Seeing as the writers of aDeadKid have some complimentary tastes in music, both of us are taking a shot at the popular Tumblr survey “30 Songs in 30 Days” list. So get ready for a shitload of name-dropping and youtube clips as Brian and Matt proudly give you their 60 Songs in 30 Days…
Day 05 – A song that reminds you of someone
Matt: I am going to admit straight away that I’m going to bitch out on this one. Let’s be honest, this one is meant for ex-girlfriends, and I don’t really want to go there. I don’t have any songs that remind me of friends, so I can’t use them either. I could probably come up with a song or two that I could associate with a specific event, but that obviously isn’t the point. So I am going to use my dad.
I remember being a young chap and going through my dad’s massive record collection all the time. We would sit in the living room with piles of records spread out in front of us, and I would tell him which to play based on how much I liked the album art. The song I chose that reminds me of Old Man Kroll was on one of my favorite album covers. “Teach Your Children” on Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s Deja Vu must have been played a million times. I loved the old time-y picture on the front and the way the cover was made to look like leather. To this day, whenever I pull out my copy of that record, it reminds me of those times.
Then my parents got divorced.
Brian: Matt’s absolutely right that this one is supposed to be for reminiscing about Exes. After all, aren’t all online surveys made by high school kids a means to share their deepest, darkest secrets? Anyway, I’m going to take the bait and talk about [someone] in an abstract enough way that you won’t know who I’m talking about anyway.
The Magnetic Fields’ “Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side,” is an ode to those wonderful gals (and guys) who will accept any suitors’ advances so long as they can supply something the gal/guy values — be it superficial (concert tickets, shopping sprees), psychological (compliments and unending adoration), or social (local celeb friends, or the bouncer that always gets you in). In this case, it’s a man’s beat-up convertible that sustains his love’s attention.
My favorite line is when Stephin Meritt sings, “…well, we’ve got secrets too; one — I only keep this heap for you.” I suspect that the heap he’s talking about isn’t just the car — the self-proclaimed “ugliest guy on the lower east side,” acknowledges that he is still holding the torch for an otherwise vain/aloof partner who tolerates their adoration in exchange for gifts.
A Kid Who Tells on Another Kid is a Dead Kid 