"hell is other people's music."

"everyone and i stopped breathing"

why am i writing pop songs if we're only going to die? why am i writing pop songs when planes fall from the sky? why am i writing pop songs if we're only going to die? why am i writing pop songs when germs kill our insides? why am i writing pop songs when i could be getting high or getting laid, there's no future to the present to be paid; why cry, it's a laugh, i'll write a song on yr behalf, we're all going to die.

3'44"

it's 3:44 and i'm stepping out the door for the first time today makes it a good day; it's 3:44, i couldn't sleep a minute more, i missed all my classes, sat around in my pyjamas; spend three hours in the bibliotheque reading yeats, cocteau, and brecht, buy some dinner then resume reading greenberg and harold bloom; it's 3:44, i wasted half a day for sure, sleeping so sound i drooled, i hope i don't fail out of school; it's 3:44, i sleep a lot but i don't snore, messy hair and wearing glasses, "i can't believe this is how he relaxes"; at the library at my desk, i make up for all that rest, when they kick me out to close at two o'clock, i'm not ready to go; go downstairs to the IRC's, i'll write a paper on h.d., it's open through the night and there are computers there to write with; it's quarter to five and i'm turning out the lights; i was in the library all day, okay? goodnight.

"for cégeste"

they said cégeste was the new me; i had counter-oedipal anxiety of influence; cégeste, when he died, had a way of getting in my head when i, a sporting ace, listened to horse races on the radio; i heard his footsteps coming up behind me even though he was dead; i'd accidentally lived into old age, you see; he died the death i haven't had, young and beautiful and canonised by elegies; i hope that i shall meet my fate, mauled to death by screaming fans i snubbed like ronald reagan or a liverpuddlian; and when i'm dead they'll stuff my head and mount it on a body made of wax next to bono at madame tussaud's; and when i'm drunk on o.e., cégeste he comes to me in a dream in the form of the sound of horses' feet on AM radio, he says, "here/ safe as you are/ you write poetry/ for dead persons"; and then my wife died, i liked that most of all because i had adulation and i hadn't even passed; and when i cried they believed me and t.s. eliot said that my mature work was unquestionably better.

sha na na na sha na

julian, all the broken china in the world won't express the reaches of yr soul; sha na na na na na natural? "don't hit her again" julian, julian; julian you can't express that again; i know when you talk about jean-michel or cuban poets you're talking about yourself; cut to the chase scene julian, julian, make the film julian, julian; "julian," doesn't it sound good on a marquee? yr tortured soul it don't impress me; angst is angst and ain't it tedious; don't you know you're not a genius? 'cos it don't even exist.

the bar crowd vs. the pop scene

the pop scene don't care for the bar crowd and the bar crowd they hate the pop scene; the pop scene reads the mercury and the bar crowd write for willamette week and hate that too; the bar crowd used to go to la luna and satyricon, this town ain't small enough for them both to be pariahs and need each other; the bar crowd don't post on the pop list and the pop scene, they don't drive no cars; the bar crowd thinks it's just a fashion thing that the pop scene don't go to bars and ride their bikes; the bar crowd says that jackpot! records is about as punk as the hair salon next door but it's a good store, it just ain't very dirty and this town just ain't big enough for each of them to be able to pretend, try as the pop scene might, that the other one doesn't exist; you have to be this cool to read the mercury and that don't offend me; you have to be so punk you remember the sub pop crash, and i am; the bar crowd drinks in northwest and the pop scene, they don't cross the bridge; but southeast is only a quarter of the city and i bet that the bar crowd mistakes the pop scene's shyness for snottiness and the bar crowd's integrity is lost on the pop scene; it's best, i guess, to just forget about it.

paper tigers and popsicle sticks

you were folding paper tigers, start an army you were going to take over the world, yr lip curled like sid vicious, pretty precious, sneer from ear to shining ear, did you hear i got a papercut? you were compulsive ain't it something that someone could be so obsessed, you ate popsicles 'til you were in debt; collecting popsicle sticks; come winter you'll be rich; i got a splinter from it.

