And who doesn’t need a Muppets fix here and there?

Meep meep meep meep meeeeeeep meep meep!

Public Service Announcement from The Bellman

Just doing my part. See also “Let There Be Songs to Fill the Air“.

Seen on New Year’s Eve in the Mission:

An otherwise ordinary San Francisco police car blasting Indian pop music through the loudspeaker.

As a follow-up to Songs That Are Not, In Fact, Love Songs, it seems appropriate to address the phenomenon of songs that are truly awesome but have sketchy elements here and there. Both of the songs I’ve chosen for this exercise are, in fact, love songs of that delicious “you could rip my heart out and leave me an empty shell” variety. However, each has a line or two that leaves you wondering why the artist couldn’t just leave an incredible song alone.

First up: Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire.” It has that beautiful Springsteen poetry, with a vulnerable edge that can’t not get into your soul just a little:

Sometimes its like someone took a knife baby
Edgy and dull and cut a six-inch valley
Through the middle of my soul

Only you can cool my desire
I’m on Fire

Very moving, right? However, what about this?

Hey little girl is your daddy home

Did he go away and leave you all alone

Tell me now baby is he good to you
Can he do to you the things that I do

Is the pedophile / incest theme really necessary? I still love this song, but this skeevy bit leaves me with a side of guilt when listening to it.

Tom Waits’s “Jersey Girl” is also quite poetic. Lines like these:

Down the shore everything’s all right, you with your baby on a Saturday night,
Don’t you know that all my dreams come true, when I’m walking down the street
With you

are very romantic. It’s clear that he’s pretty gone over this girl. So gone, in fact, that he has this to say:

Don’t want no whores on Eighth Avenue, cause tonight I’m gonna be
With you

I’m not sure that, if I were the Jersey girl, I would feel touched by this sentiment. It’s the sort of thing a more conventional guy would keep to himself.

I guess Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits can get away with this sort of thing. They both have that deep, mysterious, intense quality that excuses pedophilia, incest, and whoring around. At least until the song ends, the spell is broken, and we come to our senses and realize what exactly we’re singing in the shower. Whores on Eighth Avenue sound far less charming when sung off-key to the accompaniment of a steady stream of water.

Reed and I heard the Johnny Cash version of the song “One” the other day, and he remarked that the U2 original figures prominently at high school dances. I avoided high school dances, so I can’t independently assess that statement. However, I vaguely remember that it may have appeared on the ballot for prom theme once or twice, so it seems that my peers were fond of it.

It’s odd that a song with lyrics like

Well we
Hurt each other
Then we do it again

You gave me nothing
Now it’s all I got

is considered ideal for an occasion that is meant to be romantic, or at least pleasantly platonic. I strongly believe that songs of the “you ripped my heart out and I am now an empty shell” variety are usually excellent, because they come from a passionate, albeit despondent place. However, is this really what you want to hear at a social occasion?

On the same note, I’ve always been baffled by people who find the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” to be romantic.

Have a look:

Every move you make
Every breath you take
I’ll be watching you

Oh can’t you see
You belong to me

This is a stalking relationship, not a loving one. This sentiment was validated by Sting on a daytime talk show a few years ago. I didn’t see it, but a friend who did said he is disturbed by the fact that people accost him on the street to tell him, for instance, that the song has figured prominently at their weddings. He said it was meant to be a depiction of an unhealthy relationship, and that people’s reactions indicate something problematic about our culture.

These are great songs, and perhaps sound like they are about love. In a sense, I guess they are. However, who wants to strive for a relationship that has either ended badly or continues only as an obsession? Let’s hope this is an example of art reflecting life, not life reflecting art. People screw up love easily enough without guidance from pop songs.

Yup, you read that right. Claire and I happened upon this unlikely event at Mama Buzz the other day:

I assumed the occasion would involve mohawked, heavily pierced accordion-wielding individuals holding some sort of polka-ized Sex Pistols jam session. However, it turned out to be a lesson with Henri Ducharme, a music teacher so very hardcore that he is lifting his house off its foundation so he can build an accordion into his basement wall.

Claire and I didn’t have accordions, so we could only observe. However, what could have been a disadvantage became exotic and fun when we were designated “interlopers” during the introductions. My quasi-surreptitious filming added to the voyeur vibe as Henri taught the better equipped students a song called “Broken Cup” by Jason Webley. It was awesome to see them start with a simple melody, build on it, and end with beautiful 5-part harmony. I didn’t catch the final version on camera, but take my word for it: you’re sorry you missed it.

I went to my favorite Bay Area clothing store, Momoca, and found this banana shirt. Who can resist something that simultaneously evokes Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground, and J.D. Salinger?