The Modern Lovers - "Girlfriend". You can't understand the having of a girlfriend except in having one. Jonathan Richman slurs this wisdom, misspelling the word "girlfriend", and yet still he's right.
well first I'd go to the room where they keep the CézannesHe says it better than I can, here or anywhere else. Certainly better than I can at the moment, being without girlfriend. (Hi!) Writing about this song is hopeless, really. I should just do like the bassline and mosey.
but if I had by my side a girlfriend
then I could look through the paintings
I could look right through them
because I'd have found something that I understand
But look let me just give it a quick half-a-shot. (What's the bother, it's just a blog.) There's something indescribable about the having of a girlfriend, in the La and Hush and She of it. It's something like the particular sweetness of a slice of flush melon. There's something in the beauty and the motion of her, the closeness and the way she can move away. Richman catches some of it in not spelling the word, in leaving it as "g-i-r-l-f-r-e-n", as something casual and sexy and roll-off-the-tongue and familiar and cool and smiling. "Girlfren" is like the name of the last bird you spot on a birdwatching trip. It's like a certainty that you're a long way from being able to totally remember. I mean listen to that garage solo. Fuck.
I'm not sure the same truth is true when it comes to boyfriends, or wives. Perhaps some men or women in our audience can tell me their thoughts.
[buy the reissued Modern Lovers debut]
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Souled American - "Ringside Suite". It's not so much a medley as a quilt: handsewn patches stitched to the sound of a broken metronome, to melting clocks. "Come on / cheer / happy day!", he sings, like he's considering where the grass is greener. A dirge and reverie, "Paint It, Black" and a one-footed jig. I can't figure out if it's a summer sound, or the song you croak from under four feet of heavy white snow.
[buy the marvelous Yeti 4]
Posted by Sean at September 5, 2007 7:46 AMBest personals ad ever, Sean. C'mon women of Montreal!
Posted by: Amy at September 5, 2007 7:37 PMis better w/ wife Sean - if yr doing it right.
Posted by: BMR at September 5, 2007 8:04 PMYou are *so* going to get propositioned after this. That description (both of the girlfriend-having and of the song) is awesome.
Posted by: 2fs at September 6, 2007 11:15 PMI'm sure the having of a girlfriend is more exitable than a boyfriend. But all in all I have found that relationships are overated. The song is wishing and pouting, it reminds me of those akward "tween" years.
Posted by: Susanna at September 8, 2007 2:05 AMWhere does this picture come from? It has been a mystery to us fans of green day for a month now, since they released an album online under a fake name and this is one of the pics from there profile. Please let me know any info.
Posted by: Bruce at January 13, 2008 2:06 AM