state of the age

that it takes a time like this for the artists to feel like this; misplaced and dangling without this, dissuaded before the state of the age turned up the glare of red rockets in the airplanes hovering in the backdrop behind a state of the union address; that it takes a thing like this, a thousand protest songs, to "turn up the light of the stars" in the sky and drown out the glare of the stripes on the soldiers' uniforms, who'll reflect the spirit of an age at war? leave it to the performers to "turn up the light of the stars" in the sky and turn down the glare of the bars on the flag, clear out the planes to see the blue in the sky and burn up the thirteen red stripes on the flag.

après moi la merde

nous disions tous les jours, "après moi va la merde," il faut tous les jours être de son temps; mais nous, nous ne sommes plus les jeunes, nous ne sommes plus les jeunes.

unnamed #4: "loosely based on the odyssey"

she had suitors it was like being cheated; always there untainted air she couldn't breathe in; i would have up and killed them all if not for the paintings on the wall and loyalty; too young to resist opportunists, she sighed and sucked a cigarette, and me, she heard, i fulfilled my dreams and ribs and became her.

dot

"we can't go on like this," he said; she answered, "that's what you think"; he didn't get the joke or thought she had misspoken her pretty mouth; he was minding his business when he saw the girl he dreamt he'd see that day and pretended to mind his business while watching her pull up a chair to drink with a kid he knew was gay, could this be the day—of all the days for this to happen; he saw her fumbling through her purse and discreetly stepped outside and had the most strategic cigarette he'd smoke in all his life; waiting outside dots for his dream to finally recur in real life while clinton st. parking lots got emptier and emptier; i've seen too many nights and too much of this guy; that night as i was speaking with the girl at the beginning of the song, she said, "let's bet a drink on how long he waits outside, how many cigarettes he'll smoke for his lovelife, if he'd live it just a day he'd realise that it ain't worth the cigarette you smoke after the end of sex"; "we can't go on like this," he said; she said, "that's what you think"; he didn't get the joke and didn't even notice her pretty mouth.

one true love

do you believe in a one true love? do you believe that the stars above mean that you're not alone and keep you coming home each year? do you believe in a one true love? do you believe what you're dreaming of is really real enough to make the stars above you shine? did you meet yr one true love when you were sixteen? think about what that could mean as you think about the past, a time and place where clocks stand still and you avoid eye contact with people as they look you up and down while you're looking at the ground that you're about to walk to but you're never there; follow that one true love across the world, you know it's only cute when i do it; did you stop maturing at the age of sixteen? romance bucks that system clean 'til it's foaming at the mouth; you never realised that it was just something you made up and you don't have much imagination—what's with the fascination with storylines from songs? hear you me now: do you believe in a one true love? do you believe what you're thinking of is so real that i would write a song about yr bullshit?

the millionaire playboy

he picked you up at ten and got you both into the joan miró opening, had a fabulous time and he went to bed with you in mind; but why won't she call when she says she will? if everyone was home all of the time he wouldn't be in this mess; he stayed up 'til five thinking of you, wishing you were there; in the middle of the night, a quarter past nine, he realised he woke up thinking of ways to impress you, but when he slept he dreamt about her; i'm stealing the chords of a famous song, i bet you noticed; right now he's at home reading malraux on the museum; was it an accident? is the subconscious fucking with him? and does he love you? he hates yr answering machine and maybe you're lucky he has so much pride; you called right when you said you would, he wouldn't have called you twice.

folks like me (c. bozulich)

don't cry when i say goodbye love, my hearts want to remain what i've become; but i feel yr little hands a-tremblin' 'cos you know the love we shared is nearly done and i'm going back to the place where folks like me are from; my people won't forget me, they'll kill me if i try to fight; there's just no word for this where i come from, i was a trusted servant, a noble scientist, but now a fugitive lover's what i've become and i'm going back to the place where folks like me are from; i told you from the start that i was not what i appeared but one look in your eyes and i loved you; my plans were corrupted by yr sweet fingertips, i was never meant to fall in love; my work here was simple 'til i met you, i should've gone back a long time ago; this body's getting old and you know i'll die in the cold winter sun; i'm going back to the place, my old life and my old face; i'm going back to the place where folks like me are from; yr lord knows i don't want to leave here, i'd like to stay in this little house and provide for you and if i knew i'd only be risking my own life i'd stay until they came and struck me dead but i couldn't stand to see them hurt a hair on yr sweet head, so goodbye to laughter and kisses, goodbye to yr belly and yr tongue, back home i'll soon forget just what bliss is and it don't seem fair; but i'm going back to the place, back to my own race, you won't have to live life on the run; i'm going back to the place where folks like me are from. (lyrics reprinted without permission)

