Song, by Toad

I always remember the snivelling acolytes of the cool kids at school being so horrified when you showed indifference to the glowing aura of dazzling beauty emanating from the posteriors of their deities that there was only one response: you must be jealous.

Aye, right, spot on you fucking psychological genius.  Christ almighty, are you that heartbroken by someone showing a lack of respect for your personal heroes that you have to whine like a jilted baby?  The answer is yes, of course.  Yesterday someone left a great comment on my post about Scarlett Johansson’s merciless butchering of Tom Waits’ back catalogue which was pretty much in that exact same vein.  It was perfect – a little gem of spurned, wounded madness and I thought I had to share.  No rambling, no idiotic screed, perfectly concise and absolutely brilliant.  No need to mock the old dear any more of course, but I though you might find this funny:

I actually love Tom Waits AND Scarlet’s covers, especially “Falling Down.” There is absolutely no reason for you to bash someone personally because they didn’t cover a beloved song of yours to your liking or because you’re bitter about not being famous.

She’s quite right.  I am unforgivably bitter about not being famous.  Because I’ve done, erm… nothing worthy of fame really.  But then, that doesn’t seem to discourage many people. And it couldn’t possibly be because I think Scarlett Johansson can’t fucking sing and that our pathetic toadying to celebrity means no-one had the balls to tell her, could it?  No no, that would be entirely implausible.  Can anyone sense that I’m in a bit of a mood today?

And what better song:

The Magnetic Fields – Famous

There’s so much perfectly decent music in my inbox at the moment, that I find it hard to write about any of it.  Yeah, you know, ho hum, it’s all pretty decent but none is blowing me away.

Islands’ Arm’s Way is pretty decent, Bon Iver’s album For Emma, Forever Ago isn’t bad either, but I honestly don’t find it quite as brilliant as almost everyone else seems to.  The new albums by Half Man Half Biscuit and even The Wave Pictures are both pretty good but just not awakening much passion I’m afraid.  Ditto Fleet Foxes, Bowerbirds, Tindersticks and a few others.

I guess this happens, and this is why people have old favourites in the first place: occasionally you just need to go back to the cup of tea and a biscuit part of your collection – for Americans that might be the chicken soup with rice part – and just listen to the stuff so good and comforting and familiar that it always does the trick.  No thinking, no evaluating, no trying to pull comparisons out of your arse, just give the brain a rest for a bit and stop thinking.   How conscious a process is music enjoyment supposed to be anyway.

I never participated in No Music day, but I thought it was a good idea, albeit not for the reasons suggested.  Not every moment of every day needs to be soundtracked.  We are not movies, and it is good for all of us to take the headphones off, turn off the stereo and just enjoy being peaceful from time to time.  Right now is that time for me.  I just need to go for a walk and listen to fuck all for a bit, and when I do listen to something it needs to be some Dylan stuff, or Tom Waits.  Or Calexico, or the Willard Grant Conspiracy, or Billy Bragg, or Belle & Sebastian or an old REM album or something like that.

Sometimes you have to stop processing music, and just enjoy it.  And sometimes I get to the stage where I need to be reminded of that.  Like today.

Calexico – Sunken Waltz
Bruce Springsteen – Growin’ Up
The Smiths – William, It was Really Nothing
Eels – Susan’s House
The Wedding Present – Gazebo