Sex & Drugs

Preface: I love all of these songs.

1) "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon and Garfunkel
Ok, it's open for interpretation, but I think Mrs. Robinson was hiding more than cupcakes in her pantry. Although, I must admit, when I was younger2 I thought it must be candy she had to hide from the kids.
Mrs. Robinson


2) "Walk On the Wild Side" by Lou Reed
"Walk On the Wild Side" is my ring-tone, so I've had plenty of time to think about this. "Little Joe never once gave it away, everybody had to pay and pay." Pay for...what? "Candy never lost her head, even when she was giving head." There's also mention of Valium.
Walk On the Wild Side


3) "Acid Rain" by the Growlers
The Growlers are the next big thing out of San Francisco. That Said, if you ever sing "acid" and "trip" in your lyrics, you're taking Timothy Leary's sage advice.
Acid Rain


4) "Chelsea Hotel #2" by Leonard Cohen
Cohen was told that his lover prefers "handsome men" and he's a mere "exception", but he still got head on an unmade bed in the Chelsea Hotel.
Chelsea Hotel


5) "Lithium" by Nirvana
Cobain is lulled by the psychoactive drug, Lithium. Somehow in that haze he managed to be the messenger for generation X. By the way, he's "horny", but his will is good.
Lithium

Music Memories #1

Music in My Life

Age 5:

Color Me Purple

The year I turned five was indelibly marked by the debut on PBS of “Barney the Dinosaur.” Borrowing melodies from classic children’s songs and adding new words, Barney’s opening theme song “Barney is a Dinosaur…” was a magnetic call to the television, and the series’ closing song “I Love You, You Love Me” the affirmation ad nauseum of family and friendship. It is rumored that these tunes were used by interrogators at Guantanomo Bay to turture/breakdown prisoners.

In the car, I remember Raffi cassettes. “Baby Baluga”, “This Little Light of Mine”… My younger brothers and I would happily sing along while strapped in our seats.Raffi was undeniably uplifting. And there wasn’t much else to do.

Video cassettes (yes, I’m talking VHS tapes) of Disney Sing-Along Songs featuring Disney movie soundtracks were relatively new when I was five. Together with my siblings, I would happily “follow the bouncing ball” (ha, ha—we couldn’t read) and dance frenetically to the tunes.

Age 10:

Hostage

I turned ten just a few years before Britney Spears et al and the “tween music” genre.

I don’t recall music of choice at that age, but only recall being held captive to either my younger siblings’ “Go-go Power Rangers” and other TV theme songs, and to my parents’ predilection to mostly 80’s “classic rock” such as Bob Seeger, Tom Petty, John Melloncamp—music that nauseates me to this day. At least they also embraced and integrated the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel, music that I still appreciate to this day.

Age 15:

Search and Discovery

At fifteen I was still a hostage—this time at a Catholic all girls’ high school. My only interaction with boys my age was at co-ed dances with our “brother” school, where we “left room for the Holy Spirit” while nervously dancing to boy-band sonnets. I didn’t like the men or the music. So I developed a crush on my overweight, bearded history teacher (who seemed stuck in competing decades with his flannel shirts and Elvis Costello glasses).

Mr.______ picked me out as particularly moody and offered me the best remedy for angst—good music. Through him I discovered my favorite album to this day, Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel, and my ill-fated favorite artist, Elliott Smith. I also began listening to 60's and 70's experimental rock, such as David Bowie, The Velvet Underground, and Lou Reed. I could now identify with the “indie” scene, which was a common denominator for making friends when I transferred to public school my junior year. Music shows became my primary social outlet and admittedly still are.

I listen to the music I listened to then to this day, and the search and discovery of good music is still meaningful part of my life.

5 songs I HATE:

"Barbie Girl" by Aqua
This song was released when I was in junior high. It reinforced my insecurities about being imperfect; that I should be like Barbie. Plus, it has one of the most grating EuroPop beats I've ever heard.
Barbie Girl

"Smile Sara" by Hall and Oates
I don't like this sort of "slow groove" beat. When I was 16, a boy giving me a ride home played this song and tried to make a pass at me. My name is spelled with an "h", thank you very much.
Sara Smile

"Summer Girls" by LFO
LFO was a fourth-tier boy band that experienced only one hit single (thankfully.) The lyrics are laughable: "New Kids on The Block had a bunch of hits, Chinese food makes me sick and "Billy Shakespeare wrote a bunch of sonnets." The line "I like girls who wear Abercrombie & Fitch" promotes a clothing brand I could not afford to wear in junior high.
Summer Girls

"Rico Suave" by Gerado Mejia
A greased up muscle "latin lover" singing about being a self-appointed "gigalo" and "rapping" the lines "my only addiction has to do with the female species, I eat 'em raw like sushi" makes me lose my appetite.

Rico Suave

“Nookie”

I think I hate “Nookie” more than any of the aforementioned songs because most of the songs listed above have comedic value. “Nookie” is about “trash talking” an unfaithful girlfriend and admitting that she was only valuable for sex.

