My music.

Everyone else is blogging music (I so can't be bothered to link to the rest of the Wellingtonists), so I may as well demonstrate how hip & cool I am too (like their parents perhaps).

But first, I want to ask what is it with tribute acts? Do I really want to see some guy who looks like both Elton John & Billy Joel singing their songs? Does anyone? Are they the same people who go & see stageshow versions with the original cast Are You Being Served? I don't even want to see the real Elton & Billy.

As for Queen tributes... and please, I don't want to hear from anyone who loved anything that starts with Abba...solutely, or anything.

Although the Beat Girls are cool.

A long time ago, a lecturer (Bill Manhire I think) read to us from Playboy magazine. And if reading from Playboy doesn't show that irony was alive & well in the 70s, I don't know what does). The point was that he read from an interview with Bob Dylan, and Dylan was asked "What are your songs about?" And Dylan's response was along the lines of "Well some of them are about... 3 minutes long, some of them are about 5 minutes long, and some of them even, are about 10 minutes long".

Well that might be fine for Dylan, but what are the Eagles' songs about? They probably represented perfectly the California sound of the 1970s. A sound preoccupied with a flashy, tropical lifestyle of sex & drugs & complete vacuousness. I so wanted to be there. Life in the Fast Lane. Etc. They also wrote songs about cowboys. How good can it get?

So I want to set the record straight about The Eagles, They seem to get a bad deal these days. In my final year of college, Hotel California was THE album, and THE song. So in a way, if my life has to have a soundtrack, songs from that album would probably cover the "coming of age" years. Frampton Comes Alive was the other big album that year. But I never really liked it. Actually, I hated it & history seems to agree with me in retrospect. Peter Wankton, we used to say.

My family won't let me play Eagles' albums. Not while they're around anyway. they're a bit iffy about the Beach Boys & b52s too. SO I never get to listen to "my" music.

But take any Eagles' song at random - say Peaceful Easy Feeling, which isn't off Hotel California, but who cares? Look at the depth in the lyrics here. I have annotated with their real meaning. In case you're slow or something.

I like the way your sparkling earrings lay,
against your skin so brown
and I wanna sleep with you in the desert tonight
with a billion stars all around

(I like sex outdoors with groupies)

'cause I gotta peaceful easy feeling
and I know you won't let me down
'cause I'm already standing on the ground

(I'm on a lot of drugs)

And I found out a long time ago
what a woman can do to your soul
Ah, but she can't take you anyway
You don't already know how to go

(Groupies are fine, but masturbation is best)

and I gotta peaceful, easy feeling
and I know you won't let me down
'cause I'm already standing on the ground

(2 stanzas in & I'm still off my face)

I get this feeling I may know you
as a lover and a friend
but this voice keeps whispering in my other ear,
tells me I may never see you again

(I'm so out of it I'm not sure if I recognise you, I hear voices and I have 3 ears)

'cause I get a peaceful, easy feeling
and I know you won't let me down
'cause I'm already standing on the ground
'cause I'm already standing...
on the ground
oooo, oooo

(My pants are really tight).

I should really do this for the lyrics to Hotel California, but let's face it, no-one knows what the hell that song was about. Probably groupies, drugs, sex & tight pants too. "Warm smell of WHAT? Rising up in your face"?