The above is my best attempt at representing in words that line that we all know how to hum, which came to me out of the blue when I was in the shower today, which is Thanksgiving.
It took me a few times through to remember what it was, as it was just one of those things that occasionally comes through on the radio receiver in my head. Although I am working on my skills to appreciate classical music, they are not very good -- and so I think it appropriate that, of all the classical pieces that could come to me as an idea for a blog post, it would be this one. It IS a pop song, after all. Interpreted and re-interpreted many times, too commonly heard to be really listened to, but one of the musical themes that shapes our lives.
Like many people, all I really know of this song is that main line. It might be because of the name that this song comes to me in moments of idle happiness -- of THANKSGIVING, one might say -- but I also think there is something special captured there.
All I want to say here is, good job Beethoven. And good job to the people behind this very cool video featuring visual accompaniment. And Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
The song: Ludwig van Beethoven, "Symphony No. 9 (Fourth Movement)"; 1824. Performed by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Monday, November 25, 2013
To Let You Know I Can Really Shake 'Em Down: Keep It Light
This song I would put in the category of, things you've probably heard too many times to actually hear.
But it's SO GOOD.
(For a long time, it was in that category for me too.)
Interesting things about this song:
1. It's Motown, but really does not sound like it at all. Mostly due to that squeaking, soulful vocal line (which is SO great).
2. Not only is it Motown, it's one of the few Motown hits actually written by Berry Gordy himself!
3. Not only was it written by Berry Gordy, in his frenzy of writing he became convinced that this song had to be recorded immediately if not sooner (it seems like he did this a lot). It was supposed to go to the Temptations, but he actually literally could not FIND the Temptations, so grabbed another group and had them do it instead.
Which is a very charming story and only feeds my Martha-Reeves fantasies of being some unassuming office-type in the corridors of Hitsville USA and being called in to pinch-hit as a backup singer on what turns out to be a mega-hit and then having a whole fabulous life filled with sparkly dresses and doing for a living what I currently do only in the privacy of my own home, ie perfecting my snapping-along technique to the music of the Four Tops.
AHEM. In any case, I love this song. If only because it reminds me to remember that life goes a lot better if you can dance about it. Incidentally these dance moves look a lot like mine although I can only hope to one day be this stylish.
But isn't there something just so endearing about these relatively unpolished moves, particularly with the distance of time and our current culture of HD hyper-quality? I think so. This is so much of what I love about watching Motown artists: they truly are having fun, and it shows.
The song: The Contours, "Do You Love Me"; 1962
(After all, she may not love him any better now that he's got a rockin' Twist, but you gotta know that'll serve him well.)
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
PS Important research for this post came from the excellent blog Motown Junkies, which is a must-read for any fan of Motown or of intelligent, unpretentious, serious writing about pop music. Thank you, Motown Junkies!
But it's SO GOOD.
(For a long time, it was in that category for me too.)
Interesting things about this song:
1. It's Motown, but really does not sound like it at all. Mostly due to that squeaking, soulful vocal line (which is SO great).
2. Not only is it Motown, it's one of the few Motown hits actually written by Berry Gordy himself!
3. Not only was it written by Berry Gordy, in his frenzy of writing he became convinced that this song had to be recorded immediately if not sooner (it seems like he did this a lot). It was supposed to go to the Temptations, but he actually literally could not FIND the Temptations, so grabbed another group and had them do it instead.
Which is a very charming story and only feeds my Martha-Reeves fantasies of being some unassuming office-type in the corridors of Hitsville USA and being called in to pinch-hit as a backup singer on what turns out to be a mega-hit and then having a whole fabulous life filled with sparkly dresses and doing for a living what I currently do only in the privacy of my own home, ie perfecting my snapping-along technique to the music of the Four Tops.
AHEM. In any case, I love this song. If only because it reminds me to remember that life goes a lot better if you can dance about it. Incidentally these dance moves look a lot like mine although I can only hope to one day be this stylish.
But isn't there something just so endearing about these relatively unpolished moves, particularly with the distance of time and our current culture of HD hyper-quality? I think so. This is so much of what I love about watching Motown artists: they truly are having fun, and it shows.
The song: The Contours, "Do You Love Me"; 1962
(After all, she may not love him any better now that he's got a rockin' Twist, but you gotta know that'll serve him well.)
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
PS Important research for this post came from the excellent blog Motown Junkies, which is a must-read for any fan of Motown or of intelligent, unpretentious, serious writing about pop music. Thank you, Motown Junkies!
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Don't Stop Let's Party: The Fame Monster
I am very interested in fame.
Not so much for myself, although I do fantasize several times a week about being on Dancing with the Stars, but certainly as a concept and one that affects all of our lives regardless of what we think our level of buy-in to mainstream culture is.
Without a doubt one of the most interesting commentators on the subject of fame these days is Lady Gaga, not least because she has always made it explicit that she IS interested in commenting on fame through her image and music. (Some of my other favorite mega-famous women, like Katy Perry and Rihanna, are less obvious about it.)
Although in this day and age, it seems that everything is a comment on itself. I think that's why I appreciate when it's made explicit, because there's got to be a straight line to something in order for me to feel motivated to navigate the maze of meta-commentary.
There was a time (roughly 2009) when Lady Gaga was mega-famous the first time around and it was au courant to discuss which was your favorite Lady Gaga song. (Either it was au courant or I have some very indulgent friends. Or both.) Sometimes I would say "Alejandro" (which IS a really good song) but in my heart of hearts I always felt that this song was the alpha and omega of Lady Gaga, the one that would endure to show people what she was all about.
It's still too soon to make that call but at least in my opinion, this song holds up.
The song: Lady Gaga, "Paparazzi"; 2008
First off, ooh this song is still REALLY catchy is it not?
Secondly: "Paparazzi" links romantic obsession to cultural obsession by blurring the lines in the figure of the amateur paparazzo/fan who only knows she wants to possess, somehow, the object of her attention. It doesn't seem to really matter how. In this song, the song itself, Gaga plays the obsessor. In her life at the time, she was the obsess-ee.
Which is I find her latest single such an interesting follow-up to "Paparazzi".
The song: Lady Gaga ft. R Kelly, "Do What U Want"; 2013
Like "Paparazzi", this song compares the public (fame) with the private (sex). As such, like "Paparazzi", it works both as a pop song and a statement, depending on how deep you're in the mood to think when you hear it.
She pushed this song to greater heights in three ways:
- By collaborating with R Kelly, an artist whose image currently epitomizes (fairly or not) the washed-up. This is why I really believe and respect him when he says "we're laying the cut like we don't give a fuck", because I think not-giving-a-fuck is precisely what R Kelly needs to do right now. That's the only way back.
- By referencing Marilyn Monroe, the ultimate touchstone of poisoned fame. (For more on that, see this somewhat crazy post I wrote forever ago about Marilyn, Rihanna, Tupac, Kanye, and "Candle in the Wind".)
- By, in the opening lines, providing at least the illusion of a glimpse into her personal life. Lady Gaga has always been, for better or worse, a highly constructed celebrity. What she says about herself rarely has the ring of truth. But Lady Gaga has always been out to shock, and to engage in meta-commentary, and to provoke conversation. I believe she's reached a point of fame -- and what's more, that the culture has shifted such between 2009 and 2013 -- that the most shocking and provocative and au courant possible move to make is. . .simple honesty.
To me this song feels like mega-hit. I'm interested to see if it is.
(Writing this post reminded me of a relatively similar, although less cultural and more personal, entry about Eminem's songs "Lose Yourself" and "Till I Collapse". Read it here if you like.)
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
Not so much for myself, although I do fantasize several times a week about being on Dancing with the Stars, but certainly as a concept and one that affects all of our lives regardless of what we think our level of buy-in to mainstream culture is.
Without a doubt one of the most interesting commentators on the subject of fame these days is Lady Gaga, not least because she has always made it explicit that she IS interested in commenting on fame through her image and music. (Some of my other favorite mega-famous women, like Katy Perry and Rihanna, are less obvious about it.)
Although in this day and age, it seems that everything is a comment on itself. I think that's why I appreciate when it's made explicit, because there's got to be a straight line to something in order for me to feel motivated to navigate the maze of meta-commentary.
