Step 1: Put your iPod player on random. Step 2: Post the first line from the first 30 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song. Step 3: Let everyone guess what song and artist the lines come from. Step 4: Bold the songs when someone guesses correctly. (Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING!)
KayO did this, and it was fun for me despite my unfamiliarity with many of the songs (*feels shame*). So I thought I'd try it ... and promptly got carried away. I have so much Killing Joke and Radiohead on my iTunes that I worried it wouldn't work (This is where you say, "You were right: It doesn't.").
So I started removing repeat artists. But then that struck me as cheating, so I left them in ... and spiraled from 30 to 50 songs. So it probably became just a way to entertain myself (You say: "You mean like the rest of your blog?"). I will hint that out of 50 tracks, there are 38 different artists. Further mild hint: Sorry BH -- only one U2 song, and an obscure one at that (but one I suspect you enjoy singing with the lights out, anyway).
Things that might make it worth it: - There are at least a couple that I am "embarrassed" by - More than half are relevant to at least one or another "regular" reader of this site - Standing alone, divorced from tune or context, some lines are just plain funny - I did not cut songs that include the title in their first line, because I figure this is hard enough as it is, and I wasn't sure if that was cheating, too - At least with KayO's, I found it fun to read the first lines as some kind of monkeys-at-typewriters pool of poetry. Kinda feel that way about looking at this one, too. Reading them in sequence makes me guffaw - Also fun: when a line sounds like something you know ... and it turns out to be a song you've never heard in your life
Although I had to look quite a few of these up to decipher or confirm the lyrics, I was struck by how many of these songs were tacked to my bulletin board in college. Apparently I'm very into lyrics.
Right now, I'll leave the list as is. Depending on response (and time), I will probably just return to it and put the titles in white text underneath the song, for revelation by highlighting the text with your cursor. Later*, after eyes have glazed over, I'll add a post to explain why some were "relevant" to specific people if they didn't see/get it, and to sprinkle needed love on independent artists. But please don't feel obliged to play unless it tickles your fancy.
*promises on this blog are rarely kept
The Lines 1. People always talk about / Things they don't know much about / You take your chances and toss them all aside
2. You're alone in the pack / You're feeling like you wanna go home
3. You gotta stomp, whistle and scream / You gotta wiggle all over your dreams
4. One of these days I'm gonna cut you into little pieces.
5. Man watching video, the heart keeps on ticking / He doesn't know why, he's just cattle for slaughter
6. Crazy, sturdy, a tor-pedo / Crazy, brutal, a tor-pedo
7. Aim for the body rare, you'll see it on TV / The worst thing in 1954 was the bikini
8. The king's taken back the throne / The useless seed is sown
9. Signs, signs of loss. Signs disappeared, turned invisible
10. The woman was a dream I had, though rather hard to keep / But when my eyes were watching her as they closed, I was still asleep
11. I never thought I'd die alone / I laugh the loudest -- who'd have known?
12. In the morning I wake up and chase away my dreams, join the world of vertical invention / Every sip of coffee pulls some stitches into seams, tightening the span of my attention
13. Ta-whooit may concern, the power of funk will kick your ass
14. One of these mornings / won't be very long / you will look for me / and baby, I'll be gone
15. Which intelligence gave geometry? Binary systems? Complex cycles of astronomy? / Number proportion, measurement lines, angle mathematics: all appeared overnight
16. Istanbul was Constantinople, now it's Istanbul not Constantinople
17. I woke up alarmed / I didn't know where I was at first -- just that I woke up in your arms / And almost immediately I felt sorry
18. She talks of supernatural aeons in her wake / She says, 'Look behind the wave of changes, feel the future taking shape'
19. I couldn't escape this feeling, with my China girl.
20. Well the time will come when the wind will shout
21. Beg the bee's forgiveness as it's falling from your sleeve / Watch its guts pump poison into sting
22. They love me like I was their brother / They protect me, listen to me
23. The moment I was born, I opened my eyes / Reached out for my credit card
24. I'm waiting till I don't know when / 'Cause I'm sure it's gonna happen then
25. It's too much / that I keep / to myself / And I turn my back on my faith
26. The problem of leisure / What to do for pleasure. / Ideal life: a new purchase / economic circumstances
27. Sweating and bleeding, staring and thinking, sinking deeper in my troubles
28. Once again she steals away, then she reaches out to kiss me
29. My values altered, I was looking for peace / I was tired in the lands of the West -- I had to get out
30. I'm sailing away / Set an open course for the virgin sea
31. The fields of Eden are full of trash / If we beg, borrow or steal, we'll never get them back
32. Take down the walls you see before you, just so the crowd cannot ignore you / You step out toward the solemn faces, awaiting to draw you into places / That they've been before
33. Lemon, see-through in the sunlight / She wore lemon, never in the daylight
34. Oh hurt me baby, I flinch so when you do / Your kisses scourge me, hyssop in your perfume / And 'slave' I only use / As a word to describe the special way / I feel for you
35. How does it feel / To treat me like you do?
36. People I know, places I go, make me feel tongue-tied
37. I am the son and the heir / Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
38. Rows of houses all bearing down on me
39. We in our infancy, led down shining paths / Shine, shine shining paths, divine our disillusion / Face our imperfections, I begin to wonder / Onion peelings scattered, we've been crying, crying
40. It's not a case of doing what's right / It's just the way I feel that matters
41. It's coming through a hole in the air / From those nights in Tiananmen Square
42. It's as clear, it's as clear, as the maps they drew / Before me and you, when there were no rules
43. Been beat up and battered around / Been set up but I've been shut down
44. You can force it but it will not come / you can taste it but it will not form
45. Confusion in her eyes that says it all: She's lost control And she's clinging to the nearest passerby, she's lost control.
