23 June 2009--it's 1987

[Tinka Cat]

NOT looking forward to the Wall Street sequel, evevn tho' Stone is directing. (It stars Shia LaHype)
WOS Dead.

I'm looking forