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I am sleeping and dreaming of rock.
I dream of being a provocateur of the post-industrial era, like the one with the painted face I always see on MTV and can't listen to when my parents are around, because otherwise they say I have a social disease, or else I'll flood the school on Friday night to avoid doing the Greek translation, or, worse yet, I'll enter class with a semi-automatic rifle and kill the teacher.
I dream of being one of those singers with a deep voice and an air of "I know I'm cool, but I don't give a damn," with despair in their eyes and a marble obelisk instead of a slobber.
I dream of being one of those very glamorous pop stars who have turned faggotry into a virtue and that now the newspaper says have been "legitimized," because before, being gay was outrageous, then being gay became alternative but ghettoizing, while now being gay is radical chic (unless, says that journalist mom loves, they use their sick embryos for procreation). Lost in my dream made of clichés, I feel that I have finally found my purpose in life: to be a rock star and be frighteningly cool. Because there’s no doubt about it: rock stars and coolness go hand in hand like Totò and Peppino.
When I wake up, I am soaked in sweat and I've probably had some nocturnal emissions (damn, I must remember to take the picture of Bondi off the wall above my bed, it excites me too much to look at it before sleeping): the memory of my dreamlike experience gives me a fleeting moment of ecstatic, ephemeral happiness. But suddenly despair overtakes me. Because I become aware that reality is different from the dream; because in reality, the equation rock = cool is false. Because in reality, Doug Martsch exists.
Doug Martsch is a damn loser: he dresses like a nerd, he's balding and chubby; when he goes out, the least that can happen to him is someone comes up from behind and gives him a wedgie (and the joke works well because, like a good loser, the poor Doug wears briefs instead of boxers). Moreover, what unsettles me even more is his impressive resemblance to that huge son of my neighbor's laundress, who's already gotten me three warning letters from the administrator.
In short, he is the embodiment of the most typical losers, a thousand miles away from the badass rockers who populate my personal "country of the sleep"; yet it's here that reality cynically mocks the meager human certainties - the music this onanist plays is hauntingly beautiful.
The rock of his Built To Spill has always disarmed me, because it's a kind of refined indie, with songs of complex structure, composed of true suites.
And if this weren't enough to send the followers of Franz Ferdinand to hell, add that in this "Live" from 2000, their best songs are reworked and played with an energy and emotion even higher than the studio versions. If you then perform live 20-minute songs without causing orchitis to those listening, it means you're not on stage by chance; and if one of the 20-minute songs is a cover of Neil Young's "Cortez The Killer," it means that in addition to knowing how to play, you also have good taste.
And so, squandering the maracujas of clichés, I listen to this album and let Doug's lascivious guitar flow under my skin; and when, after 70 minutes of live music, it ends, I am seized by an indomitable iconoclastic fury: angrily, I tear down all my Justin Timberlake backpacks, set fire to all my Creed pencil cases, and throw my entire collection of Marilyn Manson stickers out the window. From now on, my mission will be to preach to legions of young, easily impressionable minds that if you are a loser, the goddess Hator will smile upon you.
Because even Franco Nero is a chubby loser, yet he made Surfer Rosa.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 The Plan (04:54)
The plan keeps comming up again
And the plan mean nothing stays the same
But the plan won't accomplish anything
If it's not implemented.
Like it's always been
And it makes me think of everyone
The cause of this is evident
But the remedy cannot be found
Cause it's so well hidden
This history lesson doesn't make any sense
In any less than ten thousand year increments of (common sense) (x5)
02 Randy Described Eternity (03:55)
Every Thousand Years
This metal sphere
Ten times the size of Jupiter
Flies just a few yards past the Earth
You climb on your roof
and take a swipe at it
with a single feather
and you do it once every thousand years
Til you've worn it down
to the size of a pea
Yeah, I'd say that's a long time
but it's only half a blink
in the place we're going to be
Where you going to be?
Where will you spend eternity?
I'm going to be perfect from now on
I'm going to be perfect starting now.
I will say I forgot it
but it was only yesterday
and that's all you have to say.
03 Stop the Show (04:15)
You dont tell me anything
Its not a dream
Its not a big lie
Youre not going anywhere
You dont care
You think thats fine
You dont owe me anything
The offering
Is already mine
Your best friend is everywhere
They dont care
They think youre slime
You dont even know
What it means to
Take your own advice and then
Expect me to look suprised
After a while you know the style and thats enough to kno you suck
And when you know to stop the show because you know they know
I know its sad but dont feel bad they knew they had it coming
After a while it hurts to smile and if you laugh its just a typical miracle
06 Car (03:07)
You get the car, I'll get the night off.
We'll get the chance..
to take the world apart and figure out how it works.
Don't let me know what you find out.
I need a car.. You need a guide who needs a map.
If I don't die or worse.. I'm gonna need a nap.
At best I'll be asleep when you get back.
I wanna see it when you find out what comets, stars, and moons are all about.
I wanna see their faces turn to backs of heads and slowly get smaller.
I wanna see it now.
I want specifics on the general idea.
I wanna think what I should know.
Want you to do to me what you showed.
I wanna see movies of my dreams.
I wanna see movies of my dreams.
I wanna see movies of my dreams.
I wanna see it when you get stoned on a cloudy breezy desert afternoon.
I wanna see it untame itself and break its owner.
I wanna see it now.
I wanna see it now
.
08 I Would Hurt a Fly (05:24)
I can't get that sound you make out of my head
I can't even figure out what's making it
no one else around even seems to be noticing
it's only small enough for me
I can't get that sound you make out of my head
I can't even figure out what's making it
it feels like fingernails across the moon
or do you rub your wings together
there's a mean bone in my body
it's connected to the problems that I won't take for an answer
and I won't take that from you
because I'd hurt a fly
let you go to sleep
feeling bad as me
let you go to sleep
feeling bad
there's a mean bone in my body
it's connected to the problems that I won't take for an answer
and I won't take that from you
because I'd hurt a fly
09 Broken Chairs (19:05)
Broken Chairs your body conforms to
Out beyond the quieted garden
You can bring the man form into trust
Through the holes in my everydayness
Lends sustenance where starvation's necessary
Cause my head's a dictionary
Of long spring days and the speech of crows
Who themselves are mirrors of apprehensions
In the fallen sun
Where starvation's necessary
Cause my head's a dictionary
Of long spring days and the speech of crows
Who themselves are mirrors of apprehensions
In the fallen sun
Who themselves are mirrors of apprehensions
In the fallen sun
Well, alright
You can make it stay
Well, alright
Well, alright
Well, alright
You can make it stay
Well, alright
Alright
Alright
Well, alright
Alright
Alright
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