46. Out where the river broke / The bloodwood and the desert oak / Holden wrecks and boiling diesels steam in 45 degrees
47. When we see people, we see people, we see people who are not whole / They have two arms and, they have two legs and / Something is missing and we just don't know -- we can't name it
48. I don't know, just where I'm going / But I'm gonna try for the kingdom if I can / 'Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man
49. I was friendly with this girl who insisted on touching my face / She told outrageous stories, I believed them / Till the endings were changing from endings before / She's not touching me anymore
50. Live, baby, live, now that the day is over / I got a new sensation in perfect moments, impossible to refuse
You know which ones I know, and there are a few others I could comment on, but let me just say that as bad as #30 is (because, let's face it, it's rather embarrassing), it also brings to mind the hilarity of South Park from days of yore.
By Talll - 9/30/2008 8:13 AM
Indeed. Which is actually why, bad as it is (*receives flogging*), it's on there. (Though did it have to turn up on Random? Really?)
When one of our favorite uncles passed away, all the siblings headed into town for the services. Amid all the weird emotions of family, past demons, and missing a beloved guy who nonetheless firmly believed I was on an automatic sentence to hell (by virtue of being baptized and then falling away), one of the pre-funeral sibling moments was an impromptu singalong to Cartman's version of the song.
So, I can't hear that song -- either version -- without being brought back to that chain of memories and emotions.
By Dominik - 9/30/2008 8:47 AM
how your ipod doesn't self-immolate is beyond me. gang of four AND styx? i'm getting seizures just thinking about this sacrilege. praise allah for alzheimer's as it took me a good 20 minutes to remember who could author such banality as "I'm sailing away / Set an open course for the virgin sea". you have single-handedly ruined a perfectly good afternoon.
By thomas - 9/30/2008 11:10 AM
Great success! See previous comment for Styx explanation. I maybe should've included "seriously guys" in the quoted line, to indicate Cartman. But it's better this way.
I eagerly await the storm of Styx Army rebuttals.
p.s. Thomas, in the ever-deepening mystery of this blogging software, your comment was "auto-blocked." Apparently, sans curse words, your vocabulary is simply too close to that of a Nigerian banking scam.
By Dominik - 9/30/2008 11:57 AM
while it is true i am a nigerian banking scam, i'm pretty sure i was auto-blocked for repeating the aforementioned lyrics. thomas
By thomas - 9/30/2008 12:48 PM
Good to hear that the song is related to evoking a good, solid memory. I love it when music calls forth memories like that - but then, you knew that.
For me, it will always remind me of a certain Nintendo-nicknamed friend who thought he did the world's best Cartman, and in fact mimicked him so poorly that to this day, I and a few others can't help but hear his version when we watch South Park.
By Talll - 10/1/2008 4:32 AM
Wow, I'm sorry I missed this! I've been checking your blog daily but only saw the Comedy Hill post I'd already read.
So, yeah, Styx surprised me, but we've discussed the Styx phenomenon: lush, cosmic orchestrals with the most banal lyrics imaginable. At least you stuck to "no matter how embarrassing" spirit of the thing.
Wonderful to see all these lyrics together. I especially like the series from 41 to 44.
I didn't expect to recognize many, and I don't - although I cheated and looked up some just in case they were so blindingly obvious that I would hate myself for missing them. (They weren't.) But now I am intrigued by many of them and want to explore - which is one of the benefits of this meme.
#37 is the Smiths, "How Soon Is Now." I only know this because Nicole UPS had this on her blog. In fact, she has two or three of the same ones you do. Most odd.
#41, "Democracy," Leonard Cohen. Now I'm singing snare drum rhythm to myself.
#43, Traveling Willburys, "Handle with Care."
#50, INXS, "New Sensation."
There, now I can be embarrassed by the few I know versus the many I don't know, and your friends can mock me for my mainstream pop-culture familiarity. For the mockers (isn't that a Jackson Browne song?) I refer you to Rhiannon's Rant: http://ladysilvermoon.livejournal.com/396469.html
As you may have noticed, the site has changed. Sampa, the free-site host, did a version 2 of some sort.
Despite an FAQ that made it sound like allowing one's site to go through v.2 surgery would be okay, there were several flexibilities that surprisingly disappeared with the click of a button. (e.g. I cannot believe sidebars like this one are even narrower than before.)
And I'm told -- miraculously! -- that the conversion cannot be undone. Truth be told, I'm actually quite pissed. But free is free. Sampa has otherwise been good to me.
So I need to sort through site "features" to see how I can make do. Except that I don't have the time at the moment, in the middle of graduate classes and Lighthousehockey.com. (btw, I've removed that Lighthouse RSS feed so that you're not clogged with random Islanders hockey gibberish).
But I promise to touch up the accessories when I get a chance, and return to irregularly scheduled blogging.
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and it was fun for me despite my unfamiliarity with many of the songs (*feels shame*). So I thought I'd try it ... and promptly got carried away. I have so much Killing Joke and Radiohead on my iTunes that I worried it wouldn't work (This is where you say, "You were right: It doesn't."). 
Comments (7) for "Song meme out of control"
February, 2008