Thursday 1 July 2010

...in which I fail to get a room

Love is a very strange thing. It provides us with people who, in order to ensure their safety, we would hack through hoards of clawing, biting zombies to get to. And yet after a couple of days in a bunker with them we'd probably end up wanting to kill them ourselves. Equally, there are people we'd happily spend the rest of eternity with, if only we could feel a little more attracted to them.

Some pub chat a few weeks ago concerned the fact that the contradictory, irritating, or even just banal sides of being in love - and the many possible ways of dealing with it - aren't represented in your typical love songs. A few exceptions were mentioned and I've been (largely against my will) thinking of others all day. I've also been noticing a few songs that can invoke utterly different emotions in me on different days. And so it comes to pass that I am presenting you all here with a playlist for the fucked-up-in-love:

Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
Strange Glue / Mulder and Scully - Catatonia
My Beloved Monster - The Eels
Underwear / Something Changed - Pulp
Ava Adore - The Smashing Pumpkins
Coin-Operated Boy - The Dresden Dolls
Flinch - Alanis Morissette
Shiver - Coldplay
Denkmal - Wir Sind Helden
Fever - Peggy Lee
Trash - Suede
Laid - James
Romeo and Juliet - Dire Straits
A Rainy Night In Soho - The Pogues

And here are some straightforward happy ones I use to blast through all that Leberkäse:

Be With You - Transvision Vamp
Let Your Love Go - Bread
In Your Room - The Bangles
Big Scary Animal - Belinda Carlisle
Private Universe - Crowded House
In These Shoes? - Kirsty MacColl
I Believe In A Thing Called Love - The Darkness (oh yes!)

Plus of course the best song ever written: Love And Affection - Joan Armatrading

2 comments:

  1. Have to agree about Joan Armatrading : Love & Affection definitely the best love song ever written.

    Love playlists. I've compiled one this evening inspired by yours (and other crap I've been through over the last few years). Thought I'd share it since that's part of the fun.

    Hope you enjoy some of them:

    http://open.spotify.com/user/chunkylimey/playlist/2Zp8FlsXal0HG45Py5TsJM

    Hopefully you've got Spotify.

    If not:

    Key tracks:

    Nine Inch Nails: Something I Can Never Have
    Radiohead: Thinking About You
    Emmy The Great: First Love
    Arab Strap: Where We Left Our Love
    Barbara Morgenstern: Gute Nacht
    Whistler: If I give you a smile
    Ani Di Franco: As Is
    Frou Frou: Psychobabble

    and a bit of cheesy angst

    Goo Goo Dolls: Iris

    (this all being first picks that came to mind since my music collection is dominated by angsty music and a few kicking tunes ;)

    Enjoyed doing this. Playlists for the win :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ooh thank you! Quite a few there I hadn't heard before.

    ReplyDelete