Damn you, St. Valentine. Feb 14 '04    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 Bah, humbug. Love is all around. Apparently. And today is that annoying day on which those who feel it, flaunt it, and those who don’t stay in and cover their head with a pillow. Actually, it’s not really so bad because the whole exercise of St. Valentine’s is a commercial holiday to get people to buy greeting cards which otherwise don’t sell so well until next Christmas. Which means you only really have to put up with huge banners and balloons around the local mall, and posters advertising some dance or other. As if you needed an excuse to show you loved someone. Anyway, I’ve been listening to a lot of The Cure lately (perhaps you may have noticed?), and so this Valentine’s was never going to work out well for me. So, in truest Guildenstern tradition, here is a list of anti-Valentine’s songs, for your perusal, amusement or perennial disgust. Blue Valentine’s by Tom Waits Of course. Tom Waits is a fascinating individual. His voice can just as easily remain in the gravel tones he’s most famous for, as it can shake touchingly on the high notes. He throws himself straight into this one, accompanied only by two guitars, and what initially sounds merely pleasant becomes increasingly desolate and intense as it progresses. It’s one of the most moving things I’ve heard since I first pressed play on my brand new copy of Grace, and it’s hard not to be carried away into the ocean of misery that Waits produces here for our delectation. ‘Blue’ doesn’t quite describe it. And I wanna die just a little more on each St. Valentine’s day The Breakup Song by American Hi Fi This is far from being my favourite song by these guys, but it’s something a little more upbeat. It veers a little too far towards thrashy power pop in a bad way, but it’s fun and I already used the next best breakup song last year (Ben Folds Five Song for the dumped of course). I can’t believe I hung around with you all this time intones Stacy Jones, as he leaves a girl that he’s sick to death of and glad to be single again. One more thing before you go Would you please give me my records back? My Bloody Valentine The Pixies Cheap Trick and Back in Black Well, you can’t fault him for wanting the first two back… Mistakes and Regrets by …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead Something a little darker, and a little bit noisier, this is from their first full length Madonna. The subject is pretty self-explanatory, a cry of rage in the face of a damaging relationship and if I screamed you were wrong at the top of my lungs you would never return all the faith I have lost. Simply put, it’s a song about being with the wrong person, about everything going horribly wrong, and about the emotional messiness of falling far out of love. If I could make a list of my mistakes and regrets I’d put your name on top And every line after it Love is Hell by Ryan Adams Trust Ryan Adams to make a sound byte out of the theme. But the man has a point, love is hell. It’s a song about the promises you make to yourself to never love anyone again, and yet you go right ahead and commit yourself again. It’s about the emotional helplessness of trying to protect yourself from what you want – you know it’ll hurt like hell, but you simply cannot stop yourself, no matter how hard you try, from falling head over heels in love again and again. Such sweet sorrow. I could be anything, anything but sticking around Love is hell Never gonna fall in love again by Snow Patrol A variation on a theme, slighter than Ryan’s take nevertheless. In this case, set to a chugging guitar and spiralling synth, Gary Lightbody’s sweet vocals mutter their way endearingly through a resolution to never love again – this one’s from the band’s second album, When it’s all over we still have to clear up, and thereby previous to the glorious Reindeer Section. However, the repeated mantra of it is extremely catchy – cunningly we’re singing along to the chorus, but our heart isn’t in it because it’s almost as if we don’t realise what we’re singing. Insidious, and accurate. After all, you can keep telling yourself you won’t fall in love again. But dammit, you will. Something snapped me out of a dream that I was having… Tidying up after the fight we had New Birds by Arab Strap I’ve decided to stay with Scotland a little longer, and it’s no wonder than Aidan Moffat’s band made this list – the man is the king of morbid wailings, most of which are about sex-obsessed lonely people breaking up or generally sabotaging their own lives with painful relationships. New Birds is a particularly moving song (on Philophobia and live on Mad for Sadness), in which Aidan talks us through the first few minutes, a short-story set to low resounding drumming and sparse guitar fills. He bumps into an ex-girlfriend, and the temptation of a kiss is haunting them both. Eventually, he decides to take a step back, each go