My iPod Nano has revo - lution - ized my music listening habits (thanks kids!). It gets me up close and personal, and I can take it to work, where my job affords me lots of listening time. As a result, I'm listening to all kindsa stuff -- old and new.If life is measured in seasons, seasons are measured in songs. At various stages of our lives, songs drift in and out, nudging their way into our mental archives, joining other tunes in a mystical / emotional repository. (This is why I can rarely listen to Here I am to Worship, by Tim Hughes, without bawling.)
Anyway, I recently purchased The Flaming Lips' new album, At War With the Mystics. I've been wanting to give The Lips a listen and have so enjoyed the album that I bought an earlier one, The Soft Bulletin. The sound is quite novel -- orchestral, sixties psychedelia, a kind of poppy Pink Floyd. The lyrics are idiosyncratic, unconvential and anything but run-of-the-mill.
So the first song on their new album has been embedded in my brain for the last month. It's a quirky, breezy, hilarous, and utterly addictive diddy entitled, The Yeah Yeah Song. The first stanza goes like this:
If you could blow up the world with the flick of a switch
Would you do it?
If you could make everybody poor just so you could be rich
Would you do it?
If you could watch everybody work while you just lay on your back
Would you do it?
If you could take all the love without giving any back
Would you do it?
And so we cannot know ourselves or what we'd really do
With all your power...
What would you do?
You can listen to the song at the Lips' website, and I recommend you do. I'm not sure how this song fits with, Here I Am to Worship, but it's in my brainpan now. Perhaps this is my Yeah, Yeah season...
