Maybe, just maybe, somebody saw FROM YESTERDAY by 30 Seconds to Mars and said hey, we can’t afford to fly a crew to China and hire 500 extras to make a mini-movie masterpiece. But we do know two dudes who just started taking kendo.
Lyrics for TOO CLOSE:
You know I’m not one to break promises
I don’t want to hurt you but I need to breathe
At the end of it all you’re still my best friend
But there’s something inside that I need to release
Which way is right, which way is wrong
How do I say that I need to move on?
You know we have is separate way
And it feels like I am just too close to love you
There’s nothing I can really say
I can’t lie no more, I can’t hide no more
Got to be true to myself
And it feels like I am just too close to love you so I’ll be on my way
You gave me more that I can return
Yet there’s so much that you deserve
Nothing to say, nothing to do
I’ve nothing to give
I must leave without you
You know we have to separate
And it feels like I am just too close to love you
There’s nothing I can really say
I can’t lie no more, I can’t hide no more
Got to be true to myself
And it feels like I am just too close to love you so I’ll be on my way
So I’ll be on my way
And it feels like I am just too close to love you
There’s nothing that I can really say
I can’t lie no more, I can’t hide no more
Got to be true to myself
And it feels like I am just too close to love you so I’ll be on my way
So I’ll be on my way, so I’ll be on my way
This is an unusual and interesting song. Is it slow or fast?
Methinks this is neither — that it’s a sneaky rocker that manages to be fast while going slow, and to loud while being soft. That’s a neat trick, especially in this Wall of Sound era where every pop song is cranked up to 11.
There isn’t an official music video on the Series of Tubes, far as I know. The home-made version by Kesley or Tiffany or whatever is the best thing around.
There is a live version of it, though. HERE YOU GO:
And, just for kicks, here are the lyrics. I will not dissect them. They are not unusually crazy or brilliant — they simply work.
Afraid of an airplane
Of a car swerving in the lane
Of a dark cloud too low
Or being swept away by the undertow
Of a building tumbling down
Of the train when it’s underground
Of the icy mountain roads
We have to take to get to the show
There’s just a time when we must all let go the breath that we hold
There’s just a time when we must all let go the breath that we hold
You know, the unknown we have to let go
Afraid when the phone rings
Another breath of life has ceased
It seems it’s just lost so easily
Afraid my heart, it beats too slow
Or that I died and just didn’t know
Or of a fate I will have to choose
And I’m afraid of how much I love you
There’s just a time when we must all let go the breath that we hold
There’s just a time when we must all let go the breath that we hold
You know, the unknown we have to let go
It’s just now that I’ve found a place where I can breathe
It’s just now that I’ve found a place where I can sleep
It’s just now that I’ve found a place where I can breathe
It’s just now that I’ve found a place where I can sleep
It’s just now that I’ve found a place where I can breathe
It’s just now that I’ve found a place where I can sleep
It’s just now that I’ve found a place where I can breathe
It’s just now that I’ve found a place where I can sleep
So, I usually find great music videos and go at them with a literary scalpel, like a first-year biology student going after his first frog — or I take insane music videos and make fun of them.
Each method is equally rewarding.
HOWEVER: Sometimes, a random music video pops up that is not one of the pure forms. It’s not insane, insipid or inscrutable. Nor is it beautiful in the standard way.
Every once and a while, something pops up that is both insane AND great.
Like this piece from South Korea, which also proves the point that attitude trumps all. The singer isn’t conventionally good looking. He’s short and out of shape. But oh, he’s got swagger, and it makes him far more charming than a boy-band member with perfect abs who tries very, very hard not to get a hair out of place while he croons.
Typically, I interpret the lyrics of videos. Not this time. Just watch and enjoy.
OK, so it’s one thing to take (1) one of the most talented singers in the solar system and (2) a bunch of professional backup dancers, set designers, choreographers and film peoples to make (3) a great music video that probably cost more money to make than you or I will ever see, even as we tour a secret Federal Reserve money factory that creates Benjamins by the bucketful.
It is quite another thing for a whippersnapper student, with no monies, to shoot the same video on his iPhone or whatever and edit it on his computer — doing the EXACT SAME VIDEO, frame for frame, effect for effect.
This kid is such a flipping genius that his blue snuggie, just by osmosis, has earned two doctorates in Applied Awesomesauce.
For musical peoples, here are the lyrics to COUNTDOWN.
Boy!
