Line Out - Comments on "Do You Wanna Fuck?" http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck Lately, I've been thinking about how music can make lines that read stupid on paper sound absolutely amazing. Call it the New Order effect. This occurred to me the other day, as I was walking home, and the Black Dominoes... Copyright 2008 Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:05:04 -0800 Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:42:55 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by joan Feist lamenting/insisting, "we...we could...hold each other tight tonight" on "So Sorry" at about minute one. One of the most oft-uttered sentiments/phrases in pop, but the tremor in her voice on the word "could" fucking kills me.

Also, possibly questionable lines that are made OK by musical context are super super all over anything Rick Danko sang, I feel like. Possibly questionable lines are everywhere!

]]> joan http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1000844 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1000844 Song Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:56:43 -0800 Comment by trent moorman "Squeeze my lemon till the juice runs down my leg."

]]> trent moorman http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1000895 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1000895 Song Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:28:01 -0800 Comment by littlewilliejohn Not that I'm trying to undermine your thesis, but this could be said about close to 90% of everything in Neil Young's catalogue -- and I know that it's true for many other singers whose vocal timbre and sense of utter conviction transcends the banality (or inscrutibility) of their lyrics.

]]> littlewilliejohn http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1000899 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1000899 Song Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:30:04 -0800 Comment by brian cook no degree of conviction, regardless of vocal timbre, could save Neil Young's "Restless Consumer":

Don't need no nausea
Don't need no side effects like diarrhea or sexual death

i cringe everytime i hear it.

]]> brian cook http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1000934 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1000934 Song Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:46:05 -0800 Comment by Eric Grandy Well, #3, that would actually prove my thesis, although it's not so much a thesis as just something that recurred to me the other day—news flash: music makes mediocre poetry sound awesome!

]]> Eric Grandy http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1000936 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1000936 Song Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:47:26 -0800 Comment by tiffany pretty much the whole song hey boy by the blow

]]> tiffany http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1000949 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1000949 Song Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:55:49 -0800 Comment by littlewilliejohn Yeah, you're right. I wasn't undermining your thesis (or observation) -- it was more like reducing it to a truism. But the positive spin on this is that, as you say, it highlights the potential power of musical expression. BTW, I just had a late 60's flashback involving an after-degree program I took to get a certificate to teach high school English ('cause I needed some marketable credentials). One of the instructors was pushing some "hip" texts that encouraged the teaching of pop/rock song lyrics as poetry ("connect with your students through poetry that speaks to their generation, etc., etc."). I tried it a couple of times as a student teacher and bombed miserably. I thought for a long time that it was just because I was a lousy teacher (which I was), but I finally realized that I was ruining some really good music (Cream, Doors, Jefferson Airplane) by actually forcing the students to study the lyrics. Bad mistake...

]]> littlewilliejohn http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1001017 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1001017 Song Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:31:31 -0800 Comment by Chris Estey I still wince whenever L. Cohen sings a line about the moon as a woman, and vice versa -- "If the moon has a sister, it has to be you" -- but you know, as lazy as it is, he's still a doom stud.

]]> Chris Estey http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1001138 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1001138 Song Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:59:36 -0800 Comment by Mischa Frightened Rabbit: "It takes more than fucking someone to keep yourself warm" from "Keep Yourself Warm"

Basically any song by Frightened Rabbit, it looks like shit but the guy's voice is so unassuming and nervous that everything becomes epic.

]]> Mischa http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1001179 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1001179 Song Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:41:55 -0800 Comment by Jeff Stevens Killer on the road
Your brain is squirmin' like a toad

--Jim Morrison, the Great American Poet, according to a U District hackeysack dude who's apparently never heard of Walt Whitman

]]> Jeff Stevens http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1001246 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1001246 Song Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:30:24 -0800 Comment by helix "i'll buy anything you want me to buy you if you just stay here and make love to me..." the ike & tina version of 'i've been loving you too long'
GOOD FUCKING GOD.

]]> helix http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1001322 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1001322 Song Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:33:35 -0800 Comment by ndrwmtsn in a town so small, there's no escape from view

]]> ndrwmtsn http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1002190 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/04/do_you_wanna_fuck#c1002190 Song Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:42:55 -0800