the place where no one loves anyone

airplane's burning, you're scared to be turning around, fall down, mission aborted; yr destination's fading, you can't find an airport, land in a train station; eighty-five cents, take a bus to a hotel with a lounge and a retro pop band; they're dancing badly, the singles are all in the men's room, glancing romantically at the mirror, take a good look or you'll disappear, it's not enough when you took a pinch in a reverie, excuse me; excuse me, you're blocking the exit; it's stuffy in here; in the place where no one loves anyone; there's a place where no one loves anyone? the master race destroyed all the traces, the master of the masters sits with hemingway as they shoot off their faces; it was nice while it lasted; open the door and you'll see jean-paul sartre, simone de beauvoir, and holocaust survivors; the door slams shut and no one cares, they haven't been in love for years; i can't believe it.

nick the folk singer

nick was a boy whose busy eyes as a boy nearly made him blind, he didn't think that real people were worth his time; he was saving his mind, he loved his mind, he kept it to himself and hid it between pages on the bookshelf; his girlfriend fell in love with me and i in love with him, she said, "he only thinks about himself"; i said, "you don't know him like i do"; she said, "i know him well, better than you, i'm sure"; and i guess i'm sure of it too; he drank himself to death one night, in a bar beside a working class man, i wish i could see the look on his face as he drank him under the table, begging the working class to understand; she says, "he doesn't know how to think of another person"; he thinks about himself in the third person; perfect forever like a postcard of the mona lisa in a small wooden frame on the bookshelf; his girlfriend fell in love with me and i in love with him, she said now even she ignores herself; i said, "you don't know him like i do"; she said, "i know him well, better than you, i'm sure"; and i guess i'm sure of it too.

premie-core: a youth culture movement

you and me and dinky bossetti, we're premies; our moms and daddies are rich and all our clothes are kitsch but we're so avant-garde, there's no telling what we'll start; we came out too fast, i hope we don't have to die young, it's just that this is pretty fun and we couldn't wait to start; our parents aren't movie stars, they're doctors, lawyers driving cars by lexus but that don't restrain us; someday we'll all be famous, there's no telling what we'll start; we want a revolution and, if it becomes a cash cow, then we'll sacrifice it apocalypse style now.

emma bunton died of consumption

baby baby why were you in such a hurry to marry that charivari? i saw you see me girl, you know that we're both premies, baby save me yr life, don't just save ninety-nine cents; you died of tuberculosis, what was the sense in insisting on dollars and cents? you were the closest you had been to success but then you got up and wept and you wept and i said, "are you upset?" you said i'm not so it doesn't make sense; you coughed up blood but i coughed too in the dust that came up from the ground when you left me, left this town for a man in a mini-van, a son, soccer games, and a baby; girl when you gave birth was she premature? was she too short when she was born? and did you find that, when you died, it was worth the ride? poor little rich girl, my baby became a poor little rich girl; emma bunton when she died of consumption, a mini-van and a man they both sighed; emma bunton, yeah you died of consumption, girl was it worth the ride? she died of consumption so they held a luncheon and nobody cried, did you hear they decided that when their wives die young, husbands get reductions on country club payments for kids under eight? emma died of consumption, i made the assumption that she wasn't happy but she was, she told me; her friends they won't die young, they'll get lyposuction in ten years at this rate, i'll tell them they look great; she died of consumption, i told emma bunton when she was nineteen someday she'd meet the queen if she'd read "berkeley scene report" and learn to start ignoring credit card statements; she could have been famous.

iconographers and iconologists

you based yr life's work on a dialectical modernism that became a footnote between dada and the neo-avant-garde, so you quit yr job at artforum, planted both feet in the museum, and declared yourself the last of yr kind; michael face the facts, you bet on all the wrong horses; stella was a minimalist and tony caro won't save us all; art and objecthood, conviction and culture, michael, it's over, mike it's over, read october; you joined up with the iconographers and iconologists, i just don't get what that will accomplish; trace a genealogy to lead up to olitski and a moment that passed before yr eyes; michael did you die a bit inside or did you just historicise it?