Oh, killing me softly and I’m still falling
Still the one I need, I will always be with you
Oh, you got me all gone, don’t ever let me go
Say it real loud if you fly
If you leave me you’re out of your mind
My baby is a 10
We dressing to the 9
He pick me up we 8,
Make me feel so lucky 7
He kiss me in his 6
We be making love at 5
Still the one I do this 4
I’m tryna make us 3
From that 2
He’s still the 1
There’s ups and downs in this love
Got a lot to learn in this love
Through the good and the bad, still got love
Dedicated to the one I love, hey
Still love the way he talk, still love the way I sing
Still love the way he rock them black diamonds in that chain
Still all up on each other, ain’t a damn thing changed
My girls can’t tell me nothing, I’m gone in the brain
I’m all up under him like it’s cold, winter time
All up in the kitchen in my heels, dinner time
Do whatever that it takes, he got a winner’s mind
Give it all to him, meet him at the finish line
Me and my boo and my boo boo riding
All up in that black with his chick right beside him
Ladies, if you love your man show him you the flyest
Grind up on it, girl, show him how you ride it
Me and my boo and my boo boo riding
All up in that black with his chick right beside him
Ladies, if you love your man show him you the fliest
Grind up on it, girl, show him how you ride it
Oh, killing me softly and I’m still fallin’
Still the one I need, I will always be with you
Oh, you got me all gone, don’t ever let me go
Say it real loud if you fly
If you leave me you out of your mind
My baby is a 10
We dressing to the 9
He pick me up we 8,
Make me feel so lucky 7
He kiss me in his 6
We be making love at 5
Still the one I do this 4
I’m tryna make us 3
From that 2
He still the 1
Yup, I put it on him, it ain’t nothing that I can’t do
Yup, I buy my own, if he deserve it, buy his shit too
All up in the store, shorty, tricking if I want to
All up in the store, shorty, fly as we want to
Ooh ooh ooh ooh
Damn I think I love that boy
Do anything for that boy
Boy!
Now I’ll never be the same
You and me until the end
Me and my boo and my boo boo riding
All up in that black with his chick right beside him
Ladies, if you love your man show you the flyest
Grind up on it, girl, show him how you ride it
Me and my boo and my boo lip locking
All up in the back because the chicks keep flocking
All that gossip in 10 years stop it
London speed it up, Houston rock it
Oh, killing softly and I’m still falling
Still the one I need, I will always be with you
Oh, you got me all gone, don’t ever let me go
Say it real loud if you fly,
If you leave me you’re out of your mind
My baby is a 10
We dressing to the 9
He pick me up we 8,
Make me feel so lucky 7
He kiss me in his 6
We be making love at 5
Still the one I do this 4
I’m tryna make us 3
From that 2
He still the 1
UPDATE: The wild song I’m writing about (down below) is from North Korea, and what’s truly weird is just across the border, South Korea is the world champion of pop music.
That’s not hyperbole. The new single by BTS will bring in an estimated $1.4 billion dollars to South Korea’s economy. Yeah, billion with a B, kid you not.
While the North Korean state TV is clunky Soviet-style propaganda, and they don’t have open access to the interwebs, K-pop fans are the most fearsome online army on the planet, dominating TikTok and Twitter and whatever new app got invented five minutes ago.
K-pop fans also like to hashtag crash bigots and bullies, which is amaaaaazing to watch. They destroyed the Proud Boys.
So before we watch EXCELLENT HORSE-LIKE LADY, let’s cleanse our palate with the new video from BTS.
ORIGINAL POST: Okay, this is a first for me. I am pritnear speechless, despite the fact that I spelled “pritnear” PERFECTLY.
I found a music video from North Korea that is not a joke or an Onion parody. It’s a hit song from 2005, and yes, we now have the actual lyrics to this pop music masterpiece.
Why do we care?
Because the new dictator of North Korea used to be her boyfriend, years ago, but his daddy forbade him from seeing her. She is was married to a soldier and had a kid. HOWEVER: Now that junior runs the country, she’s by his side all the time. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. There are stories in respected papers of news and such. Here’s one:
Update: And now it’s official. News reports say she is married to the young Dear Leader, though there’s no mention of what happened to the old husband and such.
As a special bonus, NPR figured out the lyrics to the song.
Our factory comrades say in jest Why they tell me I am a virgin on a stallion After a full day’s work i still have energy left My skills are truly like lightening they say They say I am a virgin on a stallion Yet again today I was the first to leave for work Apparently my name was in the paper In a (?) time An award given to youth who live in flight They say I am a virgin on a stallion The party era is teeming with creation A new name they present to youth Mounting a stallion the dear leader gave me All my life I will live to uphold his name They say I am a virgin on a stallion Mounting a stallion my dear leader gave me All my life I will live to uphold his name
Also: her other big hit, SHE IS A DISCHARGED SOLDIER.
If I post a music video every Monday, or every other Monday, or on random Mondays when I feel like it, I will officially be playing more music than this channel on your cable box called MTV.
That channel, which was once proud and powerful, is now apparently dedicated to documentaries about the fake-tanning habits of young, unmarried losers in New Jersey with gelled hair and steroid problems and fake body parts.
Watch this insane video by Florence + The Machine, then use your literary powers of deconstruction to figure out what it’s trying to say.
I believe the alien go-go dancers are a tribute to all the green alien women Captain Kirk conquered back in the 1960s, and that the end of the video pays homage to the only good scene in X-MEN: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN OR WHATEVER when Famke Janssen, who rocked as an evil Bond girl in Goldeneye, went nuts and turned all these bad guys into dust because Hugh Jackman refused to go steady with her.
The Red Pen of Doom 