Now, the Matronly dials --indoors and in the van --are all tuned to National Public Radio, the talk version. She listens to Nina Totenberg, Neal Conan, Carl Kasell, Michele Norris, and the like (as an undergraduate, she had a professor who always added "and the like" onto every sentence and the Matron has been waiting twenty years to employ this linguistic tic) pretty much every waking moment. Once in awhile a child wanders into the kitchen and she might switch to classic music in hope of promoting energetic brain cells.
This never lasts long.
Why? The two minutes of listening to pop music in her husband's car was emblematic of why talk radio instead of pop music. The song started out optimistically: lots of pretty waterfall sounds, happy harmonies, a pleasant female voice. The Matron was interested! Happy, even! Music! Yes, this is why people wear ear buds and iPods!
(Let's drive home the Matron's affinity for talk radio: she jogs to This American Life shows downloaded on an iPod shuffle. It is possible to run while weeping and railing).
But NINETY SECONDS into this pleasant melody came these lyrics:
"Who died and left you king of anything?"
People!? Really? Someone got a record contract and air time for 'who died and left you king?' Isn't there something smarter, more poetic, prettier, insightful to say?
Oh, wait.
How about "You're not the boss of me" or "are you the boss of me?" -- two of her current personal favorites and one a phrase she recently heard an actual adult employee of a venerable academic institution use, apparently without irony or self-awareness.
Wait! She can write lyrics too!
"Mom! Make him stop LOOKING at me!"
This is a road trip tune, of course. She smells a gold record.
7 comments:
Have you ever heard Lil' Wayne rhyme "mansion" with "Wiscansin?" That'll have you tearing your hair out.
Actually, I view Sara Bareilles as very intelligent, as today's songwriters go. I bought her first album and plan to buy the upcoming one.
Try the song "Fairy Tale." It should be available on itunes or someplace.
Which is why I'm dreading our road trip to the Black Hills in August...
I must admit, if there's an advantage to having a blind child, it's that his sister never complained, "He's looking at me!"
S--that's her name, Sara Bareilles! Yes, I liked everything very much but stand by my concern about those lyrics :-)
I find myself tuning in to NPR more and more lately. I think you just explained why...
Which can immediately be followed by..."She's Breathing On Me!"
I love music but download all my stuff or set my project playlist to shuffle so I know what I am in for! Pandora's good too but every once in awhile..egad what was THAT?!!! Bramble
PS..Check out Anna Nalick, some interesting lyrics though she is very young!!!!
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