Check it out! Two Music Moment entries in one week, and another one about a specific song! I usually try to mix it up more than this, but I only recently discovered this band and listened to this song today while I was working out.
To try to explain my convoluted path to this, let me give you a little background. Ken and I recently got smartphones, so I’ve been playing around with mine lately. Cousin Shane and Matt often use an app called SoundHound to find out the title and artist of a particular song they hear while out and about, so I made sure to get that. When I work out, I take out my little MP3 player and hook it into the CD player, and I take my phone out to check news feeds while I’m on the bike. I sometimes use SoundHound to find the current song (if I like it a lot) and post it to Facebook. I can’t recall what song I was listening to and posted the video, but I was exploring SoundHound a little bit, and found the “find similar artists” features.
Are you still with me?
So I found several similar artists to whatever group I liked enough to post their video, and got some music online. One of those was The Limousines. I’m having fun finding new music lately, and I’ve been listening to it during my workout. Today, I listened to The Libertines (a little on the mellow side for me), and then The Limousines. One of the songs was “Very Busy People,” and from what I was catching on the lyrics, I was laughing out loud. I used SoundHound again to read the full lyrics, and I knew I had to post about it.
This is one of the cleverest songs I’ve heard in a while, and it is so true when it comes to being plugged in. I have had to make a conscious effort to be online less and read more. I don’t spend hours chatting (actually, I spend NO time chatting anymore), I don’t aimlessly surf, and I don’t spend an inordinate amount of time on videos; however, I get much of my political news online, so I spend quite a bit of time reading those stories. I watch short videos from The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Bill Maher’s show; I read the stories posted by like-minded friends; I have multiple news feeds that I go through every day. I’m on the verge of having too many, and I have been skipping a lot of them lately, merely because I have resolved to devote more time to reading.
So the irony of finding this hilarious song via an app that allowed me to find it while I was reading my news feeds on my smartphone as I worked out is not lost on me. The sheer deluge of information available at our fingertips at all times is mind-boggling. I had no desire for a smartphone for quite a while, but now that I have one, I’m not sure I could ever give it up. The ability to look things up while out and about, or to get directions, or figure out just what that song is—it’s on the tip of my tongue!—or to check game scores is nothing less than amazing.
I’ve been involved in the information age from fairly early on. I had a web page before there were such things as blogs, and although I’m not an expert, by any means, I have embraced the ability to find information with a simple search. However, I’m still trying to find a good balance of the real and the unreal, the corporeal and the virtual. I still spend more time than I want to spend as I do my daily online reading, but the proper mix is within reach (I think). Anyway, enjoy the lyrics—I hope you find them as amusing and pertinent as I did—followed by the video. I like this band, and look forward to listening to more of their stuff.
Very Busy People
We'll end up numb from playing video games and we'll get sick of having sex And we'll get fat from eating candy as we drink ourselves to death We'll stay up late making mix tapes photoshopping pictures of ourselves While we masturbate to these pixelated videos of strangers fucking themselves
We are very busy people We are very busy people
There's crusty socks and stacks of pizza boxes making trails straight to the bed And when we're done sleeping we'll stay busy dreaming of the things we don't have yet Well there's a long, long list of chores and shit to do before we play oh let's just piss away the day (piss away the day) Crank call the cops down at the station just for friendly conversation requesting songs they never play Let's hear the one that goes like:
We are very busy people, We are very busy people But we've always got time for new friends
So come on over and knock on our door, it's open, what you waitin' for? We might be sprawled out on the floor, but we still make lovely company Pull up a chair, I'll pour some tea, We'll shoot the shit, 'bout everything till you get sick of politics and flip on the TV screen We stare at the TV screen
That Donnie Darko DVD has been repeating for a week and we know every single word (every single word) I've got an iPod like a pirate ship I'll sail the seas with fifty thousand songs I've never heard And all the best of them go Fa la la la la la... Fa la la la la la...
We are very busy people We are very busy people But we've always got time for new friends Yeah Fa la la la la la... Fa la la la la la...
I came across something a couple of times recently that struck me as wrong, and I made sure to look it up and reassure myself that I wasn’t off-base in thinking that it was wrong. I saw this error in someone’s post, but the worst thing was that I saw it on a nationally published blog.
I’m really not one to correct people on their grammar online. That’s really kind of a dick move. (Although if someone is being a real dick, I’m not above pointing out that they’re a grammatically incorrect dick.) But that doesn’t mean I can’t write about it here!
The word in question is simpatico, and in both cases I mentioned above, it was spelled ‘sympatico.’ That’s an easy mistake to make, because people naturally associate it with the word ‘sympathy.’ Both words come from the Latin sympathia, which means...well, sympathy. But our current use of the word comes from the Italian simpatico and the Spanish simpático, both obviously based on the Latin root.
