Energy is on Your Mind (That Which is Pure) (Information Society)

Language: Italian

My parents were fans of Christian rock music when I was a kid, though they, like many other Christians of the time (and probably many Christians now, for all I know), considered ordinary secular pop music a tool of the devil which would lead to abortions and homosexuality and devil worship (or atheism, which was plausibly worse), all things they were afraid of.¹ This led to certain in-retrospect funny moments, like when I was traumatized in grade school by a classmate playing a single of Toni Basil's "Mickey" at 45 rpm.²

This wasn't the first secular song to be interesting to the 16-year-old me, but it's pretty close. It wasn't even the song I liked best on this album (that was "Tomorrow," which apparently Insoc and/or Tommy Boy Records never cared for enough to try to market it as a single, though that probably wasn't a bad call -- I'm not sure what I liked about it so). But it was still a song that happened to be in the right place at the right time, I guess, and sparked many years' appreciation for tinkly-boop electronic dance music (e.g. Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys³).

I don't necessarily still like the song, though it still sounds to me like an improvement over the band it's clearly trying to rip off, the Human League.

Decide for yourself. Here is the video:

¹Some of these did subsequently happen, though I'm not sure that Mom and Dad were right to be afraid of them. My life hasn't really turned out how I'd envisioned it, but I hardly consider it ruined.

²If I remember right, I cried and everything. Very scary stuff, to have the devil attempting to brainwash you when you're nine years old and there's nothing you can do about it.

³Pet Shop Boys songs are, in general, Paula-Abdul-like in difficulty, though I did manage to do one, once.

-Jessi

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(spoken:) It's worked up now, but we're still not outside.

[a]
I desire to know what that's been thinking.
There are some things that you cannot hide.
I wish to know what that's been thinking.
What that says to me is, it's on your mind.

(spoken:) The pure energy. The pure energy.

An indication is around here in the hush: without observing,
I still find myself all alone. Is it the same with you?
I can see your things; I don't know that, behind the eyes,
our love can be developed. You hide from me, as if . . . .

[a]

So I could break it off in order to drain it,
but would that make it good?
I couldn't know for sure
what you align. That is to say,
they're here in the hush;
I must play that game. It's
you in the hush, and
the others, with nothing to say.

[a]

(spoken:) The pure energy. The pure energy.

Destruction. The pure energy.
Destruction. The pure energy.
Destruction. The pure energy.

[a][a]

Alison (Elvis Costello)

Language: Russian

Sorry. I've been slacking a bit lately.

I have two dreadful secrets to confess along with this song: one, I actually like Jay McInerney.¹ Which this song gets quoted in Story of My Life, is why the association, and the main character's name there is Allison.

Two, I actually like the show "Medium." (lately on NBC Wednesdays at 8 PM Central) Which is not like me. I mean, it's yet another cop show², which is bad, but it gets around this most of the time by trying to be an entirely different cop show every week (the "Monkeyheads" episode blew me away, as did the one where Allison gets "I Will Survive" stuck in her head), plus there's some really well-imagined stuff in there about how being a crime psychic would effect one's home life. Some marvelously-written arguments, funny bits, TV children who have personalities: it's a well-written show about a completely absurd premise³. Much like "Buffy: the Vampire Slayer." Or "Dead Like Me." Or "Veronica Mars." Or etc. I think "Medium" has actually bumped off "House" for a spot in my top five current TV shows.⁴

-Jessi

¹Or at least I like some Jay McInerney. His earlier stuff, though I could do without Ransom. Bright Lights, Big City is really good, Michael J. Fox movie or no, and Story of My Life is probably even better than that. I re-read BLBC and SOML semi-regularly. Whether I still like Jay McInerney as an oeuvre or not, I don't know. And I never knew whether I liked him personally, of course, but I always suspected that I didn't.