their separate ways. Moffat’s seductive vocals sweep you off your feet, and once the band come roaring in for that finale after the story ends, it’s hard not to be moved. I mean, it’s really hard not to be moved by the confessional honesty, the thundering power of the band (in both quiet and loud modes). Ex-girlfriends are the worst. And you can’t remember how she kissed, And now you’ve got a perfect opportunity and jog your memory … And she just asks you straight out if you want to come back to her flat, stay with her. And you think about it for a minute, but then you make up your mind, and you get in the separate taxis and you go your opposite way and you lie in bed, there’s a slight regret you wonder what you missed… and you’ll know you’ve done the right thing. Goodbye by Archive Keeler’s outfit may have started life as a trip-hop band, but You all look the same to me was a welcome surprise for it’s breadth and immediacy. The song is about knowing you have to leave someone. The initial synth melody, wonderfully simple, is supplemented later by a crunching beat as the word goodbye rolls throughout the song – it’s about hurting someone you really don’t want to hurt, but the unspoken inevitability of the scenario is genuinely affecting. It’s quite nice that he brings a female vocal in for the final couple of minutes, in which the song collapses and is replaced by a simple piano, almost responding to the departure. The worst kind of sad The Kiss by The Cure And now for a little all-out hate. I’m not sure quite what may or may not have happened to Rob over the years, but someone’s getting a good ole kick in the teeth with the opener to 1987’s Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me. Again, it’s a song about wanting someone, and knowing their touch and presence is like poison for the soul. Aside from the screeching guitar opening, Rob seems to lose total control as this one progresses, voice cracking and squealing under pressure, feeling mutilated by the relationship - you nail me to the floor and push my guts all inside out. Sometimes you can’t help falling in love, and just as often you can’t help your stomach churning over someone. Such disgust. I never wanted any of this I wish you were dead Serenade by Arab Strap Another Moffat tune, slightly more recent, from 2003 Monday at the Hug & Pint. Drum machine ticking over, beautiful guitar riffs and violin accompaniment, and all for a tale of hopelessly unrequited love. Aidan is just trying to show his affection – he’d serenade her, spell her name in the sky with fireworks – but he is just ignored. Musically it’s gorgeous, particularly that little bridge two minutes in where all the sounds fade out and leave Aidan and Malcolm Middleton on guitars in pure naked fragility. I only go for girls I’ve got no chance with Apart by The Cure Yes, MORE damned Cure. A simple haunting song about falling out of love. About finding the one, about living with the one, and about one day discovering that there is no connection there any more, everything you loved about the one seems to have vanished. What is most powerful is the helpless realisation, the moment of coldness in which you wonder where it went wrong, and why this love that filled your life in the past has apparently disappeared without trace. How did we get this far apart? We used to be so close together I thought this love could last forever Rest stop by Matchbox Twenty Rob Thomas’ boys tend to be too overwrought to be genuinely emotionally affecting – their music is best enjoyed on face value, entertaining, well-performed and immensely enjoyable modern pop-rock. And a lot of the time ridiculously catchy. However, occasionally the boys find something special, and Rest stop is just that, a very simple and engaging story about having someone fall out of love with you, and desperately trying to come to terms with that fact. See, you don’t always have to be the one falling out of love, sometimes it happens to you too – and it’s the shock that the band communicate well, particularly through Thomas’ theatrically effective vocals. I don’t wanna be cold I don’t wanna be cruel But I’ve got to find woman what’s happened with you Touched by VAST A wonderful coming-to-terms with loss. Jon Crosby constructs a compelling soundscape for his confession, combining sampled chants, chugging metallic guitars and a gripping acoustic guitar performance. It’s a longing song, desperate for readmission into a world that has rejected him – a desperation beautifully captured in the hauntingly repetitive sampled loop and the overbearing Arab influence on the orchestration of the song and its occasional touches of unusual instrumentation. I’ll never find someone quite like you again Why bother? by Weezer Pinkerton is a very strange album, and most days I can’t decide if I like it or not. Either way, what it most laudable about it is that the boys are stretching a sound they could have just relied on for a