It’s a great word, and I love the feeling of being on the same wavelength as a person. When that happens, I really do use the word. I consider it a great compliment when I tell someone that we are simpatico. I hope they realize that I don’t toss that word around lightly, and I reserve it for those moments when I feel like someone really gets me, or what I am trying to say.
As for spelling it correctly, I’m not sure if there is an easy solution to remembering that there is no Y in simpatico. Two ‘eyes,’ no Y’s? Sympathy: two Y’s, no ‘eyes’? I’m not sure. Maybe we all just need to keep a six-pack of that beer pictured in the fridge for reference purposes. Or maybe it’s just a matter of forcing yourself to remember that it’s not spelled the way you’d think it would be spelled, and if you type ‘sympatico,’ it will set off an alarm bell in your head.
If anyone has a good suggestion about how to remember the correct spelling, please leave it in comments. Then we can be simpatico.
I think this might be a first for my Music Moment: writing about one particular song. But I mentioned this song in my previous entry, and it’s been on heavy rotation both in the CD player and in my head.
This song gets to me on multiple levels. Technically, I love the way it’s structured (you can scroll down to read the lyrics and watch the video if you’d like, before you continue to read my commentary). It starts off with some quiet guitar, and Dave Grohl sings the opening lines rather sweetly. It seems like it’s going to be a ballad about love and loss, life and death, and Dave tells us everything’s gonna be all right. Then *BAM*—it kicks in, as does Dave’s powerful voice. The anguish and rage as he almost screams the lyrics makes me think of a person so frustrated and hurt by something that they get angry at someone who is trying to comfort them. And who hasn’t been there? A friend is hurting, they pour out their heart to you, and you tell them, “It’s gonna be all right, I know it.” You mean well, and you’re just trying to encourage them, but they’re just so focused on their own pain that they lash out at you: “Yeah, that’s easy for YOU to say! You’ve never been through this, you don’t know how much pain I’m in, you don’t know how I feel!” Or maybe you’ve been the one in pain, and you haven’t wanted to hear such platitudes...you just want your friend to take some of your pain away, and it makes you even angrier to know that they can’t do that, and this is something you’ll have to work through in your own heart and mind. This song just expresses that perfectly for me.
Maybe it’s because I’m approaching 50, or because I’ve had to deal with deaths of loved ones recently, but this song makes me ponder mortality. Both my own and in general. It’s an inevitability. One of these days, my heart will stop and play its final beat. The thought of that doesn’t scare me. Logically and rationally, I know it will happen, and I don’t worry about what awaits me when it does. But I find myself thinking a lot lately about just how much there still is to do and experience, and especially how many good books I want to read! I do worry about whether I’ll get everything in that I want to get in. We only get one shot at this, and we’d better make the most of it, you know?
I’m to the point where I can’t hear this song without getting choked up. Even just thinking of it in my head, like I’m doing right now, makes me a little weepy. I’ve made no secret of my love for Dave Grohl, and he’s written a lot of great, rockin’ songs in his lifetime (and I hope he has a ways to go before his heart plays its final beat). He really knocked it out of the park for me with this one, though. I’m sure I’ll never have the chance to tell him how much this song means to me, but it’s got to be a great and humbling feeling to know that something you created can touch someone so profoundly. For that, I thank you, Mr. Grohl. Long may you rock.
"These Days"
One of these days the ground will drop out from beneath your feet One of these days your heart will stop and play its final beat One of these days the clocks will stop and time won't mean a thing One of these days their bombs will drop and silence everything
But it's all right Yeah it's all right I said it's all right
Easy for you to say Your heart has never been broken Your pride has never been stolen Not yet not yet
One of these days I bet your heart'll be broken I bet your pride'll be stolen I bet I bet I bet I bet One of these days One of these days
One of these days your eyes will close and pain will disappear One of these days you will forget to hope and learn to fear
But it's all right Yeah it's all right I said it's all right
Easy for you to say Your heart has never been broken Your pride has never been stolen Not yet not yet
One of these days I bet your heart'll be broken I bet your pride'll be stolen I bet I bet I bet I bet One of these days One of these days
But it's all right Yeah it's all right I said it's all right Yes it's all right
Don't say it's all right Don't say it's all right Don't say it's all right
One of these days your heart will stop and play its final beat But it's all right
Easy for you to say Your heart has never been broken Your pride has never been stolen Not yet not yet
One of these days I bet your heart will be broken I bet your pride will be stolen I bet I bet I bet I bet
One of these days One of these days One of these days
Check it out! Two Music Moment entries in one week, and another one about a specific song! I usually try to mix it up more than this, but I only recently discovered this band and listened to this song today while I was working out. 