²I liked "CSI" when I first saw it. Hell, I even liked "CSI: Miami" and "CSI: New York" to some degree or another. But, first, somebody needs to sit down the executives at CBS and read them the story of the goose that laid golden eggs, 'cause I think they've missed the point. And second, the longer these have gone on, the more bizarre and gruesome they have to be to "top" what prior episodes have done, and at some point it's just like, you think to yourself, well, I could watch several people be horribly tortured, mutilated and killed for the sake of that bit of relief at the end of the show when justice is served, or I could watch a "Blossom" marathon.

³No, I do not believe in psychics.

⁴It's a competitive field, with "Dead Like Me," "Battlestar Galactica," "Medium," "Lost," "Metalocalypse," "Robot Chicken," "Veronica Mars," "Eureka," "House," and "The Office" all competing from week to week. Fortunately, several of these are bound to be on hiatus or in repeats at any given time, so there are only ever about five real contenders anyway.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Oh, girl, it's so funny to see you afterward, so "in order."
You understood the road with me, and you look
unimpressed. That's you.
But I heard that you prevented my small friend
from taking off your party dress.
I am not too sentimental to get
those valentines sticky, as others are.
I don't know if you're loving someone, which is the reason
I know this won't only be mine.

Alison, I know this peace will be killing you.
Oh truly, Alison is my purpose.

See that you obtain a husband now. Kindly
leave your dear fingers lying in the wedding cake. (She did?)
You used to hold them correctly in your hand.
I bet you accepted everything; I was what you could accept.
Sometimes I desire that I could stop you from speaking,
when I hear you speaking silly things.
I think someone outside high society assumed that's better: more to
reason, it's what I can't stand. You saw that road.

Alison, I know this peace will be killing you.
Oh truly, Alison is my purpose.
Truly my purpose.

Baby, Baby (Amy Grant)

Language: French

Shocking-confession time: I actually attended an Amy Grant concert, at about the time this song was popular (or maybe the song got big just after the concert: I don't remember). I don't really recall it much one way or the other; it was a good 15 years ago, but I probably had a good time. I also had the "Heart In Motion" album, where this song appeared, and may still -- some stuff got thrown out in the course of the most recent move, and some stuff didn't; I don't know where this album wound up. It doesn't seem likely that I could have sold it to a consignment store or anything, though: it was on a cassette, and the case was fucked up in some way or another.

So I guess what I'm saying is that my associations with this song all revolve around partial amnesia. Which is perhaps odd, but not necessarily inappropriate for a singer who abandoned her Christian audience and sold out for the chance at MTV videos in endless rotation and a chance to show cleavage and get divorced.¹

This is not necessarily a bad thing -- some of my favorite musicians actually started out as Christian artists and then moved on when they realized that they had talent of some kind². With Amy Grant, though, I do remember that it was a HUUUUUGE deal in the Christian world, Grant being the closest thing that Christian rock had to a superstar unless you're going to count, like, Carman, or Michael W. Smith, which let's please don't. There are, even now, people who believe that Amy Grant is going to a literal fire-and-brimstone kind of hell, to have her flesh seared for eternity, for singing songs like this one instead of songs which are explicitly about how cool Jesus is. Though perhaps not as many as there used to be, now that people have discovered how much money there is to be made by doing such things.

-Jessi

¹Or at least I think there was a divorce. Another case of my Amy Grant memories being a little fuzzy, apparently.
²Okay. Actually just one -- Sam Phillips, who used Leslie Phillips as her recording name when she was a Christian artist. And "talent" is possibly stretching it for Phillips, though I still like her stuff and listen to her occasionally; I don't know what the present critical consensus on her level of talent might be.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Baby, baby,
I am taken with the concept
of devotion to you, with the softest love.

Baby, the baby,
my tender love will rise from
most of the ocean into the deepest blue sky.

For a little stop,
baby, I'm so happy you are mine. Yes
you are mine.

Baby, the baby
is the first role for you. Hold a shine,
and they adore you. I'm sure of that, right as I am.

Baby, the baby,
the forest will walk by,
singing. A chorus of birds is above you.

