To Helen Back
Oct. 24th, 2006 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2My car stereo hates me for some reason. Or maybe it just likes The Darkness too much.
Lately I've been hooked on three particular songs from the recent cd by The Darkness: One Way Ticket, Hazel Eyes, and Bald. And I decided not to take the cd to work yesterday, and then I had those songs stuck in my head and wanted to hear them (well, they were on my Ipod... but I wanted them on my computer at work so I could play them in the daytime when I can't have my headphones on).
So today I grabbed the cd as I headed to work, and I decided I wanted to hear a couple of those songs during my 10 minute commute. So I popped the cd in. When I got to work, the cd player refused to eject the cd. I got frustrated trying to get it to eject... and then realized if I didn't get going I was going to be late clocking in.
On my 2:30 pm break I went back out and tried to get the cd to come out. No dice. I was pissed off at my car stereo.
On my 5:00 pm lunch break I went out and finally, the cd player gave up its treasured disc. I was able to rip songs to my hard drive on my work computer to listen to whenever I want.
"She looked up at me, and said, 'Hoots, I cannae get back tae me hoos in bonny Scotland.'"
Sky told me Saturday that he couldn't understand what lead singer Justin Hawkins was saying in that part of that song. And it's no wonder... even his normal English is hard to understand when he's wailing with his high falsetto... but here he's attempting a Scottish brogue.
I wonder why I always want to say Scottish brogue instead of Scottish accent, and why I don't say Mexican brogue or Japanese brogue. I guess I don't really know what the word brogue means exactly, just how I've seen it used.
So riddle me this: If you buy a one way ticket to hell... and back -- exactly what part of the trip qualifies as "one way"?
Not that I expect sober seriousness from a band that bases everything they do on 80's hair metal. On this cd they have one song that is a dark, meanacing tune about... male pattern baldness.
"It would appear that male pattern baldness has set in, His hair, at an alarming pace, Running away from his face, He's losing his virility, And now his maculinity Has been compromised, And his libido downsized.
"It's not for me, not for me, not for me, uh oh, heaven forbid, it's not for me you understand.
"Bald, slap headed and hairless, Bald he's destined to be, Bald, well tonight thank God it's him instead of me."
Given that one of the band members is completely bald, it's probably not hard to figure out who Justin is making fun of here. ^_^
In "Girl With Hazel Eyes", they have the line, "I've never seen a set of eyes more hazeler." Yep, this is not a band that takes itself very seriously.
Sky compared them to Bohemian Rhapsody-era Queen on this disc, and I saw an Amazon reviewer do the same thing. But I don't hear the operatic vocal style of Queen much on this cd (the closest I've ever heard was on Blind Guardian's Nightfall In Middle Earth, which is really an amazing cd but it could have used a lead vocalist with at least half of Freddy Mercury's vocal range).
What I hear on this cd by The Darkness is more like the polished, layered chorus vocals that you hear in Boston, or Electric Light Orchestra, or perhaps Styx. Which is not a bad thing at all -- you don't hear bands do that very much these days. And I always love multi-voice approaches to rock music. Some of my favorite bands -- King's X, Steeleye Span, Varttina, even Yat-Kha -- do that in different ways.
I lent this cd to S at work. She'd really liked Nightwish and Within Temptation when I lent them to her last week, but she didn't like The Darkness at all. Which made me sad, for completely illogical reasons. When you lend someone a book or cd or something you really like, and they don't appreciate it at all, it always feels, at least a little bit, like personal rejection for some reason, even when you know logically that it isn't.
On the other hand I lent Wee Free Men to E last week and she loved it, and now she's got Hat Full of Sky to read. ^_^
"Hoots, I cannae get back tae me hoos in bonny Scotland. Crivens!"
Lately I've been hooked on three particular songs from the recent cd by The Darkness: One Way Ticket, Hazel Eyes, and Bald. And I decided not to take the cd to work yesterday, and then I had those songs stuck in my head and wanted to hear them (well, they were on my Ipod... but I wanted them on my computer at work so I could play them in the daytime when I can't have my headphones on).
So today I grabbed the cd as I headed to work, and I decided I wanted to hear a couple of those songs during my 10 minute commute. So I popped the cd in. When I got to work, the cd player refused to eject the cd. I got frustrated trying to get it to eject... and then realized if I didn't get going I was going to be late clocking in.
On my 2:30 pm break I went back out and tried to get the cd to come out. No dice. I was pissed off at my car stereo.
On my 5:00 pm lunch break I went out and finally, the cd player gave up its treasured disc. I was able to rip songs to my hard drive on my work computer to listen to whenever I want.
"She looked up at me, and said, 'Hoots, I cannae get back tae me hoos in bonny Scotland.'"
Sky told me Saturday that he couldn't understand what lead singer Justin Hawkins was saying in that part of that song. And it's no wonder... even his normal English is hard to understand when he's wailing with his high falsetto... but here he's attempting a Scottish brogue.
I wonder why I always want to say Scottish brogue instead of Scottish accent, and why I don't say Mexican brogue or Japanese brogue. I guess I don't really know what the word brogue means exactly, just how I've seen it used.
So riddle me this: If you buy a one way ticket to hell... and back -- exactly what part of the trip qualifies as "one way"?
Not that I expect sober seriousness from a band that bases everything they do on 80's hair metal. On this cd they have one song that is a dark, meanacing tune about... male pattern baldness.
"It would appear that male pattern baldness has set in, His hair, at an alarming pace, Running away from his face, He's losing his virility, And now his maculinity Has been compromised, And his libido downsized.
"It's not for me, not for me, not for me, uh oh, heaven forbid, it's not for me you understand.
"Bald, slap headed and hairless, Bald he's destined to be, Bald, well tonight thank God it's him instead of me."
Given that one of the band members is completely bald, it's probably not hard to figure out who Justin is making fun of here. ^_^
In "Girl With Hazel Eyes", they have the line, "I've never seen a set of eyes more hazeler." Yep, this is not a band that takes itself very seriously.
Sky compared them to Bohemian Rhapsody-era Queen on this disc, and I saw an Amazon reviewer do the same thing. But I don't hear the operatic vocal style of Queen much on this cd (the closest I've ever heard was on Blind Guardian's Nightfall In Middle Earth, which is really an amazing cd but it could have used a lead vocalist with at least half of Freddy Mercury's vocal range).
What I hear on this cd by The Darkness is more like the polished, layered chorus vocals that you hear in Boston, or Electric Light Orchestra, or perhaps Styx. Which is not a bad thing at all -- you don't hear bands do that very much these days. And I always love multi-voice approaches to rock music. Some of my favorite bands -- King's X, Steeleye Span, Varttina, even Yat-Kha -- do that in different ways.
I lent this cd to S at work. She'd really liked Nightwish and Within Temptation when I lent them to her last week, but she didn't like The Darkness at all. Which made me sad, for completely illogical reasons. When you lend someone a book or cd or something you really like, and they don't appreciate it at all, it always feels, at least a little bit, like personal rejection for some reason, even when you know logically that it isn't.
On the other hand I lent Wee Free Men to E last week and she loved it, and now she's got Hat Full of Sky to read. ^_^
"Hoots, I cannae get back tae me hoos in bonny Scotland. Crivens!"
