It's not that there's not a lot happening

It's rather that there is too much going on. And trying to best Bowser in Super Mario Galaxy 2 has taken up a good proportion of my free time. That and the complete box set of the West Wing that I bought with my redundancy gift (and an extra tenner).

But I have bested Bowser and I'm aware I haven't blogged much recently so here's a little thought-form from a Tragically Hip song I listened to while walking to work recently, that has stuck with me.

"We live to survive our paradoxes."

I have a few paradoxes in my life at the moment. Doubt and survivor guilt and subliminal choices and plans and hopes and other abstractions, distractions and cognitive dissonances. We are complicated creatures. But by and large we live to survive our paradoxes.

Song lyric of the week: Muse, Knights of Cydonia

"Don't waste your time,
Or time will waste you."

That got me thinking, especially as I heard it on the radio after seeing Up, the new Disney/Pixar movie. Up is all about putting off your dreams until one day it's too late. It's made me think about a few of my personal dreams/ambitions. Some are doable. Some are dependent on getting the right breaks. But all mean I should stop wasting time.

Incidentally my Dad has raved about Up since he saw it last week. he thinks it should be required viewing for retired people. I found it very moving - as Disney/Pixar films have a habit of being - without being overly sentimental. There were also a couple of laugh out loud moments when Cathy had to 'shush' me because I was so noisy.

And I loved Doug the Dog. He was great. ("I do not like the cone of shame.")

Jongudmund's rating: 8/10 (well worth seeing)

Country Music Wisdom #1

You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em
Know when to walk away and know when to run
You never count your money when you’re sitting at the table
There’ll be time enough for counting when the dealing’s done

~ The Gambler, Kenny Rogers

Quote of the day

"Isn't it amazing what you can accomplish
When you don't let information get in your way..."

~ Fireworks, The Tragically Hip, Phantom Power, 1998

Name checking

Further to yesterday's post about their genius song lyric, Scouting for Girls' latest single is called Elvis Ain't Dead, which got me thinking about songs that namecheck other bands or artists.

Ironically Scouting for Girls are in direct competition with Living Colour, who released a track called Elvis is Dead back in the 90s. REM claimed "Andy's goofing on Elvis, hey baby" on Man on the Moon, and Counting Crows sang "she wants to meet a boy who looks like Elvis" on Round Here.

In fact the Crows are notable namecheckers. Two other examples spring to mind: "I wanna be Bob Dylan" (Mr Jones) and "Got Ben Folds on the radio" (Monkey). Then there's Snow Patrol urging a girl to "put Sufjan Stevens on" (Hands Open), and Bowling for Soup namechecking Nirvana, Blondie, U2, Madonna and probably loads more in 1985.

When it comes to names in titles, 'Roll Over Beethoven' springs to mind (originally By Chuck Berry but made famous by The Beatles), while currently I'm loving The Wombats tune 'Let's Dance to Joy Division'. And of course there's the classic Ballad of Tom Jones by Space & Cerys Matthews.

There's probably loads more if I really thought about it - any ideas?

Contender for best lyric ever

The Scouting for Girls album is excellent, and in 'The Mountains of Navaho', they have surely coined one of the best song lyrics ever...

"I'll never be a guy like He-Man
And I'll never be a girl like She-Ra
I'm a lonely beast like baaaaaaaaaaaaattle caaaaaaaaaaaat!"

Genius!

Music quiz

OK, then. This is my favourite 11 song playlist at the mo. Can you guess any of the songs from these lyrical snippets?

"Lay back, head in the grass; chewing gum, having some laughs; yeah, we were having some laughs"

"I'll die when I'm done..."

"under your skin feels like home; electric touch on aching bone"

"still care about your hair and the car you drive; doesn't matter if you're sixteen or thirty-five"

"ambition got cast aside; thrown away when the batteries died"

"don't stop and don't look back, uh huh; 'cos your love's like a heart attack, c'mon"

"I never really gave up on breaking out of this 2 star town"

"I'm sick of working all week for people I cannot stand"

"there's no profit in ever being right, we gotta fight some more"

"kill all the fags who don't agree" [NB this is sung ironically; I don't listen to hate crime metal]

"dance if you wanna dance; please, brother, take a chance"

Answers next week