A Plaque of Platinum Status is Whack if I'm Not the Baddest: Songs to Drive to

And I don't mean like drive like drive in a car, I mean like drive like be driven.

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Earlier today I was in a situation that does not hit me where I am strongest: a large dark room filled with mostly-strangers having emotions.

(Cigarette smoke used to crowd away some of the overwhelming emotion-ness of bars but now there is just no respite!)

Anyway, suffice to say shit like that is hard for me but I was doing decently until I decided you know what, enough, and I went home and ate donuts and watched Vh1 with my friend because you know what, that is where the real joy of life lies for me.

And ON VH1 WAS THE ABSOLUTE PERFECT SHOW FOR THE SITUATION: "100 Greatest Pop Songs of the 00s".

Because like yeah, why the fuck should we wait until a "reasonable distance" from the 00s has passed before we start nostalgizing them? Who decides a reasonable distance? And heck, a LOT of great pop music lives in the 00s and maybe instead of nostalgizing, we could think of it as eulogizing.

One of these songs in the top 5 was Eminem's 2002 classic, "Lose Yourself", which, yes, is just an amazingly good song -- actually let's just pause here and talk about what an amazingly good song "Lose Yourself" is for a hot second.

1. The perfect crescendo of narrative that sweeps you from "nervous dude just off stage" to "desperately ambitious person who knows a lot is riding on his imminent performance". If that last verse where he thinks to himself "This may be the only opportunity that I got" and walks on stage (around 4:14 in the version I linked above) does not grab you by the intestines and just COMPEL YOU well then, I do not know about you.

2. It's a very cinematic moment and a very cinematic song (no wonder since it was basically the backbone of 8 Mile and was also -- deservedly so -- the first rap song to win an Oscar), but it's also very self-referential in this delicious way when he says "and there's no movie, there's no Mekhi Phifer, this is my life". What he's saying is, "In the movie version there's no tension because we know the hero must make it, but in real life which is where all of us are living, there is NO guarantee the hero will make it and that is scary and motivating as shit."

3. When he says, "I guess it's old, partner, but the beat goes on da-da-dum da-dum" because man, I believe that Eminem IS brilliant and does nothing unintentionally, not least mentioning a person who is best known in pretty much every aspect of her life for bringing it COMPLETELY hard. (I told you everything comes back to Cher eventually.)

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But let's get back to this other song, a lesser-known (somewhat) cousin of "Lose Yourself" that is admittedly not quite as brilliant but is still very good.


The song: Eminem ft. Nate Dogg, "Till I Collapse"; 2002

The opening is pretty similar to "Lose Yourself", and the military theme in the next few seconds bears a distinct similarity to "Jesus Walks", with which I will always associate that gambit although it came out two years later than "Till I Collapse".

The reason I love "Till I Collapse" is that it's just as gut-twisty and compelling as "Lose Yourself" but the scenario it depicts is much closer to Eminem's actual life situation at that time -- not the nervous no-name about to see if he can make it, but the newly-established musician dealing with a meteoric rise to fame and desperately searching for something that maintains his drive although he has achieved everything he could have previously dreamed. The recognition, the fame, the money, Eminem had all of that in 2002 (he really hit big in 2000).  In this song he's found what can keep him going, and it's his own pride.

He'll keep working as hard as he can because he's realized, to put this in the softest and New-Age-iest terms possible, because he's realized that if he doesn't feel good about himself inside, all of the outside trappings are empty.

Is this interpretation a bit Free To Be You and Me?  Indeed it is! But tell me if it doesn't seem true to you of people we call "driven", that their drive creates itself.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

I Was Wasting My Life Always Thinking About Myself: Happy Birthday to Me!

By the time you read this, it will be my 25th birthday.

Also the first birthday LITERALLY IN MY ENTIRE MEMORY OF MY ENTIRE LIFE that I have not felt some angst about being a year older.

When I was a teenager this was a nameless angst, but by the time I got to college I could put my finger on it and it was named I Am Worried That My Lack Of Blinding Success By This Age Means I Am A Talentless Hack Who Should Let Her Dreams Be Like Dust In The Wind.

Which is, I now realize, evidently ridiculous -- but that is incredibly hard to see for a certain kind of person, a certain kind of person I most certainly was, the kind of person who sits around in coffee shops the first week of her freshman year of college lamenting that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein at 19 so what's the point of even trying.

Fortunately, the side of me that tries without realizing it (we can call this the "rational side") is small yet mighty and now, at the lofty age of 25, I can see that this side of me has propelled me along and will continue to propel me along as long as I get out of my own damn way.


*

It's my birthday so I can write about whatever weird half-baked shit I want. And today that weird shit is two things that have interested me recently: The popular HBO television show Game of Thrones, and the wonderful world of modern-day royal-watching.

(One of these is easy to admit that I like; the other regularly makes people unconsciously back away from me in bars. Strangely, the latter is not the one of the two that involves graphic depictions of beheadings.

Weird world.)

In any case, I could expound on each of these at length but I'll restrain myself to talking about what connects them. Namely, systems of inherited power that depend on a majority buy-in to maintain. Like any sort of royalty or nobility or Powerful Families thing.

These systems seem completely archaic, particularly to American audiences, which is why they are best observed in past-seeming environments like Game of Thrones or in their decay (which appeals to our sense of democratic righteousness) as in Downton Abbey.

BUT as the thriving monarchies of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Spain, Japan, Thailand, etc etc demonstrate, they are very much still alive in the present.

It increasingly seems to me that what holds these systems together in a time when they make little sense is a respect for age. A sense that age makes you wiser, better, more capable of representing a country, or of leading a people. Sure there is youth and beauty in any given monarchy, that's what heirs are for. But that's why they are heirs. Not fully seasoned yet.

When a monarch like Queen Elizabeth II (or her counterpart in Denmark, Queen Margrethe II, who seems completely awesome) celebrates an anniversary of 40, 50, 60 years on the throne, what is really being celebrated is not just the passing of time but also the accumulation of it in one person. The sense that there is at least one person who has borne witness to time as it rushes by the rest of us, who are too busy to notice.

It's a beautiful way to think of aging. It's like how you see as you grow older a new purpose of friendship, because all of your past selves live in your friends and theirs all live in you.

That's how people grow up.

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The song: Morrissey, "That's How People Grow Up"; 2008


Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

Wild And Sweet The Words Repeat: Merry Christmas.

Here's a Christmas carol you don't hear too often, based on an 1864 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lamenting the state of the country during the Civil War.

I like this version a lot, and I like the song itself because it doesn't obscure the darkness and fear of troubled times or pretend that these go away on Christmas -- but that Christmas goes on despite, and through, and in the face of them.

*


The song: Johnny Cash and June Carter, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day"; 1963

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

Let's Be Like Children This Christmastime: Modern Love

The modern Christmas song is a tough thing to pull off.

For years my dad and I have joked that all we need to do to strike it rich in this life is somehow write the next hit Christmas carol, one that will be covered by generations to come, and then live easy forevermore on the royalties.

Somehow we always get as far as the title and then no further. But that's okay because the title is the most fun part, right? So far the frontrunners have been "I Don't Want To Take You To The Emergency Room on Christmas Eve" and "It's Hanukkah, Get the Flame-Thrower!". (We're an inclusive family.)

Neither of these concepts have really, shall we say, taken root (Dad, I think we'd be better off devoting our energies to our other get-rich-quick idea, writing the Next Great SyFy Channel Original Movie*) but that's because the modern Christmas song is a tough thing to pull off.

*


The song: Moody Blues, "Don't Need A Reindeer"; 2003

I like this one though. Because it reminds me -- and this year I evidently sorely needed reminding -- that Christmas is supposed to be fun. And that Christmas is supposed to be about showing the people you love that you love them.  That, I can do. I can't really do the consumerist aspect and I can't really do the religious aspect, but I can certainly take a day or two or three for love and family and togetherness.

I find this song to be a reminder of that, and I also find it truly romantic (So if you see me on the street, no need to ask me what would please me -- it's your love, believe me, this Chriiiiistmaaastime is such a nice line.)

I've felt a bit like a Grinch this year, so I'd like to issue a formal apology to the assembled on that front and say that if you're happily in love this Christmas and planning on merrily sledding or sitting by a roaring fire in a ski lodge or drinking hot chocolate as snowflakes gently drift by your lighted window or otherwise engaging in any holiday romantic activities of the sort depicted in the video for the seminal modern holiday classic "Last Christmas" by Wham!,

please accept this song as your soundtrack, with my compliments.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

*So far the frontrunner is a little film we call Shopacalypse!, in which hapless holiday shoppers are trapped in a mall and forced to defeat the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

MERRY CHRISTMAS.

And Wonder If You Are Watching Snowflakes Too: A Tearjerker Christmas

By night I am deeply embroiled in an intensive cultural-criticism training program (eating microwave popcorn by myself and watching cable television) but my day job is about children.