For a little stop,
baby, they're so happy you're mine, oh yes,
and since moving day, my heart put you
above, to obtain you. (I realize that there is no baby, just that.)

Baby, the baby,
survive in any kind,
and I'm here for you always and always.

Baby, the baby
could divide a muscle man (which isn't
true, and never was). Isn't it my love for you?

For a little stop,
baby, I am so happy you are mine.
And since my heart is moving, you put the day
there, baby. I realize that that is just. You've nothing above to obtain.

And since you put my heart to moving, the day
is just to obtain you. Baby, I realize that there's nothing above that,
above you.

Baby, the baby,
always and for always.
Baby, I'm so happy that
the baby is so happy. Here for you,
baby of mine: are you?
I'm so happy that
when I think of you, it makes me the smiling baby.
Baby, you're my baby:
I'm so happy, baby, that
you don't cease giving love.
(Don't stop, no.)
Baby, I'm so happy that you're my baby, who
is happy thus. I'm
happy (I am so.), that
when I think of you, it makes me smile.

The Devil Decreased to Georgia (Charlie Daniels Band)

Completing the trilogy of songs that played on my parent’s preferred radio station when I was young and that impressed upon me the consequences of the choices one makes in life, is this, a song that my parents then and I now view with a certain amount of embarrassment. The sheer literalness of the Faustian bargain portrayed here is why one cannot listen to a good 60% of Christian Rock without being overcome by confused pity, but here the hard shellac of 25 years of irony helps out a bit.

Was “Country” better before it lost the vestigial tail “-and Western”? I don’t know, but I like how Johnny wins not by outwitting the Devil by discovering a small technical loophole in the contract or something like that (which smacks of Elitist East Coast Liberalism), but simply by dint of the fact that Being an American Automatically Means You Are Better Than the Devil (which was John Abizaid’s runner-up name).

Just look at Charlie Daniels:
Was this the face that lunched a thousand chips?
And ain’t that America?

N.B. In Russia, the Devil goes up to Georgia, a nice touch, but this is from the Dutch, where the sun increases and Old Scratch must decrease. Gentlemen, start your monotonic functions.


--Samantha Moss


The devil decreased to Georgia. He sought a soul to steal.
He in was binds because he was mannered, and he was prepared to make an agreement.
Then he, concerning these young people came who play, saw and it on fiddle hot
And the devil on hickory stump jumped and said: “The boy let me tell you which --
I assume you it did not know, but I am also fiddle player
And as the care you’d to take dare, I now into a bet with you.
You turn rather good fiddle-game, but give the devil, to boy, to have been appropriate:
I bet fiddle of gold against your soul, because I think I improve be then you.”

The boy said: “Johnny of my name, and it a sin can be,
But I will take your bet, you will regret, because I am the bests that ever.”

Johnny, you resin up your arc and plays your fiddle hard
Because the hell break separately in Georgia
And the devil the cards address.
And, if you win, you get this gleaming fiddle which are golden,
But if you lose, get the devil your soul.

The devil put its case open and he said: “I this show to start,”
And the fire flew of its finger tops since he are up arc rosined.
And he drew the arc concerning its ties and it made an angry “SIS” consonance,
Then joined a link of demons, and it sounded something as this

[music containing the “SIS” consonance -SM]

Then, the concluded devil, Johnny said: “Are well, you rather good, Old Son,
But will sit as that President, right, and one can there you show how it would be done

Do the fire on the mount, lope, youngsters, lope
The devil in the house of increasing sun
Chicken in the bread needle, which paste
“Granny selects, your hound bite do?”
“No, child, no.”

[music that is frankly less interesting than the earlier music -SM]

The devil bent its head because he knew that he’d beat
And he empty that golden fiddle said on the spot at the feet to Johnny
Of Johnny: “The devil comes only on back if you want ever try again
Because I you once told, you son of a female is,
I the bests that ever.”

And he played fire on the mount, lope, youngsters, lope,
The devil in the house of increasing sun
Chicken in the bread needle, which paste
“Granny selects, your hound bite do?”
“No, child, no.”