Sunday Top Ten: Me Against the Music

[Totally unrelated UPDATE/sidenote: I just discovered that the International Hyperhidrosis Society has put up a PDF of my Marie Claire article on their website! So if you live underwater, in the U.K, or have a foot/leg injury preventing you from walking to the store, you can download it here.]

This post originally began with a very compelling musing on the state of my hair & nails. I've been trying to fix these problems via various cost-efficient methods, e.g., a hair-style Cesar remarked resembled that of a sweaty/pained future-mother in her 12th hour of labor, a hat, cutting my nails super-short to minimize polished-to-unpolished ratio, staying in.

Three days ago, my roommates told me they liked my "new dark hair," and when I went into the lit agency, Stephen/Rambo told me: "You know, Marie, I liked you better as a blonde." I found both of these statements alarming, as I've made no conscious effort to return to dark hair. It just HAPPENS, you guys, it's called GROWING. [Roommate Ryan did offer "Roots are in!" which was kind/false.] I tried to get a manicure in this 'hood, but mostly they wanted to make my nails totally heterosexual and then adorn them in bright colors and tiny gemstones.

So because I'm a proactive little puppy, I went out and fixed all my problems today and feel much better. Also Haviland was at DRAMATICS NYC SALON with me, and said my haircut looked like when we "first met," and then we both went: "awwww." It was A Moment, and I just wanted to share that with all of you, because I love you. Not like I love Haviland, or love FASHION, my stylist today [this's the place where they all have weird names, like lame porn stars], but Love you, just the same. I love everyone because my hair smells like hula girls.

(I tried to recreate the pose in order to best display the difference. But you can't really see how my nails are chipped in Photo 1.)

So speaking of Moments and Love ... [see that? That's called "bringing it back around."] [No it isn't. It's called "talking about myself, then pretending it's a segue into a Sunday Top Ten, coincidentally also about Myself. But also about Music. Kids like music, right? Rock and roll, etc.?]

A long time ago, Crystal posted this Musical Memoir blog where she traced her life through songs/music. Then, as is her way, she deleted it. I told her I'd steal that idea one day. So did Stef. Stef did it. Now, it's like ten years later, and I'm doing it.

SUNDAY TOP TEN:
ALBUMS MOST ASSOCIATED WITH CERTAIN SENTIMENTS ASSOCIATED WITH CERTAIN PERIODS OF TIME
or
"MUSICAL MEMOIRS"

(sidenote: I ain't too proud to [have] love[d] the Clueless soundtrack, obvs.)

10: 14/Grief and Depression: The Year of Soundtracks: Clueless, Empire Records, The Brady Bunch Movie

(runners up: The Cardigans/First Band on the Moon, frente!/marvin the album)

After tragedy, I turned to movies about shopping, makeovers, teen-movie-style-love [the kind where the Good Guy wins, confessions-of-love are smooth sailing, and grand gestures lead to French Kissing], flashy cars, short plaid skirts, and cleverly choreographed dance routines. Perfect rock/pop bouncy sunshine. Empire Records, Clueless, The Brady Bunch Movie. Everything about those films glowed like Gatorade. We made music videos, snapping our feet in plaid pajama pants, hair in pigtails, all metallic smiles. In the morning I had a routine; I'd listen to "Free" while I showered, then "Sugarhigh" while I dressed and flattened my hair via winter cap (which I wore over wet head til the song ended to officially de-Jew my dykey haircut). Maybe it was a reaction to grunge, too: whining didn't work, maybe RuPaul and "It's a Sunshine Day" will?

9: 15/Into Boys With Long Hair *Surprise*/Lemonheads: Come on Feel the Lemonheads

(runners up: Heavenly/The Decline and Fall of Heavenly, Cake/Fashion Nugget)

I spent a lot of time listening to other people's love songs. "Marie! Listen to this, this's my song for Jason! This's my song for Andrew! This's my song for Brad!" (they were always named Jason, Brad, Andrew), and so I listened. I thought, I'd like this to be my song for someone someday. Like Evan Dando. Or Andrew.

8: 16/Fag Hag/RENT Sountrack

(runners up: Ani DiFranco/Living in Clip, Jeff Buckley/Grace)

Seriously, this list has been nothing but completely embarrassing thus far. I should throw in something to make me sound smart, like ... what do the kids listen to? I feel like band names these days are so long. Like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! or whatever. That's lame. Pick something short and sweet, like "Heart" or "Sex Pistols" or "Nas."

