implausible deniability: songs for tongue-tied lovers Mar 17 '03 (Updated Aug 28 '03)    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Music Revelation [Digipak] by Journey From $12 Machine Gun Etiquette by The Damned From $40 The Bottom Line Well-wishing notes on love, and on obscure songs that shouldn't be. This is, first of all, not a proposed mix for direct in-person seduction. I wouldn't really know how to begin such a thing; "sexual situations" (as the Cinemax listings always called them) have been the one time I'm most generally _not_ listening to music. However, I have just enough such listening practice to suggest that you don't want your next Sex Mix to include Genesis's "Counting Out Time", a very funny Peter Gabriel song about sexual ineptitude that turns out to be quite unhelpful at such times. Romance Mixes, though, exist to strengthen the case for you when you aren't around to be wonderful in person. The following is, in my experience, a more direct Romance Mix than is actually needed; I think everything I've seen in this category is. I promise you: the girls who've wanted to figure out when I adore them have never been stymied by a ratio where every devoted love song is outnumbered 2:1 by randomness like, say, avant-garde chamber songs about werewolves. After all, isn't seven love songs out of twenty still seven love songs? "You are seven times more fascinating to me than werewolves", said the hero on bended knee. As for the girls who didn't want to figure out my interest, I preferred to maintain plausible deniability. But there's a limit to how Off-Topic I want to be in my suggestions, and maybe you're not nearly as ready to flinch as I can be; so the following 16 songs are a composite mix (which doesn't mean I'd never let you have a copy). For the right partner, I'd expect it to work. Any resulting fury from his or her spouse is not the responsibility of Epinions or its authors. ****************** Guided by Voices, "I am a Scientist", Bee Thousand. A pretty little guitar line, as sophisticated as the piano from "Chopsticks", begins a mix with an honest but unthreatening manifesto sung in an articulate, elegant, yearning voice. I am a journalist, I write to you to show you/ that I am an incurable and nothing else behaves like me; your intended deserves that information, right? I am a pharmacist, prescriptions I will fill you/ Potions, pills and medicines to ease your painful lives; you're making an offer, you have something to trade. The hole I dig is bottomless, but nothing else will set me free; ah well. If it's a pit you be stuck in, at least it's a private place to kiss. Amy X Neuberg and Men, "Chinatown", Utechma. The opening piano line, though stepped up in energy and in 9/8 time, doesn't disturb the basic simplicity of mood; but shortly synthesizers and the skittering of Joel Davel's "lighting sensor motion instrument" join in, and our mix acquires some verve. And a second developed character besides "I": I want to live in Chinatown cuz the food's so good, and you say 'No, no, no, no! We're not Chinese, and anyway aren't they a kind of private people' and I say, 'when did we ever know our neighbors? when did we ever say hello to one of them? I'm always inside here with you'. The first flash of the avant-musical-comedy style Neuberg and Men would later refine and trademark, "Chinatown" has Neuberg's confident voice jousting with the Basso Profundo of the men as they resolve a romance's dialectic: What I'm really trying to say is, I want to live in Chinatown _and_ be inside with you. Song 2: establish your goals, and a negotiating style. W.A.C.O., "Charge of the Light Brigade", Sylvania. This piano's beat is steadier, the only dissonance comes from the Wild Acoustic Chamber Orchestra's clarinet section, and the vocals are earnestly shouted like young David Byrne, as we learn about various science projects we can perform to learn more about light. If you and your intended are going to stay inside all the time, you'll need some interests to keep you busy. Ween, "Mutilated Lips", the Mollusk. A gentler mood: we maintain steady beat and unconventional instrumentation, but this is swirlier, with "Strawberry Fields" vocal effects and soft Mellotrons. Mutilated lips/ give a kiss on the wrist/ on the worm-like tips/ of tentacles expanding in my mind/ I'm fine, accepting only fresh brine/ you can get another drop of this, yeah you wish: we maintain science-class terms but move towards kissing as we wait for experimental results. The music is sexy, the words aren't sexy, so if you are sexy, that's 2 to 1: the ayes have it. If your intended can giggle and still want to kiss, that's evidence you chose him/her well. Robyn Hitchcock, "Chinese Bones", Globe of Frogs. Which doesn't mean a more _earnest_ dreamy mood shouldn't follow. Watching Romeo dissolve, I was tempted to join in... Watching Juliet disrobe, I would hasten towards her: the proper sorts of emotions. I've heard generic love songs promise things scarier than The line between us is so thin/ I might as well be you/ And everywhere I've ever been/ I know you're going too, and if you've made any progress, those lines ought to sound at least somewhat tempting. Perhaps also rushed, I know, I know, but hey: Something Shakespeare never said is 'You've got to be kidding'. Talking Heads, "And She Was", Little Creatures. Because dreamy moods should evolve into exuberant ones, and this is a musical transition that works. Because sometimes it's nice to record a song that the recipient already likes. Because if The world was moving/ she was floating above it, and if (as we just established) she's going everywhere _you've_ ever been, then obviously you can fly, and how cool is that? Jim's Big Ego, "Ahead of the Curve", Don't Get Smart. It's catchy enough, in its 1998 guitar-bass-drums trio, to stand up after the '80's catchiness of Talking Heads. It advertises your hipness in unmistakeable terms -- All of my friends/ are doing things that I was into/ before it was the rage/ I used to watch TV, then I listened to the radio/ then I got into the Internet, now the Internet is tired/ I'd tell you what I'm into now, but it just might start a trend/ cause the stock market to swerve, but I just might tell you anyway -- and as anyone unwarned by Tullycraft's song "Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend's Too Stupid to Know About" believes, hipsterdom is the key to romantic success. But the more important reason to include "Ahead of the Curve" is to show that you're choosy, that you didn't pick your love object out of desperation. I used to know this girl, she was abducted by aliens/ she'd look into my eyes, then she'd look into the sky (then I got tired of that)/ Then i found this other girl who's into crack and crank and Ritalin/ she swirled around inside herself so fast she disappeared/ so I found this girl who was into scarification, she had tattoos all over her body/ and it was kinda gross, in fact it was really disgusting. You, my love: you're not like that. Ani DiFranco, "Garden of Simple", Reveling. Now we're into folk-rock guitar music, and Ani, when not being bitter or political, writes some of the most romantic folk songs on the planet. Actually, she does so even when she _is_ being a little political, which background helps make "Garden of Simple" one of the great you-and-me-against-the-world songs. Also, it assumes the relevance of the Bonanza Breakfast Bar as a setting: a subliminal hint that you might be around then? Rheostatics, "In This Town", Introducing Happiness. Even softer and more intimate than Ani, and with Martin Tielli's reliably crush-inspiring voice (admittedly the crushes it inspires are on _him_, but transference, my friend, you're trying to invoke transference). All around, there is MMM and AHH/ All around there's MMM and AHH, then there's this/ forgotten little murmur they call nothing much at all; two people out of six billion is as little as murmurs get. I love you/ because you don't know why/ you don't know why you feel resentful: a sweet reward for a close-to-universally known feeling. I love you/ because you took a stand/ for those of us who are the weaker/ 'cos we're not fakes/ We are wild and we are screwed. I'd hope that's touching and applicable, too. John Vanderslice, "You are My Fiji", Time Travel is Lonely. Sometimes you're making a mix and there's a song that keeps going through your head and you might as well include it, especially since the weird way Vanderslice's fingers slide over the guitar here goes nicely with the mix's prior two songs. I hope being his Fiji is a good thing; I haven't paid close enough attention, but surely it oughtta be. Jane Siberry, "Mimi on the Beach", No Borders Here. Just to be safe, though, try following it with the greatest song ever recorded (according to me, and it's my essay). Combine the girlish overexcitement of a name like "Mimi" and the synthetic reflectiveness of Philip Glass's "Einstein on the Beach" and you have a good picture of the musical mood. The main lyrics are directed at a stranger out on the waves, an urgent offering of courage against problems only imaginable. Furthermore, the day is faultless in beauty, pitched on tropical scenery, but Siberry still notices See the girl with perfect teeth/ She picks up lonely guys in bars/ and then takes off when they buy her drinks/ 'Don't you have money?', I ask -- 'Of course I do'. You and your beloved against the world is a fine idea, but not all of the world earned your enmity, and some of its people are as confused as you. Have some empathy, both of you, and use it when it's needed. Joe Jackson, "Stranger Than You", Night and Day Part II. But do, then, remember to coo and flatter again. Met my friend the Chinese Elvis and hoisted a few/ He talks like Mickey Mouse and has X-ray eyes/ Lives in a cardboard house/ I almost gave him the prize/ Until you came along/ thanks for opening my eyes/ Things you do, right or wrong/ They should come as no surprise. What's a sexier trait to credit him/her with than always, always being interesting? Emm Gryner, "Pour Some Sugar on Me", Girl Versions. The problem with Def Leppard is that they'd write an intense, sexy piano ballad and think it was a loud, rapped ululation of impending conquest. Of course so did I, and I liked it a lot. But Emm revealing the hit's true nature, solemnly intoning its nonsense as the most intimate of vows, is better. Optigonally Yours, "Donut", Exclusively Talentmaker. If we're talking about sex and sugar, than all of a sudden this bossa nova for berserk robots -- I cannot sleep/ I want to eat/ after-midnight quarter Mobil donut -- completely loses the implied sadness of getting up and walking to the gas station by yourself. And donuts are yummy. Loud Family, "the Ballad of How You Can All Shut Up"/"Give-in World", Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things. As long as we're feeding berserk robots, we might as well let Scott Miller, the greatest hyperintellectual romantic songwriter in the world, have a conversation with a berserk robot too, one over which a sad and yearning song slowly emerges. But it ends with the triumphant jangly guitar riff that kicks into "Give-in World", a poppy, utterly commercial (or should've been) song that's just one, completely external flaw short of being a perfect wedding song. There's the cash/ There's the travel/ There's the life they've got for you/ Do you want it just because they say you do?... Sha-ley-ni, Sha-ley-ni/ It's a right-now world/ And will you wait the long wait for me?/ Sha-ley-ni, Sha-ley-ni/ It's a give-in world/ And will you fight the good fight with me?. It adds Do they know you just because they've found a flaw?, and no, of course not. They know you when they find a flaw and love you anyway. Chrysanthemums, "the Hydrometer Song", Little Flecks of Foam Around Barking. Which is all pretty darn heavy for the trying-to-communicate-your-feelings-with-mix-CDs part of the relationship. There's nothing wrong with exclaiming a goal, but especially since Scott Miller is now on his _second_ marriage, it can then be good to bury your head in the sand, because that way you're invisible. "The Hygrometer Song" lasts 23 seconds, a happy skiffle in 5/4 time: Diving in the ocean, I found an instrument for/ measuring the moisture content/ of air/ It read 82%, so there/ could be somewhere/ moister than the ocean./ Ba, bababa, baaaaa! And I just noticed, for the first time, that "moister than the ocean" could seem on-topic too. But if s/he's perceiving enough to notice that... well. That should mean you're doing just fine.

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