I won't say too much about it, just that I am fortunate enough to work for a place whose core philosophy is based around this strange idea that "children" are "people" -- with thoughts and dreams and hopes and senses of humor and sad things in their lives just like you and me.

And if you've ever spent significant time around kids who are not your kids, you probably know that while "children" taken as a group are just about as likely to be kind or interesting as "people" taken as a group, individual children can be astonishingly difficult to not fall totally in love with.

I referenced recently that I think heart responds to heart, and that's as true between people as it is between people and songs. And kids -- even though they are capable of incredibly frustrating habits -- kids have heart coming out their ears. 


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The song: Michael Jackson, "Little Christmas Tree"; 1973

Back at nearly the beginning of my involvement with this organization, before I worked there, before I even suspected that one day I could work there, I went to an elementary school one Friday morning and found that it was the day of their Halloween parade.

As volunteers we usually sat with students in their classrooms, doing things like encouraging students to write their names at the top of their worksheets and reading over persuasive essays about school uniforms. It was great. It was a glimpse of what life is actually like in the day-to-day for children, which is something most of us have totally forgotten.

But on this day, we joined a handful of other adults lining the halls and watched the Halloween parade. It was 2009. And every tenth kid, boy or girl, was dressed as Michael Jackson.

The thing was frickin' ADORABLE. Kids, particularly the younger ones, have this off-balance, glazed-eye way of parading that makes costumes like Indiana Jones and Miss America unbearably charming. 

The day was a momentous one for me because I saw for the first time the humanity of children. And seeing children dressed as Michael Jackson (who had died earlier that year) brought home to me as well the incredible pathos of his story.

Michael Jackson was a gifted child, with talent so immense that it catapulted not only him, but his entire family, to not only fame, but ultra-mega-fame. Talent like that is scary because it never happens without a price.

The child Michael Jackson was incredibly sad and lonely. This was obscured by his mega-fame and the danceability of his music, but no one sells "all alone on Christmas Eve" like that if they don't feel it.

*

To pretend that children don't have the emotional depth to feel sadness and loneliness is a defense mechanism against the sadness and loneliness of life. An understandable impulse.

But one of the most beautiful things about children is their power for empathy and their ability to identify with others -- a power and ability, I think, that really exemplifies what is most beautiful about humanity, and that also indicates in itself the capacity for emotional pain.

Very few children are Michael Jackson, whose mega-talent means he represents something greater than himself simply by being himself.

To my mind he represents a very-hard-to-accept truth about the vividness and darkness of life, as seen by a child.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

Just One Psychological Drama After Another: Wild!

It will most likely come as no surprise that I'm a person who can get really melancholy and self-pitying and just terrible. (Have I ever hidden how much I truly love Morrissey?)

Some of my favorite artists and songs are those that help me indulge this tendency, but that also help me  view it through a slightly different lens -- an ironic remove, or a sense of humor, or a sense of the general absurdity of everything.

Right now I'm really digging on these two songs, both from Erasure's 1989 album Wild! One lowers me into the pit where I frankly enjoy wallowing for limited amounts of time, the other lifts me back up. Here they are.

(Previously: Ray LaMontagne and The Pariah Dogs, "Like Rock & Roll and Radio", "Old Before Your Time")

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The song: Erasure, "How Many Times?"

If I couldn't hear the lyrics I would almost believe this was a modern Christmas song, particularly in the bridge. There is a melancholy festiveness to this song that makes it a perfect complement to an activity I find myself inadvertently indulging in pretty often these days, namely walking around in a black trench coat past windows filled with lighted happy holiday decorations and couples.

And then there's this.


The song: Erasure, "Drama!"

This whole song is just gold. I started quoting my favorite lyrics but there are so many of them and they are all delivered with the perfect snideness. (The British pronunciation of "drama" as "drahmer" particularly enhances this song.)

If this song can't make you laugh at yourself and your black trench coat, there may really be no hope for you.

After all, "God only knows the infinite complexities of love."

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

If I Had To Do The Same Again I Would My Friend: "Fernando"

As I've mentioned before, I often have to force myself to turn outward.

When I start to feel stressed at work or the holiday-time blues or just in general down, it's never been so easy to get wrapped up in my own feelings of moderately severe misery and general patheticness. And to say "wrapped up" will hopefully encapsulate this feeling for the (many) among us who have found ourselves all damp and mummified in self-pity like, frickin', Frodo in the lair of Shelob or something.

IT SUCKS.

 And so tonight what I have for you is a Story Song.

(Previously on In Bed With Amy Wilson: Clarence Carter, "Patches"; Reba McEntire, "Fancy")

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The song: ABBA, "Fernando"; 1976

This song is just beautiful. Musically it sounds incredibly magical and fantastical and like there should be golden-winged dragons floating through the sky as it plays; lyrically it's SUPER sound, tight storytelling.

My favorite line is "we were young and full of life and none of us prepared to die, and I'm not ashamed to say the roar of guns and cannons almost made me cry", but REALLY, it's all so good.

I think the real strength of a story song lies in its brevity. Four minutes is nearly no time to establish a plot, characters, anything truly compelling -- and writers know that writing short is much harder than writing long.

A great story song can be summed up in one line, but most good stories don't really take more than that: "An aging veteran of an unsuccessful rebellion reminds his friend, whose memory is fading, of their long-ago moment of pride and glory."

(I don't know why I think the narrator in "Fernando" is supposed to be a man, but I sure do.)

*

My love for songs like "Fernando" is why I have to say publicly that I am not only slightly queasy about the term "guilty pleasure" these days, but that I actively disagree with the concept and see it as -- well there is just no other way to say this -- ANATHEMA to my ongoing personal philosophy of music.

The only way for a song to be something you feel guilty about is if you suppose that the act of enjoying it is somehow morally questionable. How could that possibly be?

Who you are is not what you like.

There are NO possible objective criteria to evaluate whether or not any given song is "good", other than if YOU think it is. (That no-possible-objective-criteria thing really makes people nervous, which is why the whole reprehensible culture of music-ranking and according coolness-ranking even exists.)

If you respond to a piece of music with your heart (as opposed to your feet or your hips or your sense of humor), the odds are that that piece of music was made with heart. Somewhere along the line.

And heart is not, will never be, something I can encourage anyone ever to be ashamed of.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

But I Can't Stop Trying I Can't Give Up Hope: Don't Put This On Your Mix CD

When it comes to romance, the older I get the more I find myself turning into a fascist.

I'm not bitter -- in fact I love the idea of love, or at least my idea of love, which includes such radical components as "should make you happier than it makes you sad" and "shouldn't be all that complicated". I am not a fan, however, of ideas of love that are based on co-dependency or mediocrity or that every kiss begins with Kay.

(Well that last one is just OBVIOUSLY wrong, am I right? If you see me at the gym and I am heaving a series of exasperated sighs, it's most likely because of those commercials. It's hard, being a pedantic literalist at Christmastime.)

What I mean to say is that very often in music, as in life, what is presented as "love" is actually a toxic bruise of negativity wrapping a rotten core. So if, by any chance, you find yourself in the very specific situation of looking for a 60s R&B jam to put on your romantic love mix this holiday season, may I offer a suggestion?

Not this song:


The song: The Miracles, "Ooh Baby Baby"; 1965

He cheated on his lady, she broke up with him, he's at the end of his rope, he's crying, but he is convinced that he still loves her -- and also reminds her that she's made mistakes too.

Great. Lovely. Real nice.

This song is NOT romantic. It's a pretty good picture of what happens to somebody who takes life and lack of consequences for granted (and a really good response to this sort of thing can, by the way, be found in Gladys Knight's super-wonderful song "The Only Time You Love Me [Is When You're Losing Me]"). But it's not romantic, by which I mean that it's not an inspiration to love well.

(And it is very not romantic to "fight" for a relationship that's clearly dead and bad. So seriously, Smokey: give up hope. It's cleaner that way.)

This song might be better:


The song: Aaron Neville, "Tell It Like It Is"; 1967

This gets a lot closer to romance for me because of its exhortation to "go on and live, baby" (as previously discussed, me = a big sucker for that sort of thing) and its straightforwardness. Yeah! Tell it like it is! That's a good thing!

But if I were making a romantic love mix this holiday season -- I'm not -- but if I WERE:


The song: Brenton Wood, "I Like The Way You Love Me"; 1967

This would almost certainly be on it. It's not radical, but I appreciate its focus on hey, the other person in the relationship, as well as on the relationship itself.

But, who am I kidding, it all comes down to that chiming crescendo in the background. I am not sure what instrument produced it, perhaps a marimba, but it certainly does melt this fascist's heart.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

I Know I'll Often Stop And Think About Them: Songs for Thanksgiving

I used to not like this song. The implication that One True Love should somehow supersede a person's entire previous life ruffled my feathers, although I appreciated the beautifully simple and distinctive drum line and the sweetness of those notes at the beginning.

