The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Randomly: Movin’ On Up, Sign Wars,
Half-Breeds and Diamonds to Sand

Posted on | October 7, 2012 | 5 Comments

“Last Wednesday night, Obama and his campaign finally ‘paid the price’ for believing in falsehoods that had no actual basis in reality.”
— Susannah Fleetwood, “Thoughts on the Recent Presidential Debate, and the Real Reason Why Obama Lost to Romney”

Jimmie Bise Jr. sometimes does what he calls “Clearing the Browser Tabs” at Sundries Shack and, speaking of Jimmie, the podcasting phenom and Twitter savant got hired by Liberty News Network to unload his “boundless supply of pith.” His  new theme song:

Attempting to satisfy the market’s nearly infinite demand for pith, Steven Crowder is in a sign war with his liberal neighbor.

Reasons to support Mitt Romney’s plan to abolish annoying yellow puppets: Don’t Liberals Know Big Bird Is a Birther?

When in doubt, blame John Kerry.

Ann Coulter is more Cherokee than Elizabeth Warren. The high cheekbones gave her away. Ann’s new theme song:

Speaking of new theme songs . . . while I was riding with Ali Akbar to the Romney event Friday in Abingdon, Virginia, Ali was doing the usual thing he does when we’re traveling in his car: Playing crappy pop music from his smartphone through the car stereo system at top volume and singing along at the top of lungs, off-key.

Seriously, we’re like Oscar Madison and Felix Unger, except that Ali’s not old enough to know who Oscar and Felix were. We get on each other’s nerves something awful and it’s really amazing that we’ve been friends for three years. Anyway . . .

So Ali was cranking out his wretched music when, amid the noise rotation, I heard a song that wasn’t quite as awful as the rest. In fact, it was kinda catchy. A pulsing bass riff in a minor key with some techno stuff in the treble and a chick singer with a keening falsetto. “Hey, man, play that again,” I said.

Intriguing. There was something spooky about the lyrics — lights and sleeping and “constant calling me home” — although I couldn’t understand them clearly enough to make out every word. And what was it about that voice? The chick had a weird Celtic-folk quaver going on, with a little bit Stevie Nicks, and also a little bit Cyndi Lauper. (Ali: “Cyndi who?”)

So I looked up the lyrics and the singer, a British chick named Ellie Goulding, and thereby learned:

  1. This song had reached No. 2 on the U.S. charts in August; and
  2. The lyrics of the song, entitled simply “Lights,” were inspired by Goulding’s childhood fear of the dark.

Because I seldom listen to Top 40 music anymore, preferring classic rock or old R&B, both the song and the singer were a revelation to me. Then I checked out the video:

Kinda not-bad looking. But then Ali found the video of Goulding’s appearance on “Saturday Night Live” and, well . . .

Wow. She could grind diamonds into sand with her pelvis. But just in case you’re thinking, “Yeah, she’s just another good-looking chick singer with a bunch of expensive production,” check out the acoustic version:

That is one of the most distinctive voices I’ve heard in a long time, as unusual in her own way as Annie Lennox. And I never would have heard of her if it hadn’t been for Ali playing his Spotify rotation on that car trip across Virginia.

Ellie Goulding is on Twitter.

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Comments

5 Responses to “Randomly: Movin’ On Up, Sign Wars,
Half-Breeds and Diamonds to Sand”

  1. Susannah Fleetwood
    October 7th, 2012 @ 6:08 pm

    Thanks so much for the linkage Stacy! I hope that you, Smitty and Wombat all had Happy Birthdays.

    Take care, and have a nice Sunday. 🙂

    X0X0, Suzi

  2. Wombat_socho
    October 7th, 2012 @ 6:50 pm

    Is Mr. Bise getting a pith helmet to supplement his fedora?

  3. yestradamous
    October 7th, 2012 @ 8:13 pm

    The pop stations played this song every 5 minutes around July. Still not tired of it. Thanks!

  4. JeffS
    October 7th, 2012 @ 10:21 pm

    Good stuff from Ellie! I don’t listen to the Top 40 either, and I get many of my new music by referrals. This is one such, and I thank you!

  5. Quartermaster
    October 8th, 2012 @ 12:37 pm

    Meh. Song isn’t so hot. The girl is Ok, if a bit thin.