Pop! goes my heart.

I have a confession to make. I adore Hugh Grant, I really do. So does my mother, which is entirely irrelevant but random enough a fact that it makes my way of writing seem intriguing and perhaps even interesting.

Today, when I was supposed to be reading Books, important books about language and other Important Things, I chose to let the light of the computer screen turn my brain into mush and spent an hour and some watching the new-ish, disgustingly sugary film called Music And Lyrics.

There isn't much to say about the actual film, it was junk and probably the worst film Hugh Grant has ever starred in and I'd be ashamed to admit I like the man if it wasn't for the impeccably sweet Notting Hill that my mother and I watch together when we are feeling unusually sappy and delirious.

It's not the film I want to write about, though, for heaven's sake no. It's the music. The absolute simplicity of those few songs that I might now take the liberty of calling good pop music.

See there's good pop, and there's bad pop. In my ears Justin Timberlake, occasionally Christina Aguilera (when she doesn't get too dramatic with those godawful ballads), some Britney Spears songs (Toxic, anyone?), Wham!, Will Young, Girls Aloud, to mention a few, they all make (or made) and perform honest, simple pop music that makes me feel like the world doesn't have to be such a serious place all the time. I listen to them and I don't get anxious over the war over there or them killing each other over there or our planet being tortured over there. No, I listen to them and I forget all those things for a second.

Bad pop music, though, is something that should be declared illegal in the whole of universe. I won't even go there because the mere thought of Pussycat Dolls or the like makes me feel physically ill and I might have to stop writing in order to run to the bathroom and retch until my throat burns and I am banging the floor with my fists, cursing whoever made bootyshaking a popular sports activity amongst the youth of today.

Back to the film, then. It started with the music video of a fictional 80's boyband POP, in which Hugh Grant was the keyboard player and second frontman of the two and now, two hours after finishing the film, I have still got that song, Pop! goes my heart, stuck in my head. It is 80's, it is ridiculous, and incredibly addictive. I am insanely in love. And you should be too.

I must belong somewhere

Hello internet.

I'm not good with beginnings so I'll skip this part.

I thought about writing about the new Bright Eyes album, but then I realised I really don't feel like I have the necessary words to describe it. It's not you, Cassadaga, it's me, I simply can't come up with anything new to say about you. Please don't be offended, and don't tell Conor.

Does my lack of words mean it's a bad album, that it doesn't inspire, or does it simply mean that I am a talentless git who is trying to write an intersting blog when there really is no need for yet another sad attempt at providing some fresh content to the sea of junk that is the internet? Answers on a postcard, or in a letter please. I haven't received proper mail for so long that I am on the verge of forgetting how to open an envelope when there is nothing to click on.

While staring at the screen I realised I do actually have something to say about Cassadaga. Well, one song on it, the one song everyone but myself seems to hate with a passion, I must belong somewhere. I do not know what Mister Oberst wants to say with this track, but I hear things in it that I want to share.

Giving up, giving in is so easy and trying to make a difference is exhausting, I know. (I also know I use way too many commas, I apologise for that.) This song doesn't point at anyone in particular, but instead goes the sly way, making the listener think that everything really is how it seems. If I knew nothing of the band and Oberst's political views, would I probably think the lyrics are as srtaight forward as most people seem to think they are.

Just leave the restless ghost in his old hotel
Leave the homeless man in that cardboard cell
Let the painted horse on the carousel remain

During the song we hear a long list of things seemingly normal in the world, things that have been and will be for a long time from now on. Things that no one looks at twice. Until the chorus, where Oberst declares with his pained voice that everything, it must belong somewhere. I know that now, that's why I'm staying here. The realisation that this is a man admitting defeat in a battle bigger than himself, hits like a hammer to the chest and the rest of the song sounds almost gloomy, despite its major key melody and rather up beat rhythm.

This is a battle to change something, anything that's wrong in the world, even just one thing, and Oberst is sneering at those who give up. 'Go on, yeah, it's easier like that, don't worry, while you live contentedly in your bubble the world goes on and nothing gets done.'

In truth the forest hears each sound
Each blade of grass as it lies down
The world requires no audience
No witnesses, no witnesses.

It really is too easy to just shut your eyes and ears and pretend that nothing is happening, that nothing can be done. Leave the poor black child in his crumbling school today. Walk away, Oberst sings, while images of him standing in front of deaf and blind people, daring them to break free from the sheep's way of thinking fill my head and then the last chorus hits me.


Everything, it must belong somewhere,
they locked the Devil in the Basement, threw God up into the air.
Yeah everything, it must belong somewhere,
And you know it's true, I wish you'd leave me here,
You know it's true, why don't you leave me here?


Why don't you leave me here, indeed.