But as I listened to it today, on Thanksgiving which is a holiday about love, gratitude, and the passing of time, I finally felt I got it.

It's about letting go of the many little traps of memory, both good and bad, that life and milestones present to us and, as the lyrics say, thinking of love as something new.


The song: The Beatles, "In My Life"; 1965

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On holidays it's natural to think about past years and to compare and contrast. And I'll be honest here: I sometimes find that to be a black hole of sadness. But I feel fortunate in that the sadness lies in how sad I USED to be, instead of some contemplation of what I may have lost.

There are no guarantees of happiness but it seems to me the best investment anyone could make is in their friends.

Bernie Taupin gets it right very rarely, but when he does, he does -- and today I'm thankful there are people out there like you.


The song: Elton John, "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters"; 1975

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

Well I'm Sorry I Don't Pray That Way: No, This Version Wins

"Tainted Love" is by FAR my favorite song to sing in the shower, so I was delighted to come across this lesser-known original version of it. Before clicking, I thought to myself,

"Great! I will do a Version v. Version of this because what's better than listening to 'Tainted Love'? Listening to 'Tainted Love' five times in a row!!!!!!!"

(Previous Versions v. Version: "Running Out Of Fools"; "The First Cut Is The Deepest"; "Tracks of My Tears")

 *


The song: Gloria Jones, "Tainted Love"; 1964

But there will be no Version v. Version of this. No, sir.

Because the original SHATTERS the competition. Kills it. Wins forever, everything.

This original is exactly what I needed to elevate my feelings about "Tainted Love" from grudging admiration to undying love, because it subtracts the snideness of the Soft Cell version and replaces it with sheer, unadulterated tearing it up. (I am not going to stop you from watching the Soft Cell music video though, because it IS gloriously weird.)

This day, November 17 2012, will live in my own personal history: The Day I First Heard The Original Version of "Tainted Love" As Sung By Marc Bolan's Girlfriend*.

(RIGHT?? This chick was the coolest. THE coolest. The COOLEST. Go go Gloria Jones forever.)

Yrs,
AW

*Further Googling has informed me that not only was Gloria Jones Marc Bolan's girlfriend, but also the mother of his child "Rolan Bolan" (can't make that up!), and also sadly the person who was drunkenly driving in the car crash that killed him. Call me a bleeding heart, but I'd file that under "personal tragedy of the sort all too common among hard-partying glam-rockers in the 1970s" not "moral failing".

And this song is still the best.
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

I Know They Don't Sound The Way I Planned Them To Be: TK TK

A few months ago, around when I moved into my new place, I got on a real kick for self-improvement. Now I drink water with lemon in it (according to the highly reputable text Alkalize or Die! by Dr. Theodore Baroody, this is all I need to become immortal) and I try not to talk unless I have something interesting to say.

I am not sure how this is affecting me. But I do feel hydrated.

*


The song: When In Rome, "The Promise"; 1988

This is an excellent example of a "cheesy" song that nevertheless resonates with something very deep inside most people who consider themselves self-reflective (as I am sure all of you reading this do).

And this is just to say that there are interesting things TK on In Bed With Amy Wilson including:

- A guest post about the guilty pleasure song!
- That post about Frasier and Twin Peaks I promised!
- A seasonal post featuring the single most poignant Christmas song EVER! (It's not "River", but good guess.)

And to say thank you for reading my blog, which has never not felt like a meaningful endeavor to me even though by far the leading search term by which people find it is "John Oates Plastic Surgery".*

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

*The second most popular search term leading to my blog is "Daryl Hall Plastic Surgery".

Don't You Know Me I'm Your Native Son: "City of New Orleans"

What I think a lot of people don't realize about being American is that part of being American is feeling kind of weird about it.

We have an impulse toward self-doubt and self-critique that is the flip side of also some militant jingoistic patriotism, we're fascinated by royalty because we can't instinctively understand it, and we all have some investment in being number one -- although that does takes different forms.

Although I personally care about a lot of things, I really care about culture. And American culture, which is typified almost entirely by the complete impossibility of typifying it, has produced some of the finest art, literature, music, movies, and so on, that I know.

Even THROUGH being racist and torn apart by racism, sexist and torn apart by sexism, xenophobic and torn apart, homophobic and torn apart, this country and people living in it have somehow managed to produce works of art that are universal. That say something about humanity. That say something about American humanity.

I am proud to be an American because I have to be, because I will never be anything but American, and because literally almost every single person I love in the entire world is also an American -- so we can't be all that bad.

*


The song: Arlo Guthrie, "City of New Orleans"; 1972

This song, and the line Don't you know me, I'm your native son, are poignant to me because I -- much like, I would suspect, many others -- have often wondered if America knows me, or if I will ever know and understand it.

I don't know.

Happy Election Day.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

You Always Wanted A Lover I Only Wanted A Job: "What Have I Done To Deserve This?"

Okay so there's a lot of pretending that goes on in my life. I think it's a natural consequence of a) living alone and b) an overactive brain.

It's not all Wes Anderson, though.

Sometimes I find myself in the opening credits of a "Mary Tyler Moore"/"Ally McBeal"-style show about a career girl dealing with various zany challenges (and the occasional Very Special Episode about something serious).

This show is never ever set in 2012 but always in some sort of mythical retro past, probably the early 90s if I really try to pin it down. There's a lot of pink and teal and I'm usually wearing my hair in some sort of elaborate French twist with a tiger stripe of blush on my cheeks. As you might suspect the credits involve me doing things like walking down the street jauntily, twirling around for no reason, laughing over a cup of coffee with a group of ethnically diverse girlfriends, wearing hats, and making concerned faces.

And this is the theme song.


The song: Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield, "What Have I Done To Deserve This?"; 1987

(I'd like to pause here and give credit to my friend Molly, who commented once a long time ago that she wanted to star in a paranormal/spy/detective show with "Superstition" as the theme song, which I think is just an excellent idea and which started me down this thought-road.)

Aren't we all just the stars of our own workplace-soap-comedy-romantic-drama?

Previous Dusty Springfield: "Make It With You"

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

You May Never Fall In Love With Me But It Don't Matter: "Midnight Flower"

I usually steer clear of posting songs or theme-ing posts to holidays just because I feel that's establishing what could only be called a dangerous precedent,

but this song struck me as something good for Halloween and I'm trying to put my finger on why.



The song: The Four Tops, "Midnight Flower"; 1974

First of all, it's funky. Halloween says party to me, and nothing says party like a funky medium-tempo jam, so there's that.

And secondly, and possibly more importantly, there's an aspect of play-acting to this song. Let's pretend you're not who you are and I'm not who I am, just for a while. 

That's what's sexy and fun about Halloween -- you get to wear someone else's perfume for a night. So to speak.

Party on, midnight flowers.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

And I Understand Your Feelings Girl I Really Do: "Get Out Now"

There's two kinds of hobbies in this life: the ones that exist outside your head, and the ones that don't.

One of my personal favorites of the latter genre is "pretending my life is a movie and I am the music director".

Usually this movie is a Wes Anderson movie because, seriously, who would NOT want to live in a Wes Anderson movie?? The colors would be so warm and saturated and everywhere you looked there would be a background full of interesting and unusual things.

(and yeah your family/personal life would be a bit of a wreck but everything would resolve to some sort of basic happiness at the end, and there'd probably also be some kind of great theatrical thing with everyone you've ever loved and also, Owen Wilson.)

So, previously, there was The Beatles with "Anna". And now another artist who is fantastic at depicting actual emotions you can recognize but in a way that is just a little bit more warm and saturated and interesting and unusual and theatrical than what exists outside your head.

*


The song: Tommy James and the Shondells, "Get Out Now"; 1968

I haven't quite decided what scene this song would go to but it would definitely involve running, and a girl in a really stylish coat, and the color teal.

"You're like one of those clipper ship captains, you're married to the sea." "Yes, that's true, but I've been out to sea for a long time."

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

Longing To Sail On: "All Through The Years"

This is a really great song and I recommend that you listen to it ASAP.


The song: Erasure, "All Through The Years"; 1994
The moment: 1:25


Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

Let's Make The Most Of the Night Like We're Gonna: Fight or Flight

If you've turned on a TV or the radio in the past three months, you've heard these songs.

My argument is essentially, not to put too fine a point on it, that these two songs represent Everything That Is Wrong With Everything in the Year 2012.

(in a metaphysical sense.)

Here we go.

*


The song: The Lumineers, "Ho Hey"; 2012

This one I'll attribute to "high pop culture", as in pop culture that wants to pretend its not, because it's the one you're far more likely to hear on any given Adult Contemporary radio station and because it's a song they use in commercials for things like Bing which advertisers want to sell to people who think they are smart and original and important.

