Wednesday, July 13, 2011

A breakdown

There's this song that's been floating around since 1967 that I've known for years but never really paid any attention to until recently. Ain't it like that for most truly valuable things?  You only discover them way way down the road after a lifetime of not even noticing?

Anywho.  This song is called 'Alone Again Or'.  That's it.  Strange, huh, the title?  Alone again or what?  That's the first thing I noticed as being kind of... 'do what?' about it.  So, it's like this.  Here's a breakdown of the lyrics:

Yeah, said it's all right
I won't forget
All the times I've waited patiently for you
And you'll do just what you choose to do
And I will be alone again tonight my dear

Yeah, I heard a funny thing
Somebody said to me
You know that I could be in love with almost everyone
I think that people are
The greatest fun
And I will be alone again tonight my dear

To begin with; the first verse.  It's such a normal, self pitying verse.  So many people can relate to it, I'll bet.  How many times has this situation unfolded throughout the course of history?  Boy meets girl, or vice versa, and we have this as a result.  "Yeah, it's alright, you're gonna be doing what you're doing while I'm alone, as I always am, I hope you feel like shit, MY DEAR".  Sarcasm implied, and hopefully understood.  That's the message of the first verse.

Thankfully, there's a second verse which describes an encounter with someone who relates the joy he gets from other people, which results in a change in attitude towards the situation of being alone.  The resulting message is that people are (word that doesn't exist but means awesome), but being alone is a (word that doesn't exist but means awesome) thing too.  'My dear' becomes a declaration of love instead of hate.

The band is called Love, after all, right?  Funny.  I heard a funny thing, and it was this song.

It's got a kind of Flamenco/Spanish thing to it.  I first heard it back in... '98 I think, in a movie called 'Bottle Rocket' by Wes Anderson.