I performed this album on long drives, to-from Interlochen. We sang it there, too, all the time, especially 'Take me or Leave Me,' because it was fresh enough for obsession, we all wanted to be in NYC, and I was surrounded by homosexuals and theater majors. My gay best friend Ryan liked to give me lap dances to "Tomorrow for Me," which was one of many special sexual things about our relationship. We went to Detroit to see the touring company, but they were bad, but I've seen it twice in NYC, and it made me cry/dance/think I was part of something special here in New York City! Now, it's like, vintage.

7: 17/Happy/Lauryn Hill: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

(runners up: Belle & Sebastian/If You're Feeling Sinister, Ella Fitzgerald/The Complete Songbooks)

This is one of the best albums of all time, and us cool white kids crooned along to it like we were about to give birth to our own baby Zions and agreed that it's silly when girls sell their soul because it's in, and, seriously, how could this be love and make me feel so bad? Everything was good then, I had it all, and I didn't need music that spoke to the deep pain of my soul. I just wanted to dance. That remake of "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You" puts the "Soul" back in "R&B/Hip-Hop/Soul."

6: 19/Havin' All Kinds of Trouble Trouble Trouble/Moby: Play

(recent conversation:)

Me: You know, I used to masturbate to this album.
Her: No wonder it took you thirty minutes to have an orgasm.

In '00-'01, I bounced from doctor to doctor. I guess Moby seemed as good as anything, but mostly what I listened to that year was what my brilliant musician friend Jake told me to listen to: Ida, Low, Nick Cave, Sea & Cake, His Name is Alive, The Magnetic Fields, Flashpapr, Saturday Looks Good to Me. I'd take long walks because I wasn't allowed to exercise 'til the doctors could figure out what was wrong with me. Walking hurt too, but it hurt less than not moving at all.

I liked that I listened to music no one else listened to, I liked Ida, they sounded like butterflies. I'd go to shows but if we had to stand and I stood for too long, my knees would start aching and I'd get sad again, antsy, wish I could focus or knew where my pain came from or what to do with it.

But none of that indie music was really appropriate for aforementioned activity.
Wasn't there a Moby song in like, every movie and commercial that came out that year?

5: 20/Wanting to Please/Love or Piss Off My Boyfriend, Depending

Unwritten Law:Unwritten Law or Indigo Girls:Become You
(runners up: Blink 182/Enema of the State, Melissa Ferrick/Freedom)

At concerts, Chris'd wrap his arms around me: Hey little girl, look what you do, hey little girl, I love you. Unwritten Law was earnest, but older than the other bands we liked, and the lead singer'd get drunk and take off his shirt and make it harder like he meant it, like the music was driving him crazy loud too, and "Kailin" was so especially sweet amidst all the screaming. I liked the idea that I was "doing" something, because I wasn't doing much of anything, really, besides taking the dog out to pee though it often peed on our carpet and kept fucking the stuffed animals Chris'd won me at various carnival games [really, our lives were exciting].

One summer Chris and I lived with like, ten lesbians who all played lesbionic sports like rugby or fencing--one of 'em was a good friend of mine from middle school, that's how I'd ended up there in the first place. She invited me to the Indigo Girls concert, and since I've been to *cough* like one hundred of them, I obvs was like "THERE." I couldn't beleive they'd put out a new album and I hadn't even noticed, and this is the gayest thing I've ever said in my life, but I think that night really changed things for me. I started listening to the album all the time to annoy him. Boys hate The Indigo Girls. That night on the grass, I watched all these SuperQueer girls dance around and I remembered there was a part of myself that Chris would never understand: not the gay part, but just that he didn't want to Understand anything about me that he couldn't relate to, nothing at all.

'Cause look, I effin love the Indigo Girls. I was raised listening to The Indigo Girls, they were one of my first concerts. My Mom took me. Also, coincidentally, my Mom is gay.

4: 22/Knee Deep in One of Those Up-and-Down Love-Things
Fiona Apple:When the Pawn and Outkast:Speakerboxx/The Love Below

"Spearboxx/The Love Below" came out on my birthday in 2003. It reminds me of dancing with college kids at U-Mich, of thumping hip-hop reverberating in the overpriced cars cruising South University, of music videos funner than cartoons. For a while, everyone loved "Hey Ya!" Everyone. It seemed like the most popular song on earth. We'd yell to the line cooks @ work: How cold is it? ICE COLD!

OK So: you know when you're in one of those bad psuedo-relationships and it's gotten really bad, really unfair as in you've just uncovered Serious Lies, and you know: The worst possible thing I could do for myself right now would be to go over to his place, and then he's like "Come over," and you're like: "Okay, see you in ten minutes!"

