Bloggerstock: What is your theme song?

Bloggerstock May is here and I have the pleasure of hosting the dangerously readable (I'm on to you guys. They're not paying you to read blogs all day, y'know. Blogging, on the other hand, is an entirely different story), always hilarious Rob from The Stir-Fried Dinosaur.* As always, the blog swap gods have smiled on me.

Rob is also the man behind the Trickster Syndicate. Lovers of fiction or good writing, check it out.

And now, on with the show.

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Okay, well. This is it. This is the big show. Bloggerstock. I'm nervous about letting my madness
infect someone else's blog but then, Mel is sort of crazy too, no? (Editors note: Eh... fair call.)

I don't know what I'm supposed to say here, but Bloggerstock is happening. Basically, it's a big
ring of blogs. People guest-posting on other folks' blogs. It's
absolute pandmonium! For example, Suki's post goes on my blog, I'm posting on Mel's
blog, and Mel (I think) should be posting on Special
Snowflakes and Other Myths, which is also a great read. The point,
I suppose, is for everyone to expose their readers to something new.
And hopefully, we bloggers will get some new and different readers as
well. Okay. See, I suck at the official things, but I think I just
nailed that! Feeling good, feeling great.

Now. I don't know where to start with my actual post, so I'm just
going to start. This month's Bloggerstock topic is "What is your theme
song?" Now, I am a music nerd, and I am also emotionally disturbed
(says the doctor). So when I first heard that this was the topic we'd
be writing about for Bloggerstock, I was pretty much thrilled. Until I
started thinking about it. Do you know what happened when I started to
think about it? Well, I couldn't f*cking stop thinking about it. I was
going to completely dissect the meaning of "theme music" and I was
going to be very philosophical. Because I am a neurotic. And when all
else fails for a neurotic, we resort to waxing pretentious philosophy.
No no. That would be okay for my blog, but not for anyone else's. I'm
going to be sincere. And as direct as possible. And I'm just going to
answer the damned question.

Firstly, I'd like to admit that "my theme song" is actually Story of an
Artist by a lovely man named Daniel Johnston. It is probably the
most beautiful thing I've ever heard. But I can't talk about it with
other people because it is way too personal to me. And I'm not sure
anyone else would even enjoy the song. Too scary, so... no.

But. BUT!! On to my real actual answer, for all of you that have every
right and every reason to judge me based on this here one single guest
blog post.

"My Theme Song Is..." Rock and Roll by The Velvet Underground. You can
listen to it on vinyl right here:



So, basically, this is my go-to song for everything. When I'm having a
crap day, this usually fixes it. For those unfamiliar, it's an uptempo
pop song about a kid whose life is saved by rock'n'roll radio. For the
heroine of the song, "there was nothin' happenin' at all," but "one
fine day she puts on a New York station, and she couldn't believe what
she hears at all," and then finally, "she started shakin' to that
fine, fine music" and life goes on happily ever after. It's not
Shakespeare. No. But it doesn't need to be. You know why?

Because Lou Reed is the epitomy of cool. And he reminds us many many
times throughout this song that "it was all right." That's all it
takes. For me, anyway. Upbeat pop/rock music. 4/4 timing. Simple
drums. Three or four chords. And having the idea that "it was all
right" drilled into my head 41 times, by the slickest rock vocalist to
ever walk the earth.

I sort of grew up in a world of shit. Death, drugs, more death, and
poverty in suburbia. And that's all you need to know. By the time I
was old enough to piss in a toilet, I had ridiculous anxiety,
consistent sleeping problems, and I just FELT like I was weird. I
didn't have friends until I was a teenager. I had rock'n'roll instead.
Whether it was Michael Jackson or Guns 'n' Roses or Black Sabbath or
Diana Ross... it didn't matter. I could curl up inside a good song and
just stay there forever.

This song, "Rock and Roll," is a rejection of everything going on
outside. It's a lack of concern for the ideals your parents are
pushing on you... you know that "keeping up with the Jones's" thing.
This song, to me, screams, "turn off the world around you and just
feel good for a while." The simplicity, I think, is something we
forget about. That's why I think Lou Reed had a streak of genius in
him that is underrated by most, yet completely worshipped by others.
And no, I don't think it's a hip thing, I think it's a human thing.

And I'm sure some folks are thinking about how childish and naive and
idealistic it is to think this way. "What about jobs and family and
responsibilities?" But it is my firm belief, based on experience and
observation, that these things will kill you if you don't take a break
sometimes. Granted, some of us need the break more often than others.
But we all need it eventually. And this break is best enjoyed dancing
like an idiot and forgetting the world and loving your life for a
moment and laughing at it all and singing your guts out and just...
purging the sadness and the tightness and the drollness.

That's what this song does for me. It is a blatant reminder that I'm
too worried, and for no good reason. Reed says, "Despite all the
computations, you could just dance to the rock'n'roll station. And it
was all right." And I say, "Amen." Because, sometimes, that's all we
need to do. And that's all we need to know. "It was all right."

Listen to this song three times on repeat. You'll get it soon enough, I promise.

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