3. Screw It

Hello, Welcome. I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. Musing Interruptus is a podcast for sharing thoughts and stories and enjoying idiomatic phrases. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode; just click on continue reading to open a Google Doc. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, subscribe, follow, and share, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Drop a comment with your answers to today’s questions! I love hearing from you! The background music is called Tajo by Blue Dot.

Sometimes, you need someone to write a song about you.

Stevie Nicks wrote a song about asking her special someone if anyone had ever written a song about them. Say that 10 times fast. 

The truth is you don’t need a song to be explicitly written about you to feel like you are seen or even connected with the rest participating in the experience being sung about. That is part of the beauty and my fascination with music. Love songs are understood and felt by at least 50 people at any given time, 100 if it is a Beatles song. That is a fact that I just made up and I hope will catch on. 

Basically, the more popular a song, the more common the experience. Again, I wonder if that is true. I’m making up a lot more things than usual today. 

Now, a piece of truth:  I’ve fantasized about communicating with lyrics and song titles. The farthest I’ve gone is in the lines of every other Musing Interruptus episode and on Twitter, where I add song titles when I retweet memes, random pictures, quotes, and news. Although I recognize it is annoying, I do it anyway. Maybe someone else sees what I see. It could be the beginning of a story. Imagine it is a good story. It’s best to let it happen.  According to my guesstimates, there are at least 50 other people at any given time who might get it. 

Nobody needs a song written about them. Just because I don’t need it doesn’t mean I don’t want it. 

There have been people who threatened to write a song about me. 

All talk and no song to be seen or had. This has inspired me.

So, guess what I’m doing today?

If you guessed writing a song in the style of Jarvis Cocker in his early years of Pulp, you would be right. I’m hoping that someone will pick this up and put music to it and then we can sing it together. 

I love Pulp, and I wish for a Pulp song about me, Mr. Cocker. Unfortunately, you don’t know me. If you did, you might not write a song about me either. I don’t think I could give you the stuff your Legendary Girlfriend has given you. Or that woman who you were inspired to take to the supermarket, because, you had to start somewhere. And Hardcore, well, don’t we all want to know what they do for an encore? But what about you, Mr. Cocker?

 After reading Good Pop, Bad Pop, I wrote this song inspired by the author, and I imagine Mr. Cocker could sing it. Perhaps there is a rule about not having to write songs about yourself and having to sing it. So. I’ve written it, and if Mr. Cocker never sings it, I may have to find a decent impersonator. 

In my defense, I will just remind you that imitation is a form of flattery. Whether it is good or bad is a discussion for another day.

A few notes for those of you who aren’t familiar with Pulp. The band’s music is a brilliant combination of late psychedelic rock narrated by a very sensual and self-aware lounge singer, I say this in the best possible way. All of it.

He has been deeply inspired by Elvis Costello, Barry White, the Beatles, the Velvet Underground, the Stranglers and the Fall, Pink Floyd, and so much more. 

 

Now, I will proceed to the most pres