Pop culture treasure, high culture trash.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Pop baptism, or, Who's afraid of Natalie Portman?

It has become terribly gauche, in this post-Garden State world, to say that a pop song saved or changed your life. Still, the fact remains: I listened to three songs this weekend (none of them for the first time), and they saved my life. I think it helped that I was in an airport for two of them. Transience has a way of making choruses stick.

Islands, "Rough Gem"
Client, "Down to the Underground"
The Smiths, "Ask"

If you listen hard enough, you can hear each of these songs--the music, not necessarily the lyrics--dripping the same holy water on yr forehead, slipping the same annunciatory whisper in yr ear: live, you silly fuck. Starting now.

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