There was a time (roughly 2009) when Lady Gaga was mega-famous the first time around and it was au courant to discuss which was your favorite Lady Gaga song. (Either it was au courant or I have some very indulgent friends. Or both.) Sometimes I would say "Alejandro" (which IS a really good song) but in my heart of hearts I always felt that this song was the alpha and omega of Lady Gaga, the one that would endure to show people what she was all about.
It's still too soon to make that call but at least in my opinion, this song holds up.
The song: Lady Gaga, "Paparazzi"; 2008
First off, ooh this song is still REALLY catchy is it not?
Secondly: "Paparazzi" links romantic obsession to cultural obsession by blurring the lines in the figure of the amateur paparazzo/fan who only knows she wants to possess, somehow, the object of her attention. It doesn't seem to really matter how. In this song, the song itself, Gaga plays the obsessor. In her life at the time, she was the obsess-ee.
Which is I find her latest single such an interesting follow-up to "Paparazzi".
The song: Lady Gaga ft. R Kelly, "Do What U Want"; 2013
Like "Paparazzi", this song compares the public (fame) with the private (sex). As such, like "Paparazzi", it works both as a pop song and a statement, depending on how deep you're in the mood to think when you hear it.
She pushed this song to greater heights in three ways:
- By collaborating with R Kelly, an artist whose image currently epitomizes (fairly or not) the washed-up. This is why I really believe and respect him when he says "we're laying the cut like we don't give a fuck", because I think not-giving-a-fuck is precisely what R Kelly needs to do right now. That's the only way back.
- By referencing Marilyn Monroe, the ultimate touchstone of poisoned fame. (For more on that, see this somewhat crazy post I wrote forever ago about Marilyn, Rihanna, Tupac, Kanye, and "Candle in the Wind".)
- By, in the opening lines, providing at least the illusion of a glimpse into her personal life. Lady Gaga has always been, for better or worse, a highly constructed celebrity. What she says about herself rarely has the ring of truth. But Lady Gaga has always been out to shock, and to engage in meta-commentary, and to provoke conversation. I believe she's reached a point of fame -- and what's more, that the culture has shifted such between 2009 and 2013 -- that the most shocking and provocative and au courant possible move to make is. . .simple honesty.
To me this song feels like mega-hit. I'm interested to see if it is.
(Writing this post reminded me of a relatively similar, although less cultural and more personal, entry about Eminem's songs "Lose Yourself" and "Till I Collapse". Read it here if you like.)
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
Monday, November 4, 2013
Tell The Truth: "A Woman's World"
It seems that I always turn to Cher when I want to brush on the topics of feminism or humanism. The reason for this is two-fold: for one thing, Cher is one of my favorite women/humans of all time, and secondly, she represents something that is important to me.
Given that she has been mega-famous continuously since 1965, it seems to me there's no denying that Cher is a living legend and a force of nature. What's truly remarkable about this in my eyes is that her chief talent seems to be "being herself".
I don't mean that in a derogatory way. This is what makes her singing and songs resonant -- they seem to be reflective of something true, something she has lived. And if you've seen her acting in Moonstruck (which I hope you have), you'll know that she brings unforgettable transparency to that character. (The incredible writing of John Patrick Shanley is also a factor in what makes that movie SO GREAT, it must be said. "I ain't no monument to justice! I lost my hand! I lost my bride!")
Cher is always willing to be herself, but what's more, she has a sense of humor about that self. For instance, do you know that she once starred in a mini-production of West Side Story. . .playing all the characters? It's completely insane and brilliant. Watch it here.
And I have complete confidence that Cher will be Cher until the day she disappears from this planet in a cloud of purple glitter (I'm pretty sure she won't "die" like the rest of us). A confidence that is reinforced by her most recent single:
The song: Cher, "Woman's World"; 2013
The song may not be your taste, but please give it up for a 67-year-old woman who wears a gigantic headdress made of cut-up newspapers in the video for her ENTIRELY CREDIBLE club song.
The amazing thing about "Woman's World" is that it sounds so like a Cher song, but it also sounds like a 2013 song. This tells me Cher can adapt to the world as it is, which is something that I admire in everybody but particularly in people who are on the older side.