Nookie

My 5 favorite song (in no particular order):

1) "Holland 1945" by Neutral Milk Hotel. When I heard Neutral Milk Hotel's cult worthy 1998 album, "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea," I felt like every song was written exclusively for me. I happened upon the album through hearsay a few months after playing Anne Frank in a play based on her diary at a local community theater in Salinas. Feeling commonly angsty at 14, Anne's diary was my best friend. My peers criticized her diary entries as "werid", especially when she recorded her observations about the maturation of her body and her concerns that she was even psychologically abnormal. Jeff Mangum, lead singer and songwriter for Neutral Milk Hotel, wrote that he "fell in love" with Anne after reading her diary. "In the Aeroplane Over the sea" is a loose tribute to Anne, with tracks such as "Oh, Comely," in which Mangum laments: "I know they buried her bodies with others/will she remember me fifty years later/I wish I could save her in some sort of time machine." "Holland 1945" is uptempo and boisterous with fuzzy guitar and horns celebrates Anne and yet reminds the listener of the inhumanity of her death with the first lines: "the only girl I ever loved was born with roses in her eyes/but then the buried her alive one evening 1945/with just her sister at her side/and only weeks before the guns came and rained on everyone."

Song: Song: Holland 1945

Lyrics: http://www.songlyrics.com/neutral-milk-hotel/holland-1945-lyrics/

2) "The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel. I remember my mom humming the lyrics to "The Boxer". It was one of the first songs I could recognize as a child and realize the emotion behind the narrative emphasized by the crash of a drum: "when I left my home and my family /I was no more than a boy/In the company of strangers /in the quiet of the railway station running scared /laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters /where the ragged people go/looking for the places only they would know."

Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdKjEHfHINQ">The Boxer

Lyrics: http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Bled-White-lyrics-Elliott-Smith/5E3F95C14D13A9E8482568AB00172085

3) "Bled White" by Elliott Smith

Elliott Smith has always touched me with his emotionally raw lyrics. "Bled White" is about Smith's hometown, Portland, OR, where I lived for two years. The song is about the hollowness Smith felt in Portland; a hollowness I shared. In 2005 Elliott Smith died of a self-inflicted knife wound in the chest. I was a junior in high school, and when I read the neww I cried. He was my Kurt Cobain.

Bled White

4) "Teenage Riot" by Sonic Youth

While living in Portland, I attended a protest on the fifth anniversary of the day the US invaded Iraq. The protest escalated into a riot, and I found myself in front of City Hall with my camera, taking photos for my journalism class. Riot police rushed the crowd, and I was incidentally clubbed and maced.

Song: Teenage Riot

Lyrics: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/sonic+youth/teenage+riot_20127627.html

5) "Chelsea Hotel #2" by Leonard Cohen

The song is written about Cohen's one night affair with Janis Joplin at the Chelsea Hotel.

Song: Chelsea Hotel #2

Lyrics: http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/CHELSEA-HOTEL-NO-2-lyrics-Leonard-Cohen/1A7711D520478DBF48256AF00027B605

My five favorite songs (in no particular order):

1) "Holland 1945" by Neutral Milk Hotel.

When I heard Neutral Milk Hotel's cult worthy 1998 album, "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea," I felt like every song was written exclusively for me. I happened upon the album through hearsay a few months after playing Anne Frank in a play based on her diary at a local community theater in Salinas. Feeling commonly angsty at 14, Anne's diary was my best friend. My peers criticized her diary entries as "werid", especially when she recorded her observations about the maturation of her body and her concerns that she was even psychologically abnormal. Jeff Mangum, lead singer and songwriter for Neutral Milk Hotel, wrote that he "fell in love" with Anne after reading her diary. "In the Aeroplane Over the sea" is a loose tribute to Anne, with tracks such as "Oh, Comely," in which Mangum laments: "I know they buried her bodies with others/will she remember me fifty years later/I wish I could save her in some sort of time machine." "Holland 1945" is uptempo and boisterous with fuzzy guitar and horns celebrates Anne and yet reminds the listener of the inhumanity of her death with the first lines: "the only girl I ever loved was born with roses in her eyes/but then the buried her alive one evening 1945/with just her sister at her side/and only weeks before the guns came and rained on everyone."

Song: Holland 1945

Lyrics: http://www.songlyrics.com/neutral-milk-hotel/holland-1945-lyrics/

2) "The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel.

I remember my mom humming the lyrics to "The Boxer". It was one of the first songs I could recognize as a child and realize the emotion behind the narrative emphasized by the crash of a drum: "when I left my home and my family /I was no more than a boy/In the company of strangers /in the quiet of the railway station running scared /laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters /where the ragged people go/looking for the places only they would know."

Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdKjEHfHINQ

Lyrics: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/simon+and+garfunkel/the+boxer_20124664.html

3) "Bled White" by Elliott Smith