Sunday, May 17, 2009

Ultrasound



It's not the way you give in willingly
Others do it without thrilling me
Giving me that same old feeling inside that I
know I must be right
It's the singer not the song
The Singer Not the Song - The Rolling Stones

Last December, I was having one of those meaty conversations with one of my friends that such things can occur. He’s a fellow musician and was going on about a Morrissey song that he loved so much that he questioned his sexual preference when listening to it. I probed a bit and it was a love thing, not an erection that the song was providing, AND it was the song NOT the singer (Mick had it all wrong).

“Don’t you wish you could find someone that you could love as much as a song?” I asked.

His face drained of all meaning and he replied “Wow, I never thought of it that way. I think you’ve just ruined my life. Thanks, now I’m always going to hold that as a standard.”

Oops. Yeah it’s horrifically “holy grail” of me to compare humans to their art because they will never be as awesome. I’ve met lots of singers that are shitty people but have brilliant songs, and I’ve also met loads of super nice musicians with less than stomachable songs. Our great arts are the higher parts of ourselves, the ULTRA, if you will.

No one has ever made me feel as good as a song of my choosing does.

****************************************************

I was thinking about ultrasounds/sonograms the other day. It’s sound seeking something. Sound forming a visual image, usually a fetus, but they use it for a ton of things these days. If you’ve ever heard a pulse or heartbeat through a sonogram really loud, it kind of sounds like death metal, which to me sounds like sharks belch talking, but it too, is sound seeking something (probably an alibi).

Ironically, as I’m writing this UnderOath’s latest video is on my TV. I thought these guys were supposed to be death metal? Oh excuse me, Christian death metal (we all know how I feel about that kind of thing: Guess Who Digs Me?). If it wasn’t for the religious connotations, the song isn’t half bad. I really dig the clapping skeletons, heh.

Sound seeks connection. The “icks” I feel from religion prevent my connecting to UnderOath in this case, but I really believe the intent of all sound is to connect and form an image - bad or good, like an ultrasound.

2 comments:

Stina Jimenez said...

This is great! So clever!

She Likes It Loud said...

Hi Stina, thanks so much!