The things we did and didn't do

Typical. Songs by Jens Lekman and the Beach Boys and Robyn and the Magnetic Fields and Rilo Kiley and girl group shit and it's all very poppy and power-poppy and no one cares but me. Is it possible my mixes are not actually that cool or interesting? Eh. Rambling commentary about feelings in re: pop music below.

The Typical Mix Tape

1. "Grass," XTC
2. "It's Over," Sondre Lerche
3. "Sweet Talking Guy," The Chiffons
4. "Someday, Someway," Marshall Crenshaw
5. "For The Rabbits," Caitlin Rose
6. "Someone To Share My Life With," Jens Lekman
7. "Help Me Rhonda," The Beach Boys
8. "My Man Is A Mean Man," Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings
9. "My Ever Changing Moods," The Style Council
10. "Call Your Girlfriend," Robyn
11. "Sneaky Feelings," Elvis Costello
12. "Baltimore," Tennis
13. "Baby, Baby (I Still Love You)," Cinderella
14. "If Not For You," George Harrison
15. "I Am Bored," The Microphones
16. "I Love The Weekend," No Kids
17. "Watch The Sunrise," Big Star
18. "Mean Mean Man," Wanda Jackson
19. "The Things We Did," The Magnetic Fields
20. "Glendora," Rilo Kiley
DOWNLOAD IT!
Obviously, my mix tapes are obliquely about whatever bullshit heartbreak I'm indulging in at the time I compile them. Perpetually appropriate songs: The Beach Boys, "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times." The Magnetic Fields, "No One Will Ever Love You." The Smiths, "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want."

I enjoy feeling feelings. I manipulate myself by listening to sad songs and reading sad poems and looking at pictures on Facebook of men who have rejected me with their new girlfriends so I may bathe in my most gorgeous sorrow. Not that being a sad sack is all fun. Engaging your self pity is a dangerous game, 'cause no one wants to be around you and it stops you from getting anything done. Ultimately, it's probably better to try to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Let's all be moderate when opting to stand on psychically unstable ground, is what I'm saying. Sometimes I like being sleep-deprived in an airport because I experience what I call "reveries," what William Blake called "memorable fancies," what doctors call "hallucinations." It's nice every once in a while to believe that you have access into a portal into the future, that you have pulled back the curtain and witnessed "the truth," that every dimension is available and you can see beyond the visible spectrum and escape this real world where you pay rent and eat sandwiches, you know, to get out of the Matrix, which is actually just all there is. It's why they invented drugs, I get it.
A personal mantra: your feelings aren't everything. Your memories aren't everything. Your imagination isn't everything. When I was a teenager I used to say all the time, "I just have to get out of my own head," which is sad because it was true and I had no idea how to do that. Maybe--think about someone other than yourself? Get some friends? Get a job? Yes, but. Anne Carson: "You remember too much,/my mother said to me recently./Why hold onto all that? And I said,/Where can I put it down?" What do I do with all these fucking feelings?
It's why listening to mopey-ass music makes us feel less gloomy. No one knows better than Morrissey that melancholy is actually hilarious. "Went looking for a job and then I found a job/And heaven knows I'm miserable now." Feelings distort things so much that really emotional music is necessarily comic. I love the Beach Boys and girl groups because they're so bald in their sentiment. My favorite girl group lyric lately is from the Blossoms' song "That's When The Tears Start": "I hold my head high/Each time you walk by./Give you a great big smile/Although I wanna die."

Pop music makes complicated feelings simple. A pop song is a sliver of a moment when all we want is one very specific and very stupid thing, and we want it SO BAD. I reluctantly admit that bad feelings are not permanent, and even life's most major bummers have not ruined me. But it seems right to immortalize all these dumb emotions, doesn't it? The Magnetic Fields go, "The things we did and didn't do./The things we did and didn't do," and I go, yeah. I let that sad, vague vapor of a lyric wash over me. It feels good.

<3MMJ