Alas there is nothing smart, original, or important about this song or its video, which to my mind represents the worst of what I have previously called "this retrograde morass we call 'Pinterest'".

The twinkling lights. The hobo-chic theme. The sweet, light lyrics that crumble under the slightest examination. The girl who appears to be there to do nothing but wear a dress from ModCloth and look cute in a non-threatening way.

The way everyone just looks so happy to be there, enjoying the simple pleasures of life, and how they are probably going to go drink some craft cocktails and eat some farm-to-table BLTs after this random neo-bluegrass concert that they happened to stumble across.

The SEPIA TONES.

A few months ago a friend of mine said something which has stuck with me ever since: "that's the thing with cliche people, is that they have no idea how fucking cliche they are."

I think about that a lot when I sit around and wonder if I'm the crazy one for wanting more than simple pleasures, for wanting to wear tacky jewelry and put things in my house that are not "classy" and "so retro", for not really caring about microbreweries. For not wanting my life to shrink down to Mason jars and vintage wedding dresses.

I want to be afraid. I don't want to run from it into the arms of a skinny man who is actually wearing suspenders and a stupid hat.

*


The song: Ke$ha, "Die Young"; 2012

And then there's impulse, which I have written about before: the let's-laugh-in-the-face-of-death-and-have-another-two-dollar-Long-Island thing, which is more typical of "low pop culture" and is also in my opinion a lot more fun.

But, at the end of the day, it's still an impulse based on fear. It's the other side of the way people face fear, by putting up their dukes instead of putting up shots of their food on Instagram.

What struck me when I first heard this song was that, on paper, it's a theoretical: "Let's make the most of the night like we're gonna die young".  As if we are going to die young.

When you finish listening to the song, however, and take away from it whatever you are going to, it's likely to be simply, "we're gonna die young." Not a whole lot of if in it.

At the back of our minds, I think many of us believe this.

*

Cliche people have no idea how fucking cliche they are. But that's okay, because that would be an impossible paradox, similar to how it's nearly impossible to actually figure out what is going on in a culture without the benefit of at least some years distance. I'm only an amateur student of history, but what seems clear enough to me is that every Culture has itself convinced that IT is the most technologically advanced, the most aesthetically sophisticated, simply the best as compared to those stupid people in the past -- with the one major blind spot always being that every Culture ALWAYS winds up being "those stupid people in the past" to some other Culture.

We can't see how stupid we are going to look in the future, for one thing it would be like seeing the back of your head or going back in time and marrying your own grandmother, and for another nobody would be able to get out of bed in the morning.

And! We can never go back, we can only go forward. I certainly don't know what 2013 will look like. But I wish, my one fervent wish, that we could somehow return to the exploratory spirit of the 1990s.

I wish we could all, collectively, turn outward again.

I wish our heroes could be Jean-Luc Picard and Fox Mulder, people who confront the unknown and the scary with questions and with a tinge of excitement.

(Instead of our hero being, apparently, Donald Draper who, HELLO, I love that show as much as the next person but seriously Donald Draper represents everything that is wrong and bad with American culture, he is an ANTIhero.)

In conclusion, Jean-Luc Picard and Fox Mulder don't give a shit about your local craft-brewed moonshine OR your two dollar Long Island, because they are not afraid.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

I'm Always Running Behind The Times: "Just Like This Train"

I really love October (who doesn't) but I find that it can sometimes really exacerbate what I'll call my Chronic Existential Pain Syndrome.

Like most chronic things, it's low level most of the time and then occasionally flares up, usually in the form of thoughts like so:

"Wow this is really a beautiful autumn evening, there's that comforting damp chill in the air and I can't wait to get home and make a cup of tea but OH WAIT this beauty is so fleeting and we will all die."

or

"Wow this is a really beautiful autumn afternoon, I just love the scent of woodsmoke and everyone hurrying by in attractive sweaters, the sky is the prettiest shade of blue, but none of this can last and we will all die."

or

"Wow this is a really beautiful autumn morning, the sunlight through those red leaves is quite spectacular but soon those leaves will turn brown and crumble up and we will all die."

You get the picture. October is a month of many pangs.

I was trying to figure out what songs I could use to describe the feeling of October, but there's nothing that quite captures it because nothing really can. So I hit on these two, which I find simply comforting and beautiful, and which remind me that for the moment, we are alive.

Because that's really what it is, this Chronic Existential Pain Syndrome. It's not so much a morbid obsession with death as it is the incredibly keen feeling that life is much too big and beautiful to ever be fully lived or even understood. But the existential pain is what compels us to try.

As I continue on with In Bed With Amy Wilson, I continue to search for the similarities in the songs and artists I love. I think one major one is that many of them are fellow CEPS patients. Even though their experiences (as reflected in their songs) often differ from mine, I sense the underlying theme and I understand the essence, even if not the particulars.

There's this movie called Joe Versus the Volcano that should be required viewing for anyone with a heart and the senses of humor, absurdity, and perspective. It's the first pairing of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as well as the directorial debut of John Patrick Shanley (the excellent writer behind Moonstruck and Doubt), and it addresses this very issue much better than I ever could hope to. (As well as being extremely hilarious; the line "Very exciting. . .as a LUGGAGE PROBLEM," has been known to cause me to undergo actual paroxysms.)

In any case, the reason why I bring it up is because there's this line that I always come back to, where Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are drifting under the stars on Meg Ryan's character's boat, and she says,

My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.

It seems true to me. And constant total amazement can really hurt, actually.

But doesn't it seem better than the alternative?

Enjoy these songs, please. Happy October.

*


The song: Joni Mitchell, "Just Like This Train"; 1974


The song: Neko Case, "Magpie to the Morning"; 2009

Come on sorrow, take your own advice: hide under the bed, turn out the light. 

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

Oh Make No Mistake My Friend All Of This Will End So Sing It Now: "Sing Your Life"

The things you love most are the things you return to again and again.

Hence the concept of the dog-eared page. Or buying DVDs in an age when it's just as easy not to. The desire to own and mark what you know you will want to see again.

The things I return to are usually things I hardly realize I am returning to, because they never feel old, they just feel good.

Here are some of them:


The song: Morrissey, "Sing Your Life"; 1991

From Morrissey's wonderfully off-kilter second solo album Kill Uncle, this song encapsulates a lot of what I love about Morrissey: he has a very clear-eyed (some would say overly so) view of exactly what sucks about life but he loves it anyway.

Sort of like how in the opening scene to Annie Hall (one of the first DVDs I felt compelled to own) Woody Allen tells that joke with the old ladies in the Catskills about how the food is lousy, and such small portions.

This view of life is pretty close to mine, I would say.

(Previous Morrissey: "Everyday is Like Sunday")

*


The song: Neko Case, "People Got A Lotta Nerve"; 2009

Y'know, they call them killer whales
But you seemed surprised 
When it pinned you down to the bottom of the tank


The message that I get from this one is that the essential nature of things will out, despite whatever genteel conventions the things seem to abide by,

and that this isn't necessarily a bad thing,

and that animals are people too.

(Previous Neko: "The Needle Has Landed"; "Running Out of Fools")

*


The song: PS 22 Chorus, "Firework (Katy Perry cover)"; 2011

And this, which has twice in a row made me cry real tears when it came up in the Katy Perry movie. Why? Because this song is the perfect one to be sung by children, because they can do it with no irony and the listener wants them to believe it in a way we are afraid for adults to want to believe it.

Because hope in some way requires ignorance, but that also isn't necessarily a bad thing. You ever done something that was hard, knit a cabled sweater or assembled a set of shelves, that you didn't know was hard? If you'd known how hard it was you wouldn't have done it, but you didn't, so you did.

Kind of like that.

(Previously: "At the Movies with Amy Wilson: Katy Perry Part of Me 3D")

*

So those are some touchpoints of my ongoing efforts to form a unified theory of everything.

Another one is that everybody should eat pineapple when they feel kind of blech.

So now you know.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

You Got Back To My Name In Your Little Black Book: Version v. Version

Friends, it's that time again.

For that unanswerable question: who sung it best?

THIS TIME, a special twist because all of the artists featured here have ALSO been previously featured on In Bed With Amy Wilson. Because I love them all. A conundrum is before us.

The song? Only the one everybody should have in the back pocket of their emotional register:

"Runnin' Out Of Fools"!

(Previous Version v. Version: "The First Cut Is The Deepest"; "The Tracks of My Tears")

*


The song: Aretha Franklin, "Runnin' Out Of Fools"; 1964

Oh God before this even begins I know I am going to love all of these with incredible intensity. But, whew, gotta keep it together.

This is the original version, sung by 22-year-old Aretha Franklin with what has got to be the sassiest piano back-up known to man.

