Handsome Furs - Repatriated

Oh man, this song. So catchy! I think I got it as a download from them via email, and I like it way better than "What About Us." I do think its interesting that the song is called "Repatriated"...implying that it happened, but the song says that he'll "never be repatriated." Would it have been better to give the song the title, "Never Be Repatriated"? Or how about "(Never Be) Repatriated".

Where did the future go?
I was feeling down
I was feeling so low
Had to get out
Had to get out parts unknown

Where did the feeling go?
I got it back when the plane touched down
I was over
I was over - oh well

Here it comes
Here it comes
Here it comes
Here it comes

The frozen light
I'll never go back there
It was a lie, a lie
Believin' in it is so, it is so hard

I saw the light
Saw the reconstruction
And I will go, I will go
Out in the heat
And the rush and pushin' when its five at night

Your little heart is gonna beat so
Where did the future go?
Parts unknown
Parts unknown

Your little heart is gonna beat so
Where did the feeling go?
Well, it comes and goes
It comes and goes

Here it comes!

Your little heart is gonna beat so
Where did the feeling go?
Well, it comes and goes
It comes and goes

Here it comes
Here it comes

Blackout

I've seen the future
And its comin' in low
I've seen the future
I will never be repatriated

I've seen the future
And its comin' in low
I've seen the future
I will never be repatriated

I'll never be repatriated
Never be repatriated
Never be repatriated
Never be repatriated

If you have any thoughts, put them in the comments!

Frak It Friday: Sunset Rubdown - "Idiot Heart"

A song about having to "move around" and wander no matter what the cost, even though it makes no sense:

If I found you in this city called Paradise,

I'd say, "I love you, but I hate this city, and I'm no prize."

Even after finding the paradise, he's got to move on. He acknowledges that his heart is being an idiot ("You know your heart, but its an idiot heart"), but he's got to keep "moving around," until an embittered female singer sings:

I hope that you died in a decent pair of shoes,

You've got a lot of long walking to do,

Where you going to?

So even when he dies, he still can't be at rest. And he still doesn't know where he's going!

I had been saving Sunset Rubdown for a rainy day, and apparently "rainy day" means "eight hour stretch of time when I'm procrastinating on my NaNoWriMo Novel." 

And I'd spent even more time, procrastinating on said novel, planning out this post. Yeah, this song got under my skin. 

Wolf Parade - Little Golden Age [This Place Is The Machine That Put The Iron In Your Heart]

I've got to say, its starting to get weird when I listen to songs that aren't by someone in Wolf Parade. I've listened to "Yulia" about 200 times in the past week. A little obsessive, I know. (The only thing competing with Wolf Parade for brain space is how much of an asshole Rand Paul is.) Right now, the Wolf Parade part of my brain is completely focused on the song "Little Golden Age," seemingly about either a high school/college experience (partial lyrics follow):

"You lived in a place long, long ago

Where nothing moves, sometimes goes slow

And someone sang about a golden age"

 Sounds like high school or college to me. No one ever gets older, the students just get recycled every year.

"And you left town feeling pretty down

with your head phones and coat

and your dirty graduation gown

You were in the bedroom singing radio songs

 Sing loud, sing all night anyway

needed something to help you along "

The golden age comes to an end. The singer then says that:

"And I don't miss my little golden age

'cause the body takes the heart

takes the heart from place to place

But this place still stands

This place remains unchanged

And you can't go back

and who would want to anyway?"

So why miss the experiences when you carry them with you? And why long for a place that will never change, never grow into something new? There isn't much use in getting tied up in what was, because you can't go back to what you were.

Even though those times were awesome. Even if they were the best of your life. You just can't go back to it because while nothing else there changes, you have.

Wolf Parade - Yulia [Song about Space]

 

 So the new Wolf Parade album EXPO 86 leaked, and I'd been playing it off and on all weekend. I knew I liked the way "Yulia" sounded, but Wolf Parade can be hard to understand. (Case in point: rather than "Yulia" my boyfriend thought that were singing, "Too young! Too young!")

I didn't really hear the words until this morning on my commute, and I'm not so clear on all of them, but the ones I am clear on: wow.

Its a song about a astronaut (cosmonaut? Yulia is an Eastern European/Russian name, as for Julia. The Ukrainian PM is named Yulia) singing back to his love on earth. The song begins with the send off for the flight (apologies if lyrics are wrong, see above explanation of WP being hard to understand....and this isn't a full collection of the lyrics, but just the most pertinent/hearable to me):

"I was up there floating with them
and you know that I was gone
The radio sings a patriot song
as the devil gets you low
Yulia

We were standing on the platform
The favorite sons in history"

This is a pretty big deal. They're already national heroes, just for advancing the space program. You know, until:

"The flip one switch at mission control
and I'm never coming home
Yulia"

Its unclear to me whether this was intentional on the space program's part (they fuck up and pull the plug to cover it up) or if it was just that nothing else could be done (no way to save them, so might as well cut your losses).

"I'm standing here
Drifting alone
and my heartbeats slow
and I hope they bring my body back
Yulia"

Doubly heartbreaking. I don't know if its just because I love being earthbound, but the idea of drifting in space, dying and all alone in all that space is terrible. And then knowing, as you are dying, that you'll be alone alone, drifting, for the rest of eternity.

The next is directly put to Yulia:

"So when they turn the camaras on you
Baby please don't speak of me
Point up to the dark above you
As they edit me from history

I'm ten million miles from my comfortable home
And space is very cold
Yulia"

So this guy goes from being the favorite son of his country to being written out of history because of the mission's failure. And gets to die alone for his trouble.

The next part just piles on the heartbreak"

"There's nothing out here
Nothing out here
nothing out
nothing out here
nothing out here"

This is the best song featuring space in a while. 

So, is it significant that her name is Yulia instead of Julia? Is this story more believable if its the Russians doing this? And maybe the failed manned missions from the US didn't get completely covered up, but we definitely don't remember them the way we remember Buzz Aldrin (of Dancing with the Stars fame, now!) or Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon. Who remembers the names of the astronauts who died in Apollo 1? Its not a cover up, its just the way recent history remembers.