Excuse The Clutter
In case you can’t tell, this blog could be described as Currently Undergoing Maintenance, both in terms of design (Upgraded WordPress and the whole template ceased to exist. I have no idea why) and content, as I am currently busy writing for new homes SpinOff Online and Time’s Techland blog. Expect new words here soon, though, and maybe a new look, too.
More Room For You And More Room For Me
My complete political nerditry is something that only really kicked in when I moved to the US; I’m not sure whether it was genuine interest in the then-current 2004 Presidential Elections (which were being held as Kate and I were flying home for my mother’s funeral; I remember the odd mix of sadness and anticipation, getting off the plane in Amsterdam for a layover and checking CNN on the overhead screens to see what’d happened) or simply confusion and too much time on my hands when it was happening, but it ended up fascinating me, the whole long drawn-out process that seemed tailor-made for television. British politics, I said to myself, aren’t anything like this.
Except, of course, now they are. A lot has been written and said about the televised election debates as part of this last UK election, but that’s not what’s seemed the most “American” thing about everything that’s happened (and is still happening) for me… No, that’d be the hung parliament situation that’s been going on since last Thursday’s election, with all the uncertainty and speculation and much-reported-on dealmaking and everything. What I used to consider relatively staid, in comparison with US politics at least, has become compulsive viewing and grand theater. Consider this round-up from today’s Guardian election blog:
Hearing a prime minister announce that he’s going to resign is always a big story. But Gordon Brown’s statement today was only one piece of the jigsaw, and perhaps not even the most important. What matters most is that this morning it looked as if the Tories and the Lib Dems were on the verge of forming a “confidence and supply” pact. Now it seems almost inevitable that the next government will be a coalition. But whether it will be a Tory/Lib Dem coalition or a Labour/Lib Dem coalition is anyone’s guess.
I feel sorry for Gordon Brown, in a strange way. I didn’t really like him as Prime Minister, I’m not convinced that he did a good job and I’ve become sadly depressed by the Labour part in general over the last few years, but I still feel as if he’s been slightly broken by everything that’s gone on recently, and pushed out by a party grabbing at its last chance for power. And yet, nonetheless, my past and upbringing and suspicion make me hope that Labour and the Liberal Democrats come to some kind of coalition deal, and that the Conservatives are kept out of office for awhile yet; growing up under the thumb of Margaret Thatcher tends to push that idea deep into your soul, I think.
I Bet Your Mama Was A Tent Show Queen
Consider, for a moment, the songwriting talents of the Rolling Stones, and the way in which their songs are almost always sabotaged by their lyrics. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t necessarily have a problem with lines like “I can’t get no girly action,” because , Hey! Who hasn’t felt that they, too, were lacking some “girly action” at some point in their lives? but think of the title of that particular song for a second: “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” It’s a song, in case you aren’t familiar with it, about not being able to get any satisfaction. Or, to use another example, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” It sounds wonderful – The music, the arrangement, everything about the song with the exception of the kids singing at the start which never ever sounds any good, it all sounds great. But then you listen to the lyrics and you realize it’s all about not getting what you want but occasionally getting what you need – A realization that comes when you reach the chorus that goes “You can’t always get what you want. You can’t always get what you want. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try some times, you just might find you get what you need.”
Worse yet, though, is “Brown Sugar.” At first blush, “Brown Sugar” is a step forward for the Stones – It’s not called “We’re talking about having sex with black women,” for one thing – and the first couplet of the chorus (ie, the bit that people always remember) has something that’s as close to subtlety as I think the Stones can get: “Oh, brown sugar! How come you taste so good?” sings Mick Jagger, before immediately ruining it by adding “Just like a young girl should.” Really, Mick? Really? You couldn’t just leave the heavy-handed metaphor there for people to unpack by themselves?
It’s things like this that make me wonder why people even wonder why there’s a question of whether the Stones are better than the Beatles. Both have good tunes, no question, but you always knew where you were with the Stones – There’s no room for interpretation or personal reading. Say whatever you want about the Beatles, at least they put some thought into their lyrics. How else could they come up with something as deep as “Yellow Submarine”?