simple repeat of their immensely popular debut and blue album. This one is just heart-ache you can sing to. It’s, once again, denying feelings because they will eventually only get you hurt – it relies on the somewhat existential thought that it will go wrong at some point, no matter how hard you work to make things right. Rivers Cuomo sets it to a chugging rocking verse and an abruptly simple and poppy chorus. Why bother indeed? Why bother? It’s gonna hurt me It’s gonna kill when you desert me This has happened to me twice before It won’t happen to me anymore Angels of the silences by Counting Crows With Counting Crows it’s not usually as easy as just ‘someone leaves someone else’. Usually it’s set to a cityscape or it’s a love letter dedicated to a long-gone woman only scratching the surface of the problems that tore them asunder. However, Angels of the silences is just hard rocking enough for you to gloss over the story and hold on to the basic thought of waiting for you, for someone who isn’t coming back. The strongest image is that of the angels hanging above his head, suck my blood, break my nerve, offer me their arms… of the idle thoughts that try to make sense of a situation but only serve to torture the mind. Until you just make the decision to clear the air that you’ve gotta leave today Well I guess you left me with some feathers in my hand did it make it any easier to leave me where I stand? Brick sh!thouse by Placebo I’m not sure what this song is about, but there’s a particular one liner that speaks volumes when set to the racing blasting pulse of what may be Placebo’s hardest rocker. Don’t you wish you’d never met her. Either way, I’d assume this is a song about not just unrequited love, but the burning envy of seeing the one you love with another man. Couple this with the aggressive thrashy blast of the song, and you have one of the most energizing songs I can think of, making you want to turn your back and run as far away as you can from a certain someone. Now your lover went and put me in the ground I’ll be watching when he’s around Messenger bird song by Bright Eyes There are few things more soothing for a broken heart than the confessional beauty of Conor Oberst at his best. This is a blissful folky acoustic strum, accompanied by a simply magnificent banjo, while Conor attempts to somehow express the magnitude of his feelings for someone, and eventually brought down to a pleading desire to either be loved or turned away. Conor has made a virtue of the apparent surface simplicity of songs like these, rooting himself in folk and punk in equal measures, and producing some of the most soul-searchingly beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. How can you fail to be moved by images as magnificent as So you made me come. Then you sent me away like a messenger bird. So I circled the earth, blown away by the wind, but I always returned. But no matter how badly Conor is treated, he cannot help but return to the same person over and over. Say the word and of course I’ll stay Roll your eyes and I’ll go away Just please don’t keep me guessing Love is blindness by U2 And after that beautiful Bright Eyes song, it’s almost too obvious to recur to that old axiom, ancient and dreadfully accurate. I think it’s arguable that U2 never recorded anything this desolate ever again. Bono delivers this with his accustomed intensity, but it feels to scarily heartfelt and lonely as to be instantly heartbreaking. So it’s only natural that The Edge came up with a guitar solo of blistering intensity and simple repetitive crawling sorrow. Genuinely powerful. Love is blindness I don’t want to see Valentine’s day by Steve Earle So anyway, I thought I’d end on a slightly more upbeat note, or at least a song about the spirit of Valentine’s day. I ain’t got a card to sign, roses have been hard to find mutters Earle in his characteristic and charismatic drawl, wielding only the simple honesty of his love. It’s set to an acoustic guitar and string backing, and it’s just lovely. I only got my love to send On Valentine’s day But anyway, don’t worry I’m not going soft right at the end – I just thought it would be nice to remind people that Valentine’s day isn’t about the silly cards or chocolates. Although I imagine the chocolates help. Either way, all love will somehow end in tears, so grab these moments of Hallmark inspired happiness and remember that it won’t be there forever unless you’re some kind of lucky freak who’s never once been hurt in your life. Definitely, it seems most of the musicians in the world have been danced on at one time or another. So, go on then, say it with me, all the lovelorn and lost on this cold February night. I’m never gonna fall in love again… say it once more, with feeling… I really hate being single. ------- Enjoy this? Why not read some more of my single-male ranting? Valentine’s Day, Schmalentine’s Day

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