where i end and you begin

28. Stuff and Nonsense, Split Enz

As I stretch out my toes in a new home in a new city in a new country I am developing new relationships with everything from my local vegetable market stalls to my new flat mates and so many other things in between. That also includes my musical tastes. As is the case with all things in life, things change, and I have found myself suddenly having an overwhelming desire to listen to things like Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Tango in the night’ album (which I still don’t like) and Crowded House (which I like more at the moment than I ever have before). As I listened to songs about chocolate cake and the weather and other such melodic pop songs I could not shake the memory of this song.

‘Stuff and Nonsense’ is a song for a generation hell-bent on avoiding any sort of long term relationship whether it be with a lover, a land lord or a library. But what this generation will do is have brief yet intense ‘oh-i-really-really-really-mean-it-i-swear-on-my-brand-new-prada-handbag-i-do…..for-now’ relationship with, well, almost anything. At least once.

This is how people like Rhianna, of the ‘Umbrella-ella-ella-ella’ song achieve fame (google it if you don’t know what I’m talking about – I can’t bring myself to go any further). And it’s how things like slinkys and hypercolour shirts which change colour as you’re wearing them and teenage mutant ninja turtles become all the rage. So as someone who had brief love affairs with each of these, and yet watched them go with ease, I feel at one with lyrics like “And you know that I love you/here and now not forever/I can give you the present/I don’t know about the future/that’s just stuff and nonsense“. Not to mention that Neil Finn is so dorky he’s a just a bit cool which is another reason to love this song.

Disclaimer: I have never owned a prada handbag.

29. You Want The Candy, The Raveonettes

Guitar feedback does strange things to many people. Lou Reed, for one. He made a whole album using pretty much just guitar feedback. Of course it is awful and completely unlistenable, but maybe for the sake of ‘art’, almost anything is ok. In any case, I am partial to a degree of guitar feedback and general haziness from time to time.

‘Shoegazing’ as a musical genre itself is becoming more mainstream, and The Raveonettes are a prime example of this at the moment. This track is a pretty standard representation of their style. It doesn’t really leave a lot to the imagination (candy, after all, has many a connotation, but all of them well worn) yet for me it’s a pleasure to listen to the light fuzz going on as they lilt (?) about things I’m not really listening to. The whole album ‘Lust Lust Lust’ is an excellent example of why the album format itself is not dead also. It demands to be listened to from beginning to end, without pause.

I think another reason why I like it is because it is a more ‘listenable’ variation of what the Jesus and Mary Chain or My Bloody Valentine have done, yet I haven’t heard it all over movie soundtracks by Really Serious Move Directors. Yet.

30. Bloody Mother F*&^ing Asshole, Martha Wainright

Writing a song about your father that makes it onto radio station playslists the world over would be a great feeling, I’d think. Unless it was this song. As the title suggests, there’s a degree of…angst going on here, and I love it. I love the lyrics, I love her almost-gravel voice which is so different from her brother’s (sorry Rufus, but I’m not overly keen on your show tune vocal chords, and whish you’d never touched Hallelujah). Um, where was I?

Martha. She’s a pretty cool chick who has a knack for saying what everyone else is thinking, and I have screamed along with her that: “No/I will not say I’m alright for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” because I’m not alright, and it’s because of you, and I’m not only going to tell you but everyone else within earshot and then some, and if that makes you feel bad then GOOD!

31. Protect Me From What I Want, Placebo

It has taken me the whole list to decide which Placebo song I was going to include, and in the end I couldn’t decide, so I went to my I tunes library and looked up the ‘times played’ list and decided it would be most honest to list the song I have listened to the most. Not an ideal process, but I’m happy with the outcome. Especially as a last song.

Because where do you end a list like this? It has taken me over two months and has made me over-analyse my musical choices as I chop veggies and knead bread and argue with my slow internet connection and pick a bindi to wear with my salwar kameez to work and and and and.

It turns out that I am ending the list not with the best or my favourite or colourful or bright or soppy song, but something which is probably very … me…

And I don’t think I’m going to think much about that here.