Cher is one of those artists, like Amy Winehouse, Dusty Springfield, and Joni Mitchell, for whom I feel my appreciation is uniquely colored by being female. It is hard to be a woman.
That feels like a controversial statement to make, although I am not quite sure why. Perhaps because it carries a huge weight of implication: that it's hard to be woman because men make it that way, or that it shouldn't be hard to be a woman any more because of the 1960s, or that (the old chestnut) the feelings that give rise to the idea that it's hard to be a woman are because of an individual woman's personal failings instead of something universal or systematic.
I don't know that I'm trying to make a political statement, and I certainly don't want to make a statement of victimhood. I know it is also hard to be a man; I have read novels. My theory is, and it's not exactly groundbreaking but okay, but my theory is that it's just hard to be a person and the way in which it is hard is determined by what kind of person you are.
This is why I respond so much to Cher's music, which contains not only her trademark message of self-actualization but also the exhortation to join together instead of working apart. Speaking personally, that's the only thing I've ever found to make it easier.
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
Given that she has been mega-famous continuously since 1965, it seems to me there's no denying that Cher is a living legend and a force of nature. What's truly remarkable about this in my eyes is that her chief talent seems to be "being herself".
I don't mean that in a derogatory way. This is what makes her singing and songs resonant -- they seem to be reflective of something true, something she has lived. And if you've seen her acting in Moonstruck (which I hope you have), you'll know that she brings unforgettable transparency to that character. (The incredible writing of John Patrick Shanley is also a factor in what makes that movie SO GREAT, it must be said. "I ain't no monument to justice! I lost my hand! I lost my bride!")
Cher is always willing to be herself, but what's more, she has a sense of humor about that self. For instance, do you know that she once starred in a mini-production of West Side Story. . .playing all the characters? It's completely insane and brilliant. Watch it here.
And I have complete confidence that Cher will be Cher until the day she disappears from this planet in a cloud of purple glitter (I'm pretty sure she won't "die" like the rest of us). A confidence that is reinforced by her most recent single:
The song: Cher, "Woman's World"; 2013
The song may not be your taste, but please give it up for a 67-year-old woman who wears a gigantic headdress made of cut-up newspapers in the video for her ENTIRELY CREDIBLE club song.
The amazing thing about "Woman's World" is that it sounds so like a Cher song, but it also sounds like a 2013 song. This tells me Cher can adapt to the world as it is, which is something that I admire in everybody but particularly in people who are on the older side.
Cher is one of those artists, like Amy Winehouse, Dusty Springfield, and Joni Mitchell, for whom I feel my appreciation is uniquely colored by being female. It is hard to be a woman.
That feels like a controversial statement to make, although I am not quite sure why. Perhaps because it carries a huge weight of implication: that it's hard to be woman because men make it that way, or that it shouldn't be hard to be a woman any more because of the 1960s, or that (the old chestnut) the feelings that give rise to the idea that it's hard to be a woman are because of an individual woman's personal failings instead of something universal or systematic.
I don't know that I'm trying to make a political statement, and I certainly don't want to make a statement of victimhood. I know it is also hard to be a man; I have read novels. My theory is, and it's not exactly groundbreaking but okay, but my theory is that it's just hard to be a person and the way in which it is hard is determined by what kind of person you are.
This is why I respond so much to Cher's music, which contains not only her trademark message of self-actualization but also the exhortation to join together instead of working apart. Speaking personally, that's the only thing I've ever found to make it easier.
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Gee My Life's A Funny Thing: Plastic Soul
Hi friends.
I just came back from a brief trip to Scotland.
Scotland is a great and very beautiful country and it was hard to want to leave it. In the days since returning, I have been trying to fall back in love with America (since this is where I live). Generally I do love America, albeit at times in that peeking-through-my-fingers way that is actually pretty typical of love now that I come to think of it. But, as I said, Scotland is a great and very beautiful country and it was hard to want to leave it.
