Wednesday's Emotional Setup: Too Late
[editor's note: This was posted on my journal at 1:47 am this morning, but I forgot to put it here too.]
So, as you may have gathered, I've been running around like the proverbial chicken with no head getting everything in line for the trip to NYC tomorrow (technically). For example, I'm doing this late Tuesday night instead of sometime later today because I don't think I'll have time later.
As I was frantically rushing around the office and so on today trying to get things done (mostly successfully, I should add), only one song was stuck in my head: The magnificently frenetic 'Too Late', by Wire.
The official lyrics (or at least, the ones on The Wire Page) go as follows:
"Oh you should miss her, she says she's my sister
She's never hard to find
She's tender-trusting, she's everlasting
Can I change my mind?
Is it too late to change my mind?
Mirror, mirror, icy sister
Love is never blind
She's slowly turning, mouth gently burning
Can I change my mind?
She pisses icy water on poetic mornings
Got to be cruel to be kind
Is this real life, is it for life?
Can I change my mind?"
The song is a relatively typical Wire song of the period (Chairs Missing); it doesn't pogo so much as spasm, it's very definitively post-punk (just like Sam says) in that if Wire were dumber it would just be another punk song, albeit with slightly more interesting lyrics.
But Wire are smarter than that. So not only is the part listed above my very definition of nervous tension, relying mostly on a guitar part that skips from note to note like it's trying to make up its mind, but there's the bit after the lyrics above:
Colin Newman sings "Is it too late to change my mind?" again, and again, and again, and again, and then just starts singing "Too late! Too late! Too late! Too late! Too late!" and then he's just stuttering "t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t" and then the guitar breaks in louder than ever, playing that queasy, seasick riff over and over again, the song reaching the very peack of indecision.
To say it didn't improve my feelings of mild panic as I rushed around today would be an understatement, but that just points to how great a song it is.
-----
So, as you may have gathered, I've been running around like the proverbial chicken with no head getting everything in line for the trip to NYC tomorrow (technically). For example, I'm doing this late Tuesday night instead of sometime later today because I don't think I'll have time later.
As I was frantically rushing around the office and so on today trying to get things done (mostly successfully, I should add), only one song was stuck in my head: The magnificently frenetic 'Too Late', by Wire.
The official lyrics (or at least, the ones on The Wire Page) go as follows:
"Oh you should miss her, she says she's my sister
She's never hard to find
She's tender-trusting, she's everlasting
Can I change my mind?
Is it too late to change my mind?
Mirror, mirror, icy sister
Love is never blind
She's slowly turning, mouth gently burning
Can I change my mind?
She pisses icy water on poetic mornings
Got to be cruel to be kind
Is this real life, is it for life?
Can I change my mind?"
The song is a relatively typical Wire song of the period (Chairs Missing); it doesn't pogo so much as spasm, it's very definitively post-punk (just like Sam says) in that if Wire were dumber it would just be another punk song, albeit with slightly more interesting lyrics.
But Wire are smarter than that. So not only is the part listed above my very definition of nervous tension, relying mostly on a guitar part that skips from note to note like it's trying to make up its mind, but there's the bit after the lyrics above:
Colin Newman sings "Is it too late to change my mind?" again, and again, and again, and again, and then just starts singing "Too late! Too late! Too late! Too late! Too late!" and then he's just stuttering "t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t" and then the guitar breaks in louder than ever, playing that queasy, seasick riff over and over again, the song reaching the very peack of indecision.
To say it didn't improve my feelings of mild panic as I rushed around today would be an understatement, but that just points to how great a song it is.
-----