In the dream version of my life, when I talk it just sounds to people like 22-year-old Aretha Franklin and that sassy piano. And I am always wearing a dress with sequins on it.

In the reality version of my life, I am currently sitting in a basement apartment on a thrift-store couch surrounded by shoes which I throw all over the place when I come home and by magazines and newspapers which I subscribe to more of than I should and then never read properly. And also, by crumbs. Sooooooooo, in short, the glamour factor is a bit lacking.

But with Aretha on my side -- and in this song she's on the side of anyone who's ever felt jerked around, which is everyone -- there's little that can harm me.

(Previous Aretha: "(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You've Been Gone"; "Nessun Dorma")

*

The song: Elvis Costello, "Running Out Of Fools"; 1995

This version is off an album called Kojak Variety, a collection of covers which Elvis Costello envisioned would just subtly pop up in record stores like something lost, and found. (A very charming idea.)

It's obscure enough that the YouTube angels and demons had not uploaded it, so I took the liberty. (Alongside a random years-old photo from my computer which is, I kid you not, a cheese grater which I took, I kid you not, when I briefly became very obsessed with the "macro" function on my then-new camera. Like y'do.)

I really like the instrumentation on this one. But to me it lacks some of the real straight-to-the-heart zing of Aretha's version. But I have a different heart than you.

(Previous Elvis: "Sneaky Feelings"; "Every Day I Write The Book")

*


The song: Neko Case, "Runnin' Out Of Fools"; 2002

And this. This! This was the first way I knew this song.

The depth and warmth and sweetness and darkness of Neko Case's voice is unparalleled. 

I know I said I wouldn't be able to pick a favorite but this, this is it for me. Because beyond the sassiness of Aretha's and the cutting nature of Elvis', this has a sadness and yearning to it that brings real dimension to the lyrics. It's not easy for her to tell him off. I sympathize with that more than I can sympathize with the others (in the reality version of my life, at least).

But I fully understand that this is a personal choice for all of us. Like the other two songs featured in Version v. Version, the base of "Runnin' Out of Fools" is strong enough to sustain many interpretations. (There are a few others out there that I chose not feature this time around, like this funky disco take, which I still encourage you to listen to because frankly, it's great.)

(Previous Neko: "The Needle Has Landed")

*

If you have thoughts on which you liked and why, operators are standing by at inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com.

Yrs,
AW

Wish You Could Touch Me With The Colors Of Your Life: "Invisible"

As I've hopefully made clear, I'm really into things that seem kind of bright and upbeat but in fact are DARK and TWISTED and MORBID. The contrast is just really zesty to me.

One of my favorite songs of this genre is one I discovered on the special edition version of Daryl Hall and John Oates, the debut album of Daryl Hall and John Oates (which as you may recall I was very deep into for a while there).

(Previously on In Bed with Amy Wilson: "You see, our lives are like the ice inside this paper cup - we all start out with a job to do, then age and fade away till we are swallowed up.")

And here's another one, which is somewhat less technically good of a song, but which I was SUPER into when it first came out and was reminded of just the other day.

Hey here's a totally non-creepy, upbeat, bright thing to say:

If I was invisible. . .then I could just watch you in your room!

*


The song: Clay Aiken, "Invisible"; 2003

Oh God this song is total crap. But it's FUN crap, which is redeeming.

And it's made even MORE fun by the thought, which I firmly believe, that Clay Aiken -- that sweet weirdo -- has no idea that the words he is singing are completely stalker-y.

(This is, after all, a man who once said that if he could have dinner with any three people living or dead, they would be Jimmy Carter, Mr. Rogers, and Jesus.

So, either this innocent-guy act goes REAL deep -- like REAL deep and Clay Aiken is a brilliant performance artist -- or he really is this much of a doofus.)

This song also has a beautiful example of an unclear antecedent in I would be the smartest man if I was invisible -- wait, I ALREADY AM. 

Ugh I just love it. I just love it all.

*

But really this post is an elaborate ruse designed to highlight that Hall & Oates song I referenced at the beginning, "Ice".

Which really genuinely has become one of my favorite songs. When I hear that drum drop in at the beginning my heart quickens.

And what's really great about this song, that I don't know that I realized at the time I first posted it, is that it's similar to "We Just Disagree", the first song I ever wrote about here. In that they are both seemingly first-conversation-after-the-break-up songs.

But while "We Just Disagree" is maddeningly level-headed, "Ice" is just INSANE:

"Don't worry about me in the aftermath of our breakup sweetie, because you see I've got it all figured out and the answer is casual nihilism!" 

 So I guess what I am saying is -- call me, Daryl Hall!

Yrs,
AW

 inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

It's Not That The Problem Lies Anywhere In There: "Please Forgive My Heart"

I really like doing radio, as evidenced by the fact that for the last four months I have been willing to drag my carcass out of my burrow between the hours of 3am and 6am to do it.

There are a lot of things that are addictive and magical and wonderful about the radio, and I've done a lot of thinking about them recently. Here are two:

- It's immediate: Everything that you do and say and play goes out as soon as you do and say and play it. That makes it nervewracking at times, but also vital and personal in a way that few other things I know are.

 - You're never alone, but it's easy to believe you are: In a basement, in the middle of the night, surrounded by thousands of songs you've never heard, faced with a panel of slide-y things and buttons, it feels just about as alone as it gets. Oh here I am, just listening to some cool tunes, eating some peanut M&Ms, pushing some buttons that light up red. 

You put on headphones when you talk so you can hear how your own voice sounds, so you are surrounded by the sound of yourself. It's crrrrrazy.

You never know how many people are listening to you or where they are or why. If they fell asleep with the radio on. If they're up miserably late with a migraine or a crying baby. If they're driving out of town for the last time and the song you are playing is giving them a nostalgic Moment.

(Until they call you to tell you about the Moment they had and you can hear the music from the other end of the phone at the same pace it is playing where you are and it's crrrrrrazy.)

Sometimes when people mention my blog to me in person I'll say diffidently that the only way I can continue writing it is if I pretend no one ever reads it. Same with radio. The only way I can put on those headphones and stare into the mike and talk -- knowing that what I say goes immediately to cars and computers and the radios that sit beside sleeping people -- is to pretend I am talking to myself.

And that's one thing I can DO.

*

This is all because I'm very young, and increasingly aware that I don't know anything. If I let myself think about a word I said publicly before I actually said it, I'd never say anything at all and end up spending most of my days in the fetal position wishing Trader Joe's would deliver me some snacks.

That's also because I still care what people think of me, although I find it very freeing in the moments when I can stop with that (usually, to be perfectly honest, when I am hungover).

This is the music I listen to when I want to not care what people think of me, because these guys are old and they don't give a fuck and they've earned it.

(through years of hangovers? well, it obviously worked.)


The song: Dean Martin, "The Tracks Of My Tears"; 1970

I featured this when I did a Version v. Version of "The Tracks of My Tears", and it was ACTUALLY MY FAVORITE. It's just so swingin' and has such a, as I said then, "what the fuck, why not??" coolness to it.


The song: Tom Jones feat. Jack White, "Evil"; 2012

Let's talk about Tom Jones some other time, because I love that guy, but for now enjoy his most recent effort featuring Jack White of the White Stripes. Best interplay of bass guitar and horns ever? You gotta admit, it's a contender.


The song: Bobby Womack, "Please Forgive My Heart" (produced by Damon Albarn); 2012

Since I discovered this song two weeks ago I have listened to it probably one hundred times at least. The blend of Womack's voice, and the production, and the subject matter -- I find it perfect.

It's apologizing for your faults without apologizing for your existence or theirs. Please, forgive my heart.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

At the Movies with Amy Wilson: Impassioned Defenses of Universally Panned Films

I recently submitted to the McSweeney's Internet Tendency Column Contest, which I did not win (evidently) but which required me to write one full example column for the submission.

Writing it was one of the more excruciating experiences of my recent life. It required nearly a whole pint of soy ice cream, more repeats of "Private Dancer" than I care to count up, reading through fifty pages of GoodReads quotes on writing, and a nascent groove in the carpeting of my new place.

(Even as I was pacing, I was thinking, "well geez, this is kind of a writerly cliche isn't it, never thought I'd actually be PACING," but there I was. Pacing.)

The concept of the column was somewhat similar to what I've already been doing here, except with movies and TV instead of music. The "Universally Panned" part would probably be occasionally tossed out the window, because you know I roll with that kind of stuff. "Self-imposed rules" and whatever. And in the in-between time of submitting the column and waiting for the results to be announced, I had the following thoughts:

- oh SHIT I hope I do not get this column, I have no good ideas of anything to write about ever.

- oh SHIT I hope I do not get this column, then they'll publish that example column I wrote which ended up being sort of confessional, whoops, uh oh. 