"all the money in the world is not enough"

elizabeth, i don't even know who you are anymore; yes, i watched cherish, elizabeth you could say i loved you; who sells herself as a fantasy now? and who keeps me coming back anyhow? i spent more money this summer on you than on anybody else and you haven't even spoken to me since 1993; i saw you in vancouver, my friend said, "it's elizabeth, look"; i said, "no it's not, that's just a little girl," i guess you're just 5'2" but i'm not much taller than you; one day when this tape makes its circles to the fanzines, gerard cosloy will give me a record and a wad of money; elizabeth, i don't blame you, if i were in yr shoes i'd perform all my old songs with tacked-on guitar solos; i don't even know elizabeth, "even when i was seventeen... even when i was twelve."

for those who demand songs

she wrote a book by the age of twenty-two and as he spoke with her about it she said, "look it takes work to make this look easy," and he looked amused to hear himself spoken of; this other guy, he asked her why it was that even working hard is not enough; she said, "style points matter, nobody likes an overachiever, there's nothing sadder than watching an old man thinking he's entitled to something; nobody deserves anything but it's funny to make them think they do," and at that moment she was shot by a fan.

everybody loves rothko

blinky palermo i don't know what yr paintings look like but benjamin buchloh says they're so important; everyone loves him, i know, but i hope you're not like rothko.

the jazz age

zelda you're a sophisticated lady, zelda i fell for you but maybe, just maybe, if you'd come when i called or at least called back, i'd have a heart attack and you'd be rid of me; zelda i think you're all that i wanted: you're smarter than me but it's not like it's daunting, it's good conversation: the right line at the right time at the bright people i'm not clever enough to put in their places; zelda i'm sorry i made you smoke cigarettes with me, i thought you'd want to, not that it would hurt yr speaking voice, the most adorable voice i've heard like when you sang word for word that amelia fletcher song and i just sat there in silence and you must have wondered why this boy won't sing along, should you be embarrassed? but, secretly, i just died; zelda you kill me.

the trojan war, or henri et hélène

petit henri he had the highest cheekbones in paris; ran off with an heiress, she took her family for everything they got and her husband got squat; our hélène her husband was a mafioso don, he made an offer that henri had to refuse in the name of love, he flashed a toothy grin but that winsome smile don't work on wiseguys, no; sicilian boys drove up in black suits and cadillacs and shot at the house of the lovers; petit henri, his brother took a bow and dropped his piece as they set fire to the villa; henri de paris, be a dear and don't go against the family no more, i do declare this is war; you're my last living son, be my prince napoléon, you named yr price, the prettiest girl in all of europe; henri, drunk on cheap wine, took hélène to be his bride, they ran away and took a house above a bay; my grandchildren look so nice, as for me well i just died and i don't mean when they shot me in the brain.

an apostrophe

it's important, it is; hear me now here's an apostrophe, "see, here it is": you're "you are," no it's not "yours," you're what you are and it's what it is; i just want yr attention, i just want you here; i just want yr attention, i just want you to hear.

when i enjoy a painting

when i enjoy a painting i feel guilty, as if enjoying, even critically, makes me a fetishist; oil on canvas: a commodity for bourgeois scum; oh is it me or just an historical palimpsest, or is it that i'm secretly a philistine or, worse, dilettante; and when i live uncritically, when one of my oldest and most loyal friends comes to visit, i just live, then i just die.

