It's not much of a career
There's a lot of regretful things people can do when they've been drinking. Some people go home with someone they shouldn't even have talked to in the first place. Some people just keep drinking and get the spins. Me? I go home and put headphones on. And while those other people are waking up in horror and/or hangovers, I'm waking up with ringing ears.
And last night, after a few drinks, I put on the headphones, put the volume too loud, and for whatever reason, turned to the Billy Bragg section of my library. The result (besides ringing ears) is a list of my favorite Billy Bragg lyrics, to be read only by those people who appreciate incredibly clever wordplay and perfectly-phrased life truths. I'd love nothing more than to analyze each one of these, but Billy Bragg appreciation class will have to be postponed due to a time shortage. But here's the required reading:
"He was trapped in a haircut he no longer believed in"Doug and Paul, what did I miss?
- King James Version
"The temptation to take the precious things we have apart to see how they work must be resisted for they never fit together again"
- Must I Paint You a Picture
"My dreams are so unoriginal
I have all the self-loathing of a wolf in sheep's clothing
In this carnival of carnivores
Heaven help me..."
- Accident Waiting To Happen
"Between 'Marx' and 'Marzipan' in the dictionary, there was Mary
Between the deep blue sea and the devil, that was me"
- The Short Answer
"In the end it took me a dictionary to find out the meaning of unrequited"
- The Saturday Boy
"We'll dance in the town until the sun goes down
And push our beds together"
- Ontario, Quebec and Me
"The most important decisions in life are made between two people in bed"
- Must I Paint You A Picture
"He fights this loneliness that you call freedom"
- Little Time Bomb
"She should have been the last but she was just the latest"
- The Short Answer
"The revolution is just a t-shirt away"
- Waiting For the Great Leap Forward
"In those long empty passionless nights, many times to herself she has prayed
That the baby will love her much more than the big boy who stole her away"
- The Passion
"I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them, but they were only satellites
Is it wrong to wish on space hardware?
I wish you cared..."
- A New England
"The book you said to read, well I have read but nothing's changed"
- The Only One
"I've always been impressed with a girl who could sing for her supper and get breakfast as well"
- Accident Waiting To Happen
"Is this the consequence of an out-of-bed experience?"
- Body of Water
4 comments:
Neither of these are necessarily profound, but they both make me laugh:
Stop playing with yourselves in hard currency hotels
I look like robert de niro, I drive a mitsubishi zero
(Sexuality)
His lack of humility defies imagination
And he hangs round like a fart in a russian space station
(Goalhanger)
He said "fart".
Well, you took most of mine. Thanks Reid!
But...
"Nothing is clear in this tactical unclear war
I can't be bothered to find out
What we are fighting for"
- Like Soldiers Do
"Revenge will bring cold comfort in this darkest hour
As the jukebox says 'It's All Over Now'"
- little time bomb
"If she wanted to be a farmer's wife
I would endure that muddy life
I would dig for victory"
- the short answer
"The laws of gravity are very, very strict
And you're just bending them for your own benefit"
-she's got a new spell
Xtian, yeah...he's got some pretty hilarious ones. One of my favorites is, "How can you lie there and think of England when you don't even know who's in the team?"
Good ones, Doug! Speaking of "Like Soldiers Do":
"So stand fast, my emotions
Rally 'round my shaking heart"
And "She's Got a New Spell":
"She stole the scene and the scenery
The script and the machinery"
who doesn't love:
'i'm more impressionable when my cement is wet.' greetings to the new brunette
he also does a version of 'walk away renee' that's just him reciting a monologue, while johnny marr strums underneath. the whole thing is below, but when you're done reading it, imagine the riff being played on acoustic guitar by johnny marr. it's pretty wonderful...
WALK AWAY RENEE (VERSION)
She said it was just a figment of speech
And I said, "You mean figure ?"
And she said, "No, figment"
Because she could never imagine it happening
But it did
When we first met I played the shy boy
And when she spoke to me for the first time
My nose began to bleed
She guessed the rest
The next day we went on a bus ride to the ferry
And when nobody came to collect our fares
Well, I knew then this was something special
I couldn’t stop thinking about her
And every time I switched on the radio
There was somebody else singing a song about the two of us
It was just like being on a fast ride at the funfair
The sort you wanna get off because it’s scary
And then as soon as you’re off
You wanna get straight back on again
But our love is strange
And you have to take the crunchy with the smooth I ‘spose
She began going out with Mr. Potato Head
It was when I saw her in the car park
With his coat around her shoulders that I realised
I went home and thought about the two of them together
Until the bath water went cold around me
I thought about her eyes and the curve of her breasts
And about the point where their bodies met
I confronted her about it
I said, "I’m the most illegible bachelor in town"
And she said, "Yea, that why I can never understand
Any of those silly letters you send me"
And then one day it happened
She cut ‘er hair and I stopped lovin’ ‘er
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