- well actually I really do hope I get this column! (it's healthy to squash that kind of thought down when you're a writer submitting to things, though)

So in total, I never have any good ideas of anything to write about ever -- until I do (but that seems normal, at least according to fifty pages of GoodReads quotes about writing). And yes, the example column turned out confessional to the point that it made me nervous to contemplate it being published, so in a way I was relieved to learn I was not selected.

But NO. That is NO WAY TO LIVE. You gotta fight for it! Maya Angelou and Stephen King and Douglas Adams and Joan Didion have my back on that one, I know.

So here's the first installment of At The Movies With Amy Wilson: Impassioned Defenses of Universally Panned Films, published by me. Plz enjoy.

* * * * * *

"No Strings Attached"

If there's one thing I love it's a theory.

There's this theory that people come in three varieties of love: anxious, avoidant, and secure.

The anxious lack a certain sense of object permanence, they are convinced the world outside really does disappear when they close their eyes.

The avoidant are described by Simon & Garfunkel, as rocks, as islands.

And the secure? Who knows. They are supposedly all around us. Doing their thing. Being happy. Perhaps they are the people depicted in the ads for Beaches, the ultimate all-inclusive family vacation resort.

*

So I guess there are people out there who were born knowing, as Lil Wayne says, How to Love. I'm not one of them.  

How to love, I should clarify, in a way that does not feel like scooping something from a jar, throwing it as hard as possible against a brick wall, then replacing the quivering mass in the jar and waiting until it has stopped quivering enough to be scooped again.

Not to be melodramatic, ha ha ha!

But how to love in a way that is lasting, a way that is clear and true, a way that appears to the outside observer like two mustangs yoked together -- that's the way I'd like to know how to love, the way I was not born knowing.

In an ongoing effort to learn, I've turned to Film although I never was a Film Person and so there is so much I barely feel I have the language to talk about. Joan Didion once said, and I really hesitate to quote Joan Didion here but I sort of have to, Joan Didion once said, "Grammar is a piano I play by ear. The only thing I know of grammar is its power."

I know power when I see it, and I define power the same way I would define art: It's what's beautiful and meaningful and universal and yet also very specific.

*

It's found in unexpected places, like the 2011 film No Strings Attached starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher.

Here's what I'd like to put forth in defense of this film:

1. You've got to be willing to accept, and I feel the average thinking person is willing to accept this but it can't hurt to reiterate, that Hollywood moves in strange ways and if it can possibly figure out a way to make something crappier, it will do so. This includes doing things like making the trailer and the marketing of a film depict almost an entirely different film than what you actually get, in the not completely unreasonable line of thinking that people are quite stupid and Can't Handle The Truth.

So if you collared somebody and asked him what the 2011 film No Strings Attached starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher is about, he might only be able to say that it's about friends with benefits --

-- because some person somewhere with power watches the Today Show obsessively and so thinks that friends with benefits are all anyone under the age of 27 ever thinks about, and isn't that kicky --

and he might also get it confused with the 2011 film Friends With Benefits starring Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake, which would be a shame because that movie is not nearly as good as No Strings Attached.

2. It's not really about friends with benefits, because the two characters are never really friends. They have friends, both of them have multiple friends of various genders which in and of itself sets this movie apart from your average romantic comedy, but the two of them begin their acquaintance with each other with a romantic/sexual tinge. Which is all well and good, but that's not being friends. It's a love story.

3. It's a love story wherein one of the characters seems quite normal with love although he struggles with it a normal-person way (that's Ashton Kutcher) and the other one of the characters is fucked in the head about love to an alarming extent (that's Natalie Portman).

You don't get to see why she is fucked in the head about love to an alarming extent. The movie does not go spelunking in her past. It gives her more dignity than that, by simply saying "look, here is a reasonably functional person [she is a doctor] but she has a serious problem with not allowing herself to ever need anybody and it's started interfering with her life because she met this cute guy who looks mighty fine in an expensive sweater." (That's Ashton Kutcher.)

What this character proposes as a way of getting around her serious problem is a No Strings Attached sex-only relationship between her and this new guy. Which is probably what led to the idea that this movie is about friends with benefits, but that idea obscures the fact that she proposes this out of her dysfunction, that it's not kicky at all, and that the movie is about her figuring that out.

It's not about whether men and women can be friends. It's not about whether two people can have sex and not be in a relationship. It's about how to love. It's about how this one specific person could love.

4. It's about this one specific person, which is what makes it brain candy to those of us sitting on our couches watching movies in an effort to understand life. Even if our specific issue is not the same as Natalie Portman's character in No Strings Attached (and mine, I could mention, is not), it's still instructive to see a reasonably functional person figure it out.

It's rare, that combination of "reasonably functional people" and "serious problems" and "things that get figured out". It's special. (No Strings Attached has the added benefit of a strong supporting cast including Kevin Kline, Greta Gerwig, Mindy Kaling, Lake Bell, That One Guy From New Girl (Not Schmidt), and Ludacris -- excuse me, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges.)

It's good writing.

"Good writing" is what I say when I love something. When I feel it describes something that could stand describing. When I feel it. It's how I feel about the Stone Poneys' song "Different Drum", and I know no higher praise than that.

*

It's a maligned genre, the romantic comedy, although the recent death of Nora Ephron has changed that for a bit.

But who does not want to look through the lighted windows of relationships that actually work? Who does not want to know how to love?


******

Upcoming installments on At The Movies With Amy Wilson:

Burlesque: the 2011 film starring Cher, Christina Aguilera, and Stanley Tucci. A testament to the power of GLITTER. (Which reminds me, I've got to see that one...)

Country Strong: also 2011, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw. A powerful (truly) film about fame and what it does to human relationships. Combined with tequila and ginger ale, has been known to make grown women weep. 

"Frasier"/"Twin Peaks": already throwing that "universally panned" thing to the side, this installment will probably end up being me writing about logs for 2,500 words.

Guys, I'm psyched. ONWARD.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

I Refuse To Give Into My Blues, That's Not How It's Going To Be: "King of Wishful Thinking"

Oh, BLOG.

I have been occasionally known to say I am in a relationship with my blog, which is only about 25% a joke.

It's sort of better than conceptualizing it (being single) as being in a relationship with "myself", as some self-help-y folk will tell you to do. Because the thing about being in a relationship with yourself is, you can never get any space! Myself is always there, just breathing down my NECK, waking up in the morning and being like "What are we doing today?" and not being satisfied with the answer "Watching You've Got Mail on AMC and eating microwave popcorn for breakfast at 2pm, duh" like any reasonable person would be.

Being in a relationship with myself is kind of high-maintenance, is all I am saying.

But anyway, this is all a roundabout way of saying that I am pleased with my blog for being able to sustain a little break.

*


The song: Go West, "King of Wishful Thinking"; 1990

I've become fascinated in recent months with the aesthetic of an aesthetic no-man's-land: the 1980s and early 1990s. It's near enough to our current day to be firmly in living memory, yet not far enough away to look "vintage" and "classic".

Some day it will though, challenging as that is to believe. That thought, and the fact that I have a crush on 1980s Prince Charles*, is what sustains this fascination.

I've also become very interested in the concept of aesthetics itself, in what we find appealing and why, and have come no closer to understanding it than anyone else who has tried and probably a lot less close than many. I do know, however, that the eye becomes trained to look favorably on certain things. Like skinny jeans. Those were weird when they first came into being, right? We remember that, right?

I think the question becomes, can you see an object outside of its cultural context and appreciate it for whatever special glow it has, as itself?

Shucks, I'm rambling. I just wanted to share this video, which sums up "dated" and "tacky" -- those jeans -- but which I enjoy greatly.

Thanks blog. See you soon.

Yrs,
AW

*Yep.

Well The Men Come In These Places and the Men Are All the Same: "Private Dancer"

Hi friends,

Please excuse the recent radio silence. I have been moving, an endeavor which takes relatively little time in the physical world but which has CONSUMED MY BRAIN with a potent mix of dread and excitement and a catlike desire to pee everywhere in my new place (but the pee is colors and music).

In any case, I've been keeping it pretty loose around these parts in ways both good and bad.

(Good: Yes I want to go to Meijer at 12:30 at night to look at DVDs and buy a lip gloss and a bottom shelf perfume!

Bad: Anything having to do with my keys. You know, I am sure, how it goes.)

But now that I have regained my access to such things as "the Internet" and a "place to sit" I thought I'd share with you a song I have recently fallen in love with.

Recently I found myself driving nearly all the way across the state of Michigan late at night while listening to Tina Turner: Simply the Best.

It's a memory I will treasure forever.

*

The song: Tina Turner, "Private Dancer"; 1984

Written by Mark Knopfler, sung by a 45-year-old Tina Turner, this song is inexpressibly amazing.

It's as close as music can take you to crawling inside someone else's head.