So: one of those times, one of the worst, I zoomed, blaring Fiona Apple to remind myself that hunger hurts and I want him so bad, oh it kills, 'cause I know I'm a mess he don't wanna clean up, I got to fold 'cause these hands are too shaky to hold, hunger hurts but starving works when it costs too much to love....

Scot: I want to play a song for you. This is my song for you. [He said that all the time, but he was really intent this time.]

The Song:
You're all I ever wanted
but I'm terrified of you
My castle may be haunted/but I'm terrified of you
I've cast my spell on millions
but I'm terrified of you
Baby I do this from the ceiling but I'm terrified of you
I wait my whole life to find the right one
then you come along and that freaks me out.
-Outkast, Dracula's Wedding

Awesome. Fear.

But Scot taught me how to listen to music. You know, just lie there and listen, like it's a real activity? We'd drink store-brand cola from his Aunt's garage, he clearly lived at home because he was sort of a teenager, and we'd lie there under his tapestry, and listen. I'd feel super young and alive and sexy all over, like my whole life was ahead of me, endless and set to music. Derrick May, Beastie Boys, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Basement Jaaxx, Aphex Twin, Tom Waits, Coldplay, George Harrison, Roy Ayers. He took me out to Detroit--his brother was a DJ--and showed me the turntables and did some "mixes" or whatever it is DJs do, and then I kinda like, fell in love with him again, it was Bad News.

I always date musically oriented people [except aforementioned Chris], I think. I have. A. Problem. I see someone make music and I think they are Magic.

He invaded my earspace, he took over so I couldn't live or breathe without thinking of him (except when I was listening to Fiona). He made me CDs and left them everywhere. In my car, literally dozens. In one of my better moments, I drove by his house and threw them on his lawn.

We started dating right when itunes came out, and he was the first of many ex-whathaveyous to have created their own playlists on my computer, and I keep them all, because,well, I keep everything.

Our relationship from start to finish was wrapped up in music, moreso than any before or since or probably ever. He wrote me songs.

Fiona speaks for herself. I was angry, so was she, we sang together in my Lexus and drove to the gym, the bank, the Macaroni Grill, the strip malls, his place, and back again. Easy as that. Waaa Waa GRRR.

3: 22/Alone & Fierce and Happy About It/Damien Rice: O
(runners up: Fiest/Let it Die, K's Choice/Paradise in Me)

I think I've talked about this before. But if you've seen it, you know; when you walk out of Closer, you know for sure there's no more love in the world and all relationships fail. And then, again, when The L Word, Season One, came to it's sad sad end: and so it is. I listened to that and Not an Addict over and over in cabs, drunk or coked up and coming down, electrified and miserable/thrilled. I'd stopped living for anyone but myself, and that meant being Alone but fierce and vicious and optimistic/destructive about it. Plus, I'd just gotten an ipod.

2: 23-24/iTunes?

Imogen Heap, Regina Spektor, Kelly Clarkson, Dolly Parton, Scissor Sisters, Poe, Tears for Fears, Rilo Kiley, Bright Eyes, Patti Smith, Christina Alguilera, The Decemberists, Shivaree, Jeff Buckley, Madonna, Radiohead, Esthero, Rufus Wainwright, Jill Sobule, The Shins, The Roots, The Streets, Phoenix, Frou Frou, The Postal Service, Peaches, Ani DiFranco, Sia, Martin Sexton, Portishead, Massive Attack, Depeche Mode, David Bowie, etc etc etc.

Suddenly life became all about iPods, mixes, playlists, downloading songs one at a time, sending songs via iChat, and really not listening to albums with other people like we used to. But we've got no more cars. I'm trying to think of what album best typifies those two years when my life became what it is now. What I could say that'd encompass all of it? The mix-CDs we've made? Haviland singing "Jolene" (Dolly Parton)? Dancing w/whomever to "S.O.S" (Rhianna), "Irreplacable" obvs (Beyonce), "Since U Been Gone" (K.Clarkson), Erin's mixes with Johnny Cash and Jenny Lewis and Ryan Adams, "The L Word" soundtracked songs, the "party party party" playlist Lo & I listened to in the mornings ...

... the only entire albums I can associate with anything that's happened outside of my own earbuds since '03 is Kanye West's "School Spirit," and, um, also, Hav & I really dug the Paris Hilton album. That album was underrated, and you guys can be haters, I don't care, I hate you too.

1: 25/Right Now
Tegan & Sara/The Con, Stars/Set Yourself on Fire

From the August 2007 issue of NYLON magazine:

"I've always called myself a past-addict.
I am always writing about the past and reliving my older relationships but there is also something
really dangerous and kind of terrifying about exploring how you're feeling right now."
-Tegan of Tegan & Sara