my careless contagion

It's probably not the longest song title, but it may as well be. It also has the 80s written all over it, though it was released in 1991 (recorded in 1990). You know, maybe that's why I missed this song. I looked up Roxette's song catalog, and there are so many I can recall. This one, however, I missed. It was Roxette's last top-10 hit. Radio was turning away from the 80s sound in the early 90s, embracing the new, alternative sounds of grunge, ska, punk, whatever. Understated and grouchy versus whatever you call this. I call it awesome.  Roxette was a Swedish rock duo, and I would call this a power ballad. The gentle opening lulls you into thinking this is something else, then the chorus rips. Honestly, I could listen to songs like this the rest of my life. It's the kind of stuff that made middle school palatable. It played off the exaggerated feelings of tweens and almosts, as sort of a warning and a riddle of emerging adulthood and its complexity. It's similar...

You've probably heard this song, though maybe not for a while. If you're of a certain age, you likely know the song already. Since New Slang was released in 2001, I would peg its inception at 2000, making this song 25 years old, give or take. Feel old?  I don't know what it was about the song that made me want to write something. Let's take a look at the lyrics for clues.  *** Gold teeth and a curse for this town Were all in my mouth Only I don't know how they got out, dear Turn me back into the pet I was when we met I was happier then with no mindset And if you took to me like a Gull takes to the wind Well, I'd've jumped from my trees And I'd've danced like the king of the eyesores And the rest of our lives would've fared well New slang when you notice the stripes The dirt in your fries Hope it's right when you die, old and bony Dawn breaks like a bull through the hall Never should have called But my head's to the wall and I'm lonely...

January 28, 2018, I started this blog. I was alone and the divorce was nearly final (February 8). With no one to talk to about what I was feeling, I wrote here, originally transcribing from a notebook. What began as a form of therapy evolved into a journey of faith. What started in a very bad place ended in a much better place, though I am still alone. This blog garnered 34,000 hits over six years, which is a big surprise. (Also surprised attempts to create a new blog failed, but the love letters written to a certain woman were likely the reason anyone read here anyway.) Thank you to everyone who read here at some point. I prayed you got something out of it. Learned a lot about myself and am a lot humbler at its closing than at its beginning. Honesty, facing problems, and working toward solutions paid off, but it was God who did a work.  I cut my teeth on gospel songs. Win Worley's song sermons were my favorite and listened to them on cassette over and over. Such joy in that man...

I would be remiss to leave this space without posting something from Samiam (it's been a while, but I did post something before). I had to do a bit of a thinky-think session as to what to post, though. She Found You (1997) won, though many others deserve honorable mention. Simply wanted to post a good song from a band that captured my attention for many years. This was one of the first songs I heard and it's still a favorite. I even drove from Ohio to Pittsburg (staying in New Jersey, eww) to see them play a festival, and then turned around and caught them in Detroit about a week later. They continue to record music and tour. Anyway.  Other songs contending for the prize were Mud Hill (a proper breakup song), Dull (about how dull life can be when you're alone), and Sunshine (how I imagine being a girl and the object of someone's affection feels like). None of them made as much sense as She Found You, as it is clear I was greatly affected by relationships with women in...

Fugazi's Waiting Room is probably better discussed by this author  (it's short) than by me. I just want talk about what the band meant to me. Since we're talking about waiting, let me say waiting is a useless enterprise by itself. Waiting does absolutely nothing in and of itself. Waiting — combined with other activities — can yield positive results, but problems don't go away on their own. The passing of time does not solve anything except our own existence. Problems require the application of a solution. There.  I saw Fugazi in 1998 (forget where but somewhere in Michigan), and a few days after that saw Bad Religion (in Ann Arbor) for the first time, so Fugazi was my first show. They were from Washington, D.C., and kept their ticket prices low so kids could attend. Hardcore was always for the kids. (I guess you would call this post-hardcore.) Tickets were $5 plus $1 Ticketmaster fee. Whereas Bad Religion was lyrics-driven, I liked Fugazi because it was guitar-driven. I...

Nothing fascinated me musically as much as the band Bad Religion. I used to spend so much time researching the band and its members, even talking to Jay Bentley on internet relay chat (IRC), #badreligion on undernet. The fascination really took hold when I was in college. I was bored, technologically inclined, and a wee bit malcontent.  No band is as misunderstood as Bad Religion, and some fans like it that way. It's a barrier to the band becoming massively popular (they are more popular outside the U.S.), but it also makes you feel like you're in on the joke. Others don't understand. That's the reason hardcore and punk rock were important to a lot of people. It was a way of excluding those who excluded them from society. When our bands became too popular (a subjective thought if there ever was), we called them poseurs and fled to other, lesser-known bands. Gotta keep it real. But I was always into Bad Religion and remained a fan (even though I didn't share their po...

This is a new song, and it's pretty good. It sounds older than its release date of 2023. It got a lot of airplay, I didn't like it at first, but after about 10 listens it started to make sense (I may be a little slow). So much of country music is about drinking (thumbs down), but let's go with that for this post. Since I likely won't still be writing here regularly after the 28th, this is a good time for the annual sobriety post.  It was April 10 years ago when I stopped drinking. Every year I memorialize what God did in my heart then. It's nothing short of a miracle. It's a miracle I function. A miracle I'm still alive. I'm literally a walking miracle, and people walk by me like I'm some ordinary Joe. They have no idea.  A decade without drinking is a curious thing. It was supposed to kill me. Like I got a get-out-of-jail-free card. A new lease on life. A new life, new identity, new responsibilities. Alcohol was my way of ending myself, and slowly. ...

I sat on the floor of the top-floor apartment in Bowling Green, Ohio, I shared with my then-girlfriend and listened to this song, poring over the lyrics and staying quiet the entire 8-plus minutes, wanting only to hear the music and whatever it meant. (At the time, this song was barely more than 10 years old, as it came out in 1989.) I was drunk, but not too drunk to appreciate the sentiment. "That's a beautiful song," I said when it was over, seemingly to no one, but Mike, my then-girlfriend's friend who slept that night on the couch, heard. (I never did ask if he and her had a relationship in the past. Some things were better off not known.) And he agreed like it was always so. Yet I had just discovered it. Music no longer holds that sort of meaning for me. I'm all angst-ed out. You can say the same about pictures. I don't fetishize them either. Maybe working with photos for 7.5 years as a graphic artist and much longer as amateur photographer weaned me off ...

The Smiths' How Soon Is Now? is iconic. Check out the lyrics . Certainly not a run-of-the-mill 80s song. It came out in '84 but didn't pick up steam until later. Do the lyrics make more sense when you know Morrissey (the singer/coauthor of this song) is vegetarian (since age 11) turned vegan? No wonder so much of his music is sad and "beta," as the kids would say. (Eating meat helps men produce testosterone.) Maybe that's why I want to talk about this song. It's about longing. It's about love. It's about longing for love. Saw a license plate recently that simply said, "SIMP," which I understand.  I realized perhaps too late in life the driving force of my being was the search for love. Just wanted to be loved. Looked everywhere for it. That search was behind all major failures and was the wound that drove the most virulent sins. Little did I know there is no human love that can satisfy, and only God can love me fully and in a way that hea...