"and now you find yourself in '82"

i don't think you understand the concept of loyalty; it's not that when you find someone better you hold yourself back; rather, that you'll never find anyone better than you find the person to whom you're loyal; and i'm surprised to find it hurts 'cos objectively it's funny that i'm the hag that follows you around; i think that when we were sixteen, we shared some intellectual interests but now you're everything i'm not and that's why i resent you, you couldn't keep up and you had the audacity to ditch me; you're average and i'm hot, i'm everything you're not: i have taste, dignity, fashion sense, friends who are famous and i can't believe that you don't even notice that i could just leave you behind, and let me remind you again that i'm sexy, and for some reason loyal, and you're not.

hilda says

hilda says in the end it doesn't matter that you made her sadder than anyone; hilda says with a sigh in the end what you write is all you got done; hilda says that though they tormented you it was her they sent to hell; hilda says her defence was just birds on a fence, she might as well have put up scarecrows to guard buckingham, sir thomas stearns, yeah yeah; hilda says that it didn't matter that all her friends scattered apart; hilda says, "yes, europe has a heart"; she said, "he said he was looking for a place where he could fence with yeats"; hilda says to forget all yr thoughts about debt, they don't matter; hilda says in the end people aren't friends, they're writers; hilda said to me the day she died, "remember what he made me do"; hilda says she hates you.

the summer of ought-one

my mother always said, "son work hard, don't let yr friends leave you behind"; i'd say, "mom you don't know, they'd never leave me even if i were a failure in a dead nine to five behind a desk without a skill to move me up or an ideal in my head"; my mother said, "that's what they all say but everyone grows up and moves away; and life's a competition, just don't let them think that they have ended up ahead of you, they won't call, you won't see embarrassment like this while you are young and small, you'll all be ashamed of yr old friends"; if it seems like she was right, it's funny how she wound up being so wrong; to my surprise i'm left here as my friends all joined the straight world and i'm left here like my mom predicted, life sucks though she said it didn't, left ahead when they retreated, i bet they still can't believe it; i know i still can't believe that no one cares, no one cares at all, no one cares about anyone; i do declare that no one cares anymore and, more importantly, no one cares about me.

vancouver, or song for neko case's voice

this town lags ahead; another day another yuppie makes her husband's bed in the town that time forgot and at least i'm not living in the past; instead of an airport, instead of a south-bound railroad taking off from downtown, hope lives in front of the skytrain station begging for change; hope, she's a fine girl, she's off welfare and not embarrassed now; time took a taxi down to richmond and flew to new york, then to paris; i went back for christmas, i was ashamed 'cos no one i knew still lived there; i felt better when i realised that no one knew i was there.

the kiss off, or "tweemo"

i used to never kiss and tell, i used to kiss and do it well but this is different, believe me i didn't do this for me; i'm not sad, so play with yr new friends and instead, i'll play with my new friends too, it's not bad, go play with yr new friends and instead, i'll play with my new friends too; i used to never kiss and tell, i used to be in love with girls but this is different, you kissed someone else when you said you'd kiss me; i'm not sad, so play with yr new friends and instead, i'll play with my new friends too, it's not bad, go play with yr new friends and instead, i'll play with my old friends, older than you, they were so overdue, i love them so much more than you loved me so let's agree to disagree; it's weak, i know, but i'll show you.

i wanna be coddled

all i ever wanted was someone to bear me, now all i want is someone to take care of me; i don't want to be alone, i don't want a life of my own; i want to be somebody's baby; what have i done for you lately? i want someone to make space for me, i don't need no one to save me; what have i done for you lately? i'll leave my old friends for you; i wanna be yr baby, i'll leave my old friends for you; i'm not putting you on: i wanna hold yr hand like george, ringo, paul, and john.

as tears go by (jagger/richards/oldham)

it is the evening of the day, i sit and watch the children play; smiling faces i can see, but not for me; i sit and watch as tears go by; my riches can't buy everything, i want to hear the children sing; all i hear is the sound of rain falling on the ground; i sit and watch as tears go by; it is the evening of the day, i sit and watch the children play, doing things i used to do, they think of you; i sit and watch as tears go by. (lyrics reprinted without permission)