice that never sings, it's what I say. You are freezing over hell, you are bringing on the end you do so well, you can only blame yourself, it's what I say.
♪ Handcuffs - This song is credited entirely to Vin Accardi (both music and lyrics), it's the only lyrics on the album not written by Jesse. It's so twisted, and sad, and...yeah.
I'd drive my car off of a bridge, if I knew that you weren't inside. With the pedal to the floor who could ask for more, a fantastic way to kill some time.
♪ Millstone
I used to pray that God was listening, I used to make my parents proud. I was the glue that kept my friends together, now they don't talk and we don't go out. I used to know the name of every person I'd kissed, now I've made my bed and I can't fall asleep in it.
These are all subject to change though, and change they do, quite regularly. I love doing top 5 lists, makes me feel like I'm in High Fidelity. Never mind that I'm procrastinating.
Speaking of, unsurprisingly my schedule did not work out so well. I got so hung up agonising over stuff that I only managed to finish chapter 2 last night. I'm not entirely convinced of its quality, but I can't waste anymore time on it. So that leaves me with two chapters and an essay each day of the weekend. Nano has completely fallen by the wayside in the process and come next week I'll be 15,000 words behind. It'll be hard going but I should be able to catch up. I'll try anyway.
The week has been long and trying. I've been busy, I've been tired, I've been angsting. Now I've reached the zen state that seems to eventuate as the aftermath of those things colliding.
Oh, I got a speeding fine in the mail from last Thursday. I was driving Martha so it came in on dad's name - he nearly had a heart attack and then realised I was to blame. He was positively gleeful telling me about it. I'm quite pissed about it, not because I got caught but because it's almost as much as my previous fine, and the offence was actually worse last time. How is that fair? There should be some sort of scaling system! Not just some standard fee for all traffic offences. Woe. I think I got another one this week - shall see if it eventuates. I'm contemplating moving to Germany where I won't be penalised for driving a decent speed on a highway.
Expect only to hear from me again when chapter 3, 4 and my postmodernism essay is complete. If you hear about some girl found wandering the streets babbling incoherently, please contact the authorities and see that I am returned home.
Music: One more weekend - The Academy Is...
Mood: Working, or preparing to
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