Please enjoy, and I will see you soon in a stabler state.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

And One Day We Will Die And Our Ashes Will Fly: "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea"

Several (many) months ago I made this statement, which has periodically resurfaced to haunt me ever since: Neutral Milk Hotel's "In The Aeroplane Over the Sea" is the greatest folk song of our time.

I knew it was risky, ooh did I. "Greatest folk song of our time" has got to make a statement, something really insightful about "our time", because that's what great folk songs are all about right?

 And I just don't know.

Sometimes it hits me when I am bending over to tie my shoes, or reaching into the grocery store case: IS Neutral Milk Hotel's "In The Aeroplane Over the Sea" the greatest folk song of our time? 

I'd say I need to get a hobby, but I think I've got one.

*

Here's my supporting evidence for why I said this in the first place:

1. It's tied with "Postcards From Italy" for Song We Conducted The Most Off-Key But Enthusiastic Dorm Room Singalongs Of. 

But even though "Postcards From Italy" had the advantage of the ukulele, nothing ever quite matched the fervor we could throw at "with MEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeee".

2. That fervor: what was behind it?

Listen to those lyrics, kaleidoscoping between transparent hope and wonder and sneering nostalgia and just plain nihilism and ending up simply with

"can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all".

3. The singing saw sounds like a dolphin.

*

The song: Neutral Milk Hotel, "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea"; 1998

The greatest folk song of our time would require an "our time", which is why I am hesitating here. But I think what we've got on our hands IS a generation, and like all generations while we are figuring out what our generation is we're relying slavishly on the ones that came before.

The problem is that we're immediately preceded by some Generations, man, some Generations who define the concept of "generational identity" -- define it even to a fault. (And yes I am looking at you, Baby Boomers, you are SO not as great as you think you are.)

They've called it "Gen Y" to which I say, ugh, love ya Gen Xers (no really I do) but nope this does not appear to be a simple linear progression,

but I do kinda like "millennials". Because if there's one thing that appears to have defined our lives so far by my understanding, it's some millennial thinking in the sense that THE SKY IS ALWAYS ALWAYS FALLING.

To give one example that occurred to me recently, as I was watching the Opening Ceremonies for the current Olympic games I was listening to the announcers plather on about how this will inspire a new generation etc etc.

Undeniably the Olympic games do that and I am as much a sucker for the Olympic spirit as anybody. I remember my first Olympics clear as day.

It was the one that was IN America, where like every other little girl I became obsessed with watching the women's gymnastic team, and oh yeah it was the ONE THAT GOT BOMBED.

"Oh hello children, I am the Olympics, I bring peace and excitement and new frontiers for your young minds and lots of promotional crossover with Coca-cola and fifteen-year-old tiny ladies wearing AWESOME SCRUNCHIES and. . .some weird guy setting off a huge bomb because of. . .socialism and. . .abortion? But let the Games go on!"

And this sort of thing was always happening when we were young and impressionable, and what's more we lived alongside the fear of it -- I'm 24 years old and I can't hardly remember a time when the "threat level" was below orange; I remember the times when you had to look up movie listings in the newspaper MUCH more clearly.

What is a "threat level" anyhow?

Maybe it's why we all loved singing the line "what a beautiful dream/that could flash on the screen/in the blink of an eye and be gone from me".

*

I don't want to lean too heavily on this theory, because at its heart it is just something I blurted out to impress somebody, ha ha. But there's something about it that I come back to when I look around and I wonder, who the hell are we? (Besides people who are kind of sort of holding our collective breath because this 2012 apocalypse thing we might actually believe it? I know I am not the only one.)

We're young people living not only at the turn of the century, always a crrrrrrazy time, but also at the turn of the millennium (don't think it wasn't crazy the first time around too) and also at the turn of an age -- to the age where any information you want is at your fingertips if only you know the right search keyword.

And it's fucking terrifying, at least to me, and I think to others too, which might explain the obsessions with Mason jars and Mad Men and Marilyn Monroe and twenty-three-year-olds getting married and having babies and lumberjacks and classic whiskeys and DIY and all of this retrograde morass we call "Pinterest".

In a time like this, how strange it is to be anything at all.

*

4. It's a little too old for us, as I am somewhat defining us here as a generation, but that just fits right in.

5. It's good and strummy. Can't have a good folk song without some vigorous strumming.

6. It's weird. But can you blame us?

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

And I, I Am Feeling A Little Peculiar: "What's Up?"

Gonna talk about something I don't really talk about: I was on Jeopardy! and I won.

I was 22 years old and it was not College Jeopardy!, it was regular.

When I start to think about the impact that becoming a Jeopardy! champion at the age of 22 might have had or will have on my life, I start to feel like the bottom may be dropping out of the universe -- so I generally tread pretty carefully around that line of thought.

One of the most evident impacts has been to make a very clear division between those who knew me before and those who know me after.

Before, I used to talk about Jeopardy! all the time! My cell phone ringtone was the Jeopardy! theme. I dressed up as Alex Trebek for Halloween. I owned several of Ken Jennings' books and a Jeopardy!-Question-of-the-Day calendar and here's where you KNOW it was real, I knew all the cheesy low-budget commercials that played during the show. ("As a nutritionist, I recommend Eggland's Best eggs!")

I was voted "Most Likely to Win Jeopardy!' in the high school newspaper. Because everyone knew my life goal was to win on Jeopardy!. Because I talked about it. All the time.

Because I thought it was going to take more of my life. 

IT WAS A LONG-TERM GOAL.  

*

Last January-ish, about eight months after my show aired, I said to a new friend: "well, winning on Jeopardy! used to be my life goal and, well, I never really expected it to happen but it did, and so I'm sort of at a loss without a life goal," and my friend said "that's like saying 'well, I am on this submarine, and it's sort of filling up with water.'"

*

The other thing to know about me is that I am an incredibly anxious person. It makes me uncomfortable to talk about myself in this way so I'll just say this:

the engine of these two things, the anxiety and the ability to remember that if the category is world capitals, one of the answers will always be "Rabat",

the engine of these two things is the same.

*

The song: 4 Non Blondes, "What's Up?"; 1993

I used to live inside my anxiety and not really know it was possible to live differently. Recently though, happily,  I don't live that way any more.

(But the thing about knowing what it feels like to not be anxious is it makes being anxious a lot tougher. Two steps forward, one back. Still adds up to one step forward though.)

This song is not about interpersonal drama but a lot more on the general Weltschmerz-y side of things. And people also make fun of this song a LOT. A lot a lot. Maybe because of her voice? Although I admire her expressive quality.

I know the feeling that she describes as: "And I wake up in the morning and I step outside and I take a deep breath and I get real high and I scream at the top of my lungs, what's going on?" and I know it as just kind of a general frankness, a "well, DAMN" kind of a feeling.

It's that "well, DAMN" feeling where my anxiety and my ability are perfectly balanced, just for a moment. It's like the taste of Coca-cola, or the light in those hours when the sun is going down -- rich.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

Gray Hair Ain't A Crown of Wisdom: "Who's Feeling Young Now?"

There are two kinds of people - people who get crushes, and another kind of person I don't want to contemplate.

I have a crush on this song, which I have played on Turn It Up with Amy Wilson each of the last three weeks, for some reason always between 5AM and 5:30.

I have no idea why that might be -- maybe that's a time I'm feeling particularly young/crazy and the magnitude of the 3am-6am radio show has really hit me?

WHO KNOWS. All I know is, I really like the way he says "HEY".

*

The song: Punch Brothers, "Who's Feeling Young Now?"; 2012


Turn It Up with Amy Wilson is my radio show, which has been playing late late late late late Tuesday nights 3am-6am (wcbn.org or 88.3fm) for the last three months or so.

I still love it more than anything. Every week I go to the station and hope the radio magic will happen. Most times, wonderfully enough, it does. And the issue of the time, of the murderous early/lateness of it,  has faded into unimportance as I've realized that plenty of other people are awake at that time too.

Early this year I had a crush on a catchphrase: "Life: It's 24/7!" It's silly, but what I meant by it is just to say that that pretty much is the ONLY thing I can say with any confidence about life.

It is, also, still 2012 -- the possible meaning of that was an  earlier obsession of mine as well.

These crushes don't actually go away, they just braid over and under each other -- and that's life.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

Remember No One Is Big Enough To Go It Alone: "Ask the Lonely"

The song: The Four Tops, "Ask the Lonely (a cappella)"; 1965

By all accounts Levi Stubbs, the lead singer of the Four Tops, was a well-adjusted and contentedly-married person despite having a voice that can get into your soul and stay there.

It's a reassuring thought for those of us who sometimes wonder if this thing euphemistically called "an artistic temperament" can actually coexist with long-term happiness.

Just ask the lonely -- and probably don't listen to their answer.

(but turn it up!)

