rm | Jun. 2nd, 2005

rahalia_cat tagged me on the "six songs that mean a lot to you in no particular order" meme, so here are mine:

1. Green Grass of Tunnel by Mum
This is the newest one of the list, found on a sampler CD glued to the cover of the January 05 issue of Australian Film, that I purchased on a whim at the candy counter when I went to see Myth, Propaganda and Disaster at the Stables Theatre when I was in Sydney. Catherine Martin was in the issue so I was like "oh!, I'll buy that." Anyway, while I was frequently in all sorts of random emotional extremis in Sydney, mostly good, I had my one really big breakdown to this song, but it was one of those good productive breakdowns. It's also the song the inspired the screenplay I'm working on, and a song that keeps me up when I'm up and helps break me when I need to be broken.

2. Hallelujah, the Jeff Buckley version
The first time I heard this song, I was upstate with Michael and he asked me what I want to do and I told him I wanted to see stars. We went for a drive and he put this CD in. I remember watching my reflection in my window as we drove, knowing that I wanted him to somehow view this song as about me, but knowing it was about some other woman or other, but trying to convince myself I was special because he was showing it to me or something. In the end, it was just a moment, nothing more, nothing less, no real agenda, just the attempt at understanding. But it's a really eerie moment for me, and one that lingers with everything that happened after, from Keri's death to sitting on the sidewalk in front of Sine with strangers when Buckley drowned and I need to grieve for private things without being alone. Sorry, Jeffey.

3. Heroes by David Bowie.
Heroes was the first Bowie album I ever bought, because the casette was $3.99 at Tower Records and I thought he looked pretty on the cover. I was taken by the precision of his hands in the photograph, and wondered what they were saying. I fell in love with the song as only a cold war eighties kid could. But I also loved it for the desperation in his voice and the idea that we could choose to be sure that one day we would be more than we were now. I used to stare at my open blinds, watching the taillights of cars reflect off them and run along their edges and think about people I had crushes on and wonder what it was like to take up space the way they did, as opposed to the way I did. It's a song that's never left me, and I own vinyl singles of it in French and German. It why I cried when I got to see it performed live on the Glass Spider tour and why I decided to hate Moulin Rouge on principle when it was first released.

4. The Ship Song, Nick Cave.
One of the best love songs ever written. Because I watched him sing it holding a twelve year old goth girl in the audience's hand. Because I once wanted this played at my wedding so I could dance with people whose presence in my life was ultimately untennable. Because it's both a generous song, and a cruel one. I think it's lovely, and has an odd peace with itself.

5. Little Rough Rhinestone by SoftCell.
My club kid anthem. A song I fell in love with because of who I thought I wanted to be, and ultimately have kept loving because it turned out to be about both who I was afraid of becoming and all sorts of lost little boys who live inside me. It's not a song for me, but for some of the people I write about. It's trite and silly and also anything but. Lyrics here: http://softcell.linkgrinder.com/songs/Lyrics_Little_rough_rhinestone_Soft_Cell_60068.html
This is one of those parts of my inner life in high school that will never stop mattering.

6. I Come and Stand at Every Door, This Mortal Coil version
This is different than the others. I don't love this song in the same way as the others, and I don't listen to it very much, and there were many other songs I considered putting here, but this one I decided tells you the most about me. It's about a dead girl in Hiroshima, but I actually don't give a crap about that. There's something freakish about the This Mortal Coil version, calm and wrathful in a way that's very much bearing witness, and very much the way I can be. It makes me think of how I can be, a little girl with huge black circles under her eyes who will never stop staring at you because she learned real small that was the best way to frighten people who were cruel, just stare at them so hard that when they close their eyes, they'll still see you. I can scare you when I sing this, and I can stare at you until the end of the world.

Now, I get to tag people! The lucky winners are:

splodgenoodles

mobocita

elionwyr

pecunium

lachupacabra

rula