Important Songsby Quétinbec 07/07/2009, 4:29pm PDT
Zsenitan wrote:
And now I would like for you to write a post about your 10 favorite songs not written by the Crash Test Dummies.
Fuck 10 songs, but this goes out to Zseni. If any of you FUCKING COWARDS have interesting memory songs, you can post them too.
I had this really awkward situation when I was leaving Korea. I cried while saying Goodbye to a couple of people. Some people I expected to cry for and I cried very easily. Some people I didn't expect to cry for, like condom-shame-hamster guy, but I did cry. Some people I should have cried for but couldn't for some reason. Such was the case for this very sweet and friendly guy who'd done a lot for me and who was driving me to the bus station and who definitely deserved some tears, but, I was pretty much cried out and I thought if I hop on the bus without crying for him, after crying for some of these other awful people, he'll take offense. I knew I'd never come back to this shithole or ever see any of these people again. I decided to do what most people who can't muster the appropriate emotional response in those kind of situations do: lie and pretend it wasn't the last time we'd ever see each other. To make my lie more powerful, I gave him $NZ10 and said he could only spend that money on beer in NZ with me. Then I hopped on the bus and put on some bullshit song hoping to get emotional while he waited there waving. I can't remember what it was but it was ineffective and I pretty much just stared at him. I never saw him again, of course.
Later, once the bus was moving and I was listening to Royksopp's 'In Space', and I saw all these places that were very important to me disappearing forever, I cried like a little bitch. THEN OF ALL TIMES! WITH NO ONE TO SEE! Unlike the other songs, I'll vouch for this as a great song and not just a song that happens to be attached to a powerful memory. Sure Royksopp are gay but so are you.
There was this gypsy girl I lived and travelled with in India who I loved. We slept in the same bed every night but never fucked. I used to wake up before her most mornings so I'd wait for her so we could get breakfast together. When it became apparent nothing would ever happen between us, I creepily used these moments to try to soak in as much of her as possible while listening to songs I wanted to mourn her by. Hahahahahaha! That sounds creepier than it should!
Most of the songs were embarrassing and gay, like Weezer's "Say it Ain't So." I've heard that song a million times since and it only makes me a little sad. But there was one song, and it's not even a great song or anything, but I can't even listen to it anymore. And there was one time I was with other people in the desert looking at a sunrise, and I didn't think the sunrise was as emotional or inspirational as it should have been because I was tired or maybe sunrises just aren't that great - who knows - so I used my MP3 player to liven myself up. I had trouble choosing a suitable song. I wrote about it in a post here somewhere. I listened to her song and then and forever after when talking about that moment to put down the power of sunrises with other people who don't even know her, I lie and say I listened to some other bullshit, and I don't know why I lie. No one gives a shit so it's like I'm lying to myself. It's probably a gypsy curse.
It sucks to have all those feelings attached to what's probably a pretty a crappy song, but it's good in a way too, because it means I never get fucked over by it in a supermarket or anything. ANYWAY, it's Sparkehorse's Comfort Me:
I've only spent 8 months working in an office so I'm not an expert or anything but I think Fink's 'Buscuits for Breakfast' almost perfectly sums up my feelings about that kind of life. I was half heartedly looking for work in Australia while I was waiting for this Taiwanese idiot to speak to me again. I was having trouble deciding whether to get a proper job in Australia and make myself more impressive to the world or teach English in some shithole. I decided against the proper job while listening to this song. I changed my mind a couple of times later, but I always came back to the decision made while listening to this song. The decision being: fuck that shit.
I love airports and I thought if I listened to one same song every time I was in an airport, that song would become very powerful to me through association. I think it started off as a kind of an experiment with a song I didn't really like but thought was appropriate for an airport. The song was The Karminsky Experience's "The Other World". It's not a great song, though. It did become powerful through the force of being associated with the beginning of, like, 15 journeys, but I didn't feel it deserved this power, and I felt I wasted the opportunity to make a better song meaningful to me. So last year, I changed my airport song to Prefuse 73's 'Afternoon Love In', and that's what I'll listen to on my way to Bahrain.