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

EDITED April 2013 to replace the video which had disappeared as they sometimes do (this blog is a garden that requires constant tending). From the comments of the new one. Aw geez:

"As a child growing up in Detroit and living on the North End, we used to walk over to Hitsville USA to just go in and watch the artists rehearsing and recording music. Levi Stubbs and the Four Tops were the nicest of all the group members that we met. He always took time to stop outside to greet and play with us kids Gordy had a lil playground outside in front of the studio where young kids and teens were always welcome to come and play. They played every nice nightclub in the City back then."

I Have Always Been Your Love: ENGAGING IN THRILL-SEEKING BEHAVIOR

In this world fun is where you find it.

And if it's murderously hot and a once-a-year festival has descended upon your town and everyone is united by a shared feeling of irritation and rage (not a bad way to be united frankly),

and if you are not only SINGLE but SINGLE with no PROSPECTS (the single-est of all ways to be single) and if you happen to have a large, painful under-the-skin zit on your forehead and if the other day at work you were surprised by a large cockroach and had to tag-team with a friend on killing it and then on scraping its body off the carpet (hi Cecilia, thanks for being the one who killed it),

then fun has really got to be where you find it.

*


The song: Hot Chip, "Always Been Your Love"; 2012

You ever have a memory and then think "oh yeah, I did used to be like that"? I remembered the other day that I used to be really into keeping abreast of what was coming out in music now, now, now. (Admittedly for a very limited definition of "music" -- mostly indie music of the sort that would now be called "dream pop".)

And then, I don't know what happened, I had a friend who loved Elton John and I saw Morrissey in concert and I got more into the idea of "good music that came out a while ago" than "good music that's coming out right now".

(Although I will say for the record that Morrissey doesn't reeeeeeeeeeally count as "good music that came out a while ago" because his new stuff is ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD GUYS please give it a chance okay glad I got that out.)

That was all fine and good, that "let's listen to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road on cassette and pretend it's 1986" thing, but THEN some kinda bad stuff happened and I got really depressed for a while and I didn't really get un-depressed until oh, I don't know,

50 entries on In Bed With Amy Wilson ago.

So as I slowly peel away the layers of this onion that is the possibly life-long quest to become un-depressed, I suppose it makes sense that after the realization of "OH HEY I REALLY LIKE OLD POP MUSIC A LOT" that provided the momentum for this blog would come another one of "OH HEY I ALSO REALLY LIKE NEW POP MUSIC A LOT".

And so, this song, and the song I let speak for itself: Trails and Ways, "Nunca".

What I failed to mention about that song is that that voice belongs to my oldest friend, the friend about whom I would probably have the best chance of saying "I really KNOW that person, yep, I sure do know that person".

But as I realized when I visited this friend a few weeks ago, and saw him play with this awesome band that he is in, I don't feel like I could say this because -- and excuse me for how tired this sounds but that's BECAUSE IT'S TRUE -- there's always something more to discover.

(If I were Carrie Bradshaw, here's where I would pause contemplatively and sip from my enormous goblet of wine and write, "Could it be that life is more about the journey. . .than the destination?")

Fortunately I am not Carrie Bradshaw, and so I'll say this instead:

Once I read in a relatively dark mood something to this effect: "you could walk through the ocean of her soul and not even get your hems wet". And I thought to myself, darkly of course, well haHA no one could ever say that about me because the ocean of MY soul is filled with like those CRAZY fish. FISH WITH TEETH THAT STICK OUT LIKE THREE FEET AND A FLASHLIGHT ON A BOBBLY THING ON THEIR HEAD. That is the sort of fish that live in the ocean of my soul. WOE IS ME.

And, well, although I still sort of think those are predominantly the kind of fish that live in the ocean of my soul, at least there are FISH. Y'know?

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

You Can't Write Laws, And So: "Nunca"

The song: Trails and Ways, "Nunca"; 2012

I want to let this song speak for itself, because I think it can.

Please enjoy.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

But If He Loves You More Go With Him: Playing Pretend

If I were in charge of the music for a Wes Anderson movie,

I'd put this song on the soundtrack.


The song: The Beatles, "Anna (Go With Him)"; 1963

Because it's drunken-sounding and more than a little self-pitying but also, yknow, basically kind and decent.

And it makes me want to dance in a way that could be described as "desultory".

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

At the Movies with Amy Wilson: Katy Perry Part Of Me 3D

I'm not asking you to like her music; that's a matter of personal preference.

But I just can't help but want to throw my hat in the ring of first-flush reactions and comments to Katy Perry: Part of Me 3D which hit theaters near you on Thursday.

For those souls among us who do NOT avidly follow Katy Perry's Twitter feed (although I can recommend this) -- Katy Perry: Part of Me 3D is a tour documentary/concert film.

Here's what I thought was interesting about this film experience.

1. While it was filming, Katy Perry was literally in the process of going through a divorce. So you see "talking head" --

(where people are talking directly to the camera/interviewer in a documentary; always my favorite parts; always contain the funniest jokes in Christopher Guest movies.

also: Stop Making Sense.)

-- "talking head" footage of her before the divorce so when she is trying to be perky and upbeat about Love and Marriage and Happy Endings but something is obviously wrong; "talking head" footage of her after the divorce where she seems much rawer and has a new hair color but also seems overall happier; candid footage of her interacting with her soon-to-be ex; candid footage of her talking about her marriage casually to her crew -- but "talking about her marriage casually" in that way where YOU KNOW all your friends think you are in an awful relationship but they are Being Diplomatic.

In other words, it's not just a concert film. It's a documentary about the effects of mega-fame on human relationships, unfolding in real time.

2. You learn a fair bit about her background, naturally, but of particular interest is the film's coverage of the fact that she was raised a Pentecostal Christian by traveling ministers. Now, not to offend any sensitive souls in the audience, but I think it's fair to say that Pentecostal is one of the weirder brands of Christianity. My Top Three quick-draw associations with the word "Pentecostal":

speaking in tongues

snake handling

teenage girls forced to wear ankle-length denim skirts.

3. As a result of that Pentecostal upbringing, Katy Perry's musical exposure in her young life was limited to strictly Christian-approved music. She had an early career as a gospel-singing teen star. UNTIL ONE FATEFUL DAY WHEN she was over at a friend's house and heard her first piece of Mainstream Music and had an epiphany about the kind of music that she wanted to make.

Stories of that kind of moment are incredibly interesting to me because of the pleasure and strangeness of imagining a world in which one first hears pop music as a thinking, conscious person instead of being saturated with it constantly from birth.

For any person with an emotional relationship to music, and anybody who could relate this story would be such a person, that moment must be so intense.

Katy Perry's Song That Gave Her An Epiphany About the Kind of Music She Wanted to Make was: "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morrissette.

CAN YOU IMAGINE being a sheltered Christian 16-year-old girl of a sensitive and musical temperament and hearing this song? It would be like a nuclear bomb.

*

I kinda dislike the trope of, when writing about an oft-dismissed pop musician, referencing a performance of theirs that represents a marked step out of their usual wheelhouse. Like all those videos of Ke$ha singing the Rolling Stones at house parties and stuff. It seems very, "Look! She can ALSO make music that is acceptable to you!" to me.

but sadly that is exactly what I am about to do, because for whatever else they do these performances do pull the listener sharply into an unexpected frame of mind.


The song: Katy Perry, "The One That Got Away"; 2011

Katy Perry deserves respect. Here's the clearest way I can lay out my case.

- Katy Perry does not have a Great Voice but she works with what she's got and infuses it with a lot of emotion. Many have said the same about other great voices.  
- Katy Perry is not a Great Lyricist but honestly believes in what she is saying and makes her meaning crystal clear.
- When it comes to aesthetics, Katy Perry is sort of at Tim Burton levels of distinctiveness and wackiness. The woman wears a dress that looks an ice cream sundae to meet Make-a-Wish kids. Like it ain't no thang. (Katy Perry: Part of Me 3D seriously is worth seeing just to see her costumes and the staging of her songs.)
- Katy Perry genuinely loves what she does and is driven to an almost super-human level.


I recently followed Russell Simmons on Twitter.  It has already flooded my mind with so much Zen wisdom that it feels a little squishy up in there in the range north of my eyebrows. (I also learned that Russell Simmons sits on the Board of The David L. Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace.)

But what Russell Simmons says, and what I increasingly believe, is that the world loves people who work hard at everything they do.

Thousands and thousands of people all over the world screamed and sang and danced when Katy Perry toured.

And, as you see in Katy Perry: Part of Me 3D, immediately before Katy Perry played to the largest crowds on her tour in Sao Paulo, Katy Perry was sobbing in her sweatpants while her clearly freaked-out crew tried to console her. Like a robot she Goes Through the Motions of getting ready for her show, stays sobbing all the way up until she is actually standing on her little elevation platform glittery mike in hand ready to go on stage, and then at the very last second -- smiles, and goes on.

Yrs
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com