Confessions of a Fanboy

Short attention span.  Tunnel vision.  Lack of imagination.  Obsession.

All of the above.

I realized that, despite having bought nine CDs this week I’ve actually spent most of the week listening to two fucking songs:  “Why Can’t You Be?” by Shelby Lynne and “Prairie Wedding” by Mark Knopfler.  I’m all about value.  I hope TheWifeToWhomI’mMarried doesn’t read this column.  That would just be bad on so many levels.  I’m told there are medications for my many conditions.

So anyway, about the songs I’ve obsessed about.  They’re great all around songs and there are a lot of things to like about them but in each case there is one specific thing that has drawn me to them and compelled me to listen to them over and over and over…In the case of Lynne’s “Why Can’t You Be?” it’s the line “what the hell’s wrong with living without the blues.”  It’s a great line, and it’s delivered so well.  Sometimes I think we get so used to living with the blues we forget what it’s like to live without them.  I wonder if we fall to the point where we can’t even imagine a life without them.  That’s what I think about when she sings that line. 

With “Prairie Wedding,” it’s the first verse, but in particular these lines:

I guarantee she looked like an angel
I couldn’t think of what I should say
When Adam saw Eve in the garden
I believe he felt the selfsame way

That’s spectacular!  That’s great songwriting.  The first line isn’t special, but it really builds from there.  Plenty of songwriters have likened their lover to that of an angel, but his reference to Adam and Eve is brilliant.  What a rich way of conveying the electricity of that amazing moment.

Some days I listen to song after song and nothing captures me, but then are weeks like this when two songs each have something so special I feel like a prisoner to them.

Filed under: Tags: Mark Knopfler, Music of the Moment