My preferred method of traveling is two-fold: a) pretend I live there and b) get productively lost. If I had my way, I would spend most of time in foreign countries walking down the street and peering into the lighted windows of grocery stores. I am glad that I usually travel with other people who make me do things like go to museums and hike. It's not that I don't enjoy doing those things; I do. It's that left to my own devices, I would wander around and have exquisitely melancholy thoughts for the length of my entire vacation. I need to learn to limit my tendency in that direction, I think.
In any case, I did a tiny bit of this when I was in Scotland, and I walked down the street at night, and I peered into the lighted window of this pub that had not real bookshelves but bookshelves painted on the walls, and I found that really charming, and I put down my exquisite melancholy and I went in.
As I was sitting in an armchair in this pub, reading a book about the young Queen Elizabeth II and gazing at the painted books on the wall and thinking the moment could not get any more perfect, this song came on softly in the background.
There are many music-y things to say about this song. One music-y thing I didn't know is that it was Luther Vandross who suggested the arrangement for the backing vocals (which I think is very cool). I'm not sure I really want to say music-y things about it though.
I want to play you this song, because it came on at the exact right time for me. It's a bridge back to that moment, but also a bridge back to real life.
The song: David Bowie, "Young Americans"; 1975
(It's also just a great song, which is what this is all about. Plz enjoy. And maybe, turn it up.)
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
I just came back from a brief trip to Scotland.
Scotland is a great and very beautiful country and it was hard to want to leave it. In the days since returning, I have been trying to fall back in love with America (since this is where I live). Generally I do love America, albeit at times in that peeking-through-my-fingers way that is actually pretty typical of love now that I come to think of it. But, as I said, Scotland is a great and very beautiful country and it was hard to want to leave it.
My preferred method of traveling is two-fold: a) pretend I live there and b) get productively lost. If I had my way, I would spend most of time in foreign countries walking down the street and peering into the lighted windows of grocery stores. I am glad that I usually travel with other people who make me do things like go to museums and hike. It's not that I don't enjoy doing those things; I do. It's that left to my own devices, I would wander around and have exquisitely melancholy thoughts for the length of my entire vacation. I need to learn to limit my tendency in that direction, I think.
In any case, I did a tiny bit of this when I was in Scotland, and I walked down the street at night, and I peered into the lighted window of this pub that had not real bookshelves but bookshelves painted on the walls, and I found that really charming, and I put down my exquisite melancholy and I went in.
As I was sitting in an armchair in this pub, reading a book about the young Queen Elizabeth II and gazing at the painted books on the wall and thinking the moment could not get any more perfect, this song came on softly in the background.
There are many music-y things to say about this song. One music-y thing I didn't know is that it was Luther Vandross who suggested the arrangement for the backing vocals (which I think is very cool). I'm not sure I really want to say music-y things about it though.
I want to play you this song, because it came on at the exact right time for me. It's a bridge back to that moment, but also a bridge back to real life.
The song: David Bowie, "Young Americans"; 1975
(It's also just a great song, which is what this is all about. Plz enjoy. And maybe, turn it up.)
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
Friday, October 11, 2013
I Just Want You To Feel Fine: Another Time Around
Continuing the theme of songs that have been featured here before. . .
This song was featured, again in sort of glib making-a-point kind of way, in the third entry posted here on In Bed with Amy Wilson.
That entry was about Fleetwood Mac's seminal album Rumours, and I still mostly agree with what I said although it is more than a little bit agonizing to revisit something I wrote a year and a half ago. Just because that is the nature of writing things, I think.
When I wrote that entry about Rumours, my blog was very new (less than a week old) and I was obsessively in love with it. My blog, I mean. I hope that doesn't sound hopelessly self-absorbed to say. I wasn't in love with what I was writing in the blog, but with having a blog in the first place. It's so simple, a very small thing, but powerful.
As I have mentioned here, when I started this blog I was just coming off a breakup. Although it was painful, like all breakups, it wasn't so bad all things considered (much like the one I mentioned the other day). What it gave me, mostly, was an insane drive for self-determination -- as in, the desire to have a deliberate hand in what I thought and presented to the world. Hence this blog, and the radio show, and the leopard-print dress I happen to be wearing today, and all the other trappings of independent womanhood I have acquired in the last eighteen months.
When I started In Bed with Amy Wilson I called it that because at the time, I lived in a very small apartment with two other people and we didn't really have a living room so I spent nearly 100% of my time when I was at home in my bed. Just sitting on it. Listening to music. Having thoughts. Hanging out with friends. The name of the blog was supposed to have sort of a, "hey, welcome to my world!" sort of feeling to it.
Now I have my own apartment and a purple squishy couch that I love, and that's where I spend the vast majority of my time when I am at home. If I started my blog today it would be called On the Couch with Amy Wilson. I kind of like that name better, partially because of its allusion to mental health which is becoming something I write about more, but In Bed with Amy Wilson it will stay.
I often wonder why I have this blog, and in dark moments I really do berate myself for having it. As anybody with an obsessive-leaning mind will most likely understand, I have a drumbeat of negative adjectives that strikes up when I least expect it and then becomes so constant as to be almost unheard. "Self-involved" is one of them, I won't mention the others because I try not to encourage them. In any case, I do sometimes wonder what right I have to present what I think to the world and then I remember, oh yes, the same right anybody else does.
*
In Bed with Amy Wilson is nominally about pop music, but I think that means it can be about everything else as well. One of the other things it is about is relationships, although I very rarely mention anything or anyone specific. I don't do that because I want to be vague or dramatic, and even if I did it probably wouldn't work very well. . .for instance I have been writing about break-ups and such recently, so if you were inclined to look beyond the surface you might think "Hey, she's going through a break-up!". Nope. I am not. Just living. And sometimes, in the course of living, things come back to you in less than chronological order.
When I was in high school I went through a HUGE Joan Didion phase, and something Joan said that stuck with me was this: writers are always selling somebody out. I felt then, and feel even more strongly now, that that doesn't necessarily have to be true, at least not in the way that she means it. As I get older I become much more aware of the value of other people's stories, and the arrogance I would display in thinking I have any right to tell them without express permission. This is why I keep things general on my blog, and also why I talk about myself.
Because I don't think Joan is wrong, exactly. I do think writers are selling somebody out. My goal is for the only person I sell out to be me. For the only stories I tell to be mine. And for this, somehow, to contribute to the general pool of stories and experiences that I firmly believe enriches all of our lives. That's the only thing I'm comfortable with -- the only way I can justify writing and speaking in public the way I have done -- it's how I define independence.
*
This blog is about relationships, for everything that means. One of the most special ways it is about relationships is when something I write here feels true to somebody else. (And they tell me about it. Otherwise I can't know. And that's okay too.)
Somebody once said to me about In Bed with Amy Wilson that when she read it, she felt that she was reading something that truly Got what it is like to be a mid-twenty-something woman. That comment meant more to me than almost any other I have received, about anything. At the time I didn't think of this blog as being a particular reflection of mid-twenties-ness, or womanhood, but I've since realized that I don't have to try to make it a reflection of those things. It just is.
That is one of the most important and most difficult lessons I have learned as a writer, and I guess you could say as a person too. The lesson is that the more you try to make something a certain way, the less likely it is to turn out that way. And the way things turn out to be is so often impossible to understand in the moment.
When I read that old entry about Rumours I feel very acutely what I felt when I wrote it -- which was a burning compulsion just to write SOMETHING in this blog, to maintain the momentum needed to actually make this a thing that exists and not just another addition to the graveyard of forgotten projects that is the Internet. Like all relationships, my relationship with my blog was most intense at the beginning and has since (not faded, but) deepened into something slower, and more real, and more indicative of the value of commitment.
And so I feel I understand this song so much better than I did when I wrote about it the first time, when I thought of it as merely snide. I now see it as something much more profound. As Stevie and Lindsey sing, "I don't want to know". . .because I don't HAVE to know. Not right now, at least.
The song: Fleetwood Mac, "I Don't Want To Know"; 1977
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
This song was featured, again in sort of glib making-a-point kind of way, in the third entry posted here on In Bed with Amy Wilson.
That entry was about Fleetwood Mac's seminal album Rumours, and I still mostly agree with what I said although it is more than a little bit agonizing to revisit something I wrote a year and a half ago. Just because that is the nature of writing things, I think.
When I wrote that entry about Rumours, my blog was very new (less than a week old) and I was obsessively in love with it. My blog, I mean. I hope that doesn't sound hopelessly self-absorbed to say. I wasn't in love with what I was writing in the blog, but with having a blog in the first place. It's so simple, a very small thing, but powerful.
As I have mentioned here, when I started this blog I was just coming off a breakup. Although it was painful, like all breakups, it wasn't so bad all things considered (much like the one I mentioned the other day). What it gave me, mostly, was an insane drive for self-determination -- as in, the desire to have a deliberate hand in what I thought and presented to the world. Hence this blog, and the radio show, and the leopard-print dress I happen to be wearing today, and all the other trappings of independent womanhood I have acquired in the last eighteen months.
When I started In Bed with Amy Wilson I called it that because at the time, I lived in a very small apartment with two other people and we didn't really have a living room so I spent nearly 100% of my time when I was at home in my bed. Just sitting on it. Listening to music. Having thoughts. Hanging out with friends. The name of the blog was supposed to have sort of a, "hey, welcome to my world!" sort of feeling to it.
Now I have my own apartment and a purple squishy couch that I love, and that's where I spend the vast majority of my time when I am at home. If I started my blog today it would be called On the Couch with Amy Wilson. I kind of like that name better, partially because of its allusion to mental health which is becoming something I write about more, but In Bed with Amy Wilson it will stay.
I often wonder why I have this blog, and in dark moments I really do berate myself for having it. As anybody with an obsessive-leaning mind will most likely understand, I have a drumbeat of negative adjectives that strikes up when I least expect it and then becomes so constant as to be almost unheard. "Self-involved" is one of them, I won't mention the others because I try not to encourage them. In any case, I do sometimes wonder what right I have to present what I think to the world and then I remember, oh yes, the same right anybody else does.
*
In Bed with Amy Wilson is nominally about pop music, but I think that means it can be about everything else as well. One of the other things it is about is relationships, although I very rarely mention anything or anyone specific. I don't do that because I want to be vague or dramatic, and even if I did it probably wouldn't work very well. . .for instance I have been writing about break-ups and such recently, so if you were inclined to look beyond the surface you might think "Hey, she's going through a break-up!". Nope. I am not. Just living. And sometimes, in the course of living, things come back to you in less than chronological order.
When I was in high school I went through a HUGE Joan Didion phase, and something Joan said that stuck with me was this: writers are always selling somebody out. I felt then, and feel even more strongly now, that that doesn't necessarily have to be true, at least not in the way that she means it. As I get older I become much more aware of the value of other people's stories, and the arrogance I would display in thinking I have any right to tell them without express permission. This is why I keep things general on my blog, and also why I talk about myself.
Because I don't think Joan is wrong, exactly. I do think writers are selling somebody out. My goal is for the only person I sell out to be me. For the only stories I tell to be mine. And for this, somehow, to contribute to the general pool of stories and experiences that I firmly believe enriches all of our lives. That's the only thing I'm comfortable with -- the only way I can justify writing and speaking in public the way I have done -- it's how I define independence.
*
This blog is about relationships, for everything that means. One of the most special ways it is about relationships is when something I write here feels true to somebody else. (And they tell me about it. Otherwise I can't know. And that's okay too.)
Somebody once said to me about In Bed with Amy Wilson that when she read it, she felt that she was reading something that truly Got what it is like to be a mid-twenty-something woman. That comment meant more to me than almost any other I have received, about anything. At the time I didn't think of this blog as being a particular reflection of mid-twenties-ness, or womanhood, but I've since realized that I don't have to try to make it a reflection of those things. It just is.
That is one of the most important and most difficult lessons I have learned as a writer, and I guess you could say as a person too. The lesson is that the more you try to make something a certain way, the less likely it is to turn out that way. And the way things turn out to be is so often impossible to understand in the moment.
When I read that old entry about Rumours I feel very acutely what I felt when I wrote it -- which was a burning compulsion just to write SOMETHING in this blog, to maintain the momentum needed to actually make this a thing that exists and not just another addition to the graveyard of forgotten projects that is the Internet. Like all relationships, my relationship with my blog was most intense at the beginning and has since (not faded, but) deepened into something slower, and more real, and more indicative of the value of commitment.
And so I feel I understand this song so much better than I did when I wrote about it the first time, when I thought of it as merely snide. I now see it as something much more profound. As Stevie and Lindsey sing, "I don't want to know". . .because I don't HAVE to know. Not right now, at least.
The song: Fleetwood Mac, "I Don't Want To Know"; 1977
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Sometimes I Told You You Was Beautiful: *~*~Memories~*~*
In the summer of 2007 I ran to this song.
I had taken up running and knitting in the wake of what seemed at the time to be the worst possible break-up in the world. In hindsight, it was not the worst possible break-up in the world. Actually, it was a pretty nice break-up all things considered -- I wept copiously, watched a lot of Bridget Jones' Diary, gained the habit for using expensive scented soap that I still have today, got a transformative haircut, and read a bunch of books that I otherwise would probably not have read, such as Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I worked at a science museum that was hosting the Body Worlds exhibit, so I spent many of my days sitting at the top of a long set of stairs gazing over the Willamette River and telling people the rules for entering a giant hall full of dead, mutilated bodies. (Without ever saying the words "dead", "mutilated", or "bodies", as that was against the rules.)
In short it was exquisite melancholy, a feeling I have inhabited many times since that summer. I figure, if you have to be melancholy (and it seems that sometimes I do), why not make it beautiful?
And THAT is one of the many things I love about pop music.
*
The other songs on this post-breakup running mix were more typically post-breakup: "Love to Hate You" and "Victim of Love" by Erasure, "Back to Black" by Amy Winehouse, "Sexx Laws" by Beck, and a few more.
With its swoony strings and medium tempo, this song was a good fit for my (plodding, contemplative) style of running. I am not a natural runner by any stretch of the imagination, but at the end of a long summer I had a steady jog that I was proud of. And this song always came at the end of my run, after I had worked out my various feelings of discomfort and unpleasantness both emotionally and physically.
"Resiliency amazes me" is the phrase that stuck out to me, as it probably will to you when you hear it. It was not something I had ever heard put in that way. It was not a concept I was familiar with, "resiliency", although I was living it. To me what it means is -- why not make it beautiful?
The song: DeVotchKa, "I Cried Like A Silly Boy"; 2006
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
I had taken up running and knitting in the wake of what seemed at the time to be the worst possible break-up in the world. In hindsight, it was not the worst possible break-up in the world. Actually, it was a pretty nice break-up all things considered -- I wept copiously, watched a lot of Bridget Jones' Diary, gained the habit for using expensive scented soap that I still have today, got a transformative haircut, and read a bunch of books that I otherwise would probably not have read, such as Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I worked at a science museum that was hosting the Body Worlds exhibit, so I spent many of my days sitting at the top of a long set of stairs gazing over the Willamette River and telling people the rules for entering a giant hall full of dead, mutilated bodies. (Without ever saying the words "dead", "mutilated", or "bodies", as that was against the rules.)
In short it was exquisite melancholy, a feeling I have inhabited many times since that summer. I figure, if you have to be melancholy (and it seems that sometimes I do), why not make it beautiful?
And THAT is one of the many things I love about pop music.
*
The other songs on this post-breakup running mix were more typically post-breakup: "Love to Hate You" and "Victim of Love" by Erasure, "Back to Black" by Amy Winehouse, "Sexx Laws" by Beck, and a few more.
With its swoony strings and medium tempo, this song was a good fit for my (plodding, contemplative) style of running. I am not a natural runner by any stretch of the imagination, but at the end of a long summer I had a steady jog that I was proud of. And this song always came at the end of my run, after I had worked out my various feelings of discomfort and unpleasantness both emotionally and physically.
"Resiliency amazes me" is the phrase that stuck out to me, as it probably will to you when you hear it. It was not something I had ever heard put in that way. It was not a concept I was familiar with, "resiliency", although I was living it. To me what it means is -- why not make it beautiful?
The song: DeVotchKa, "I Cried Like A Silly Boy"; 2006
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
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