http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=aDVJCgx6wQ8
When people are crying and laughing at the same time, it's usually because they find something so funny they're brought to tears. Beck's odes to America's dustier corners usually bring me around the other way - by being so pitiably sad that I can't help but laugh. Modesto and innumerable others like it in Hansen's catalog marry the dismal and the absurd: "unglued, depressed / the meatloaf in my chest" is emblematic of the myriad contradictions and idiosyncrasies at play here. But they go on and populate the song to such a degree that it's almost like the twin threads of humor and despair aren't merely related, or even conjoined - they're the same thing. It's a very Beckishly bizarre juxtaposition in the way it's written, but the inseparability of sorrow and comedy is a much more broadly human concept. I listen to this song and hear myself chuckling side-by-side with that gut-feeling of empathy for the singer's misfortune. It's a parody of a tragedy, like an off-kilter episode of This American Life about suburbia's best-humored deadbeats. And it ends with him "choking on a breathmint".
How woefully, hilariously fitting.
Showing posts with label beck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beck. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime — Beck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIVh8Mu1a4Q
Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime was originally by The Korgis, but the version I'm familiar with is Beck's cover (above), featured in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. For me, at least, it's inextricably tied to the movie.
It's weird to only know a song from a film, but there's no shame in that. I only know Mad World from Donnie Darko (which I haven't even seen!) I only know Where Is My Mind from Fight Club. I only know Johnny B. Goode from Back to the Future.
Worst of all (or maybe best) I first heard Hallelujah in 2001 (god damn, I was in first grade) — not the Leonard Cohen version, nor the John Cale, nor the Jeff Buckley. It was the Rufus Wainwright version that found me. It was on the soundtrack to Shrek. Even in first grade, I was ashamed that such a good song had reached me through an animated film.
Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime was originally by The Korgis, but the version I'm familiar with is Beck's cover (above), featured in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. For me, at least, it's inextricably tied to the movie.
It's weird to only know a song from a film, but there's no shame in that. I only know Mad World from Donnie Darko (which I haven't even seen!) I only know Where Is My Mind from Fight Club. I only know Johnny B. Goode from Back to the Future.
Worst of all (or maybe best) I first heard Hallelujah in 2001 (god damn, I was in first grade) — not the Leonard Cohen version, nor the John Cale, nor the Jeff Buckley. It was the Rufus Wainwright version that found me. It was on the soundtrack to Shrek. Even in first grade, I was ashamed that such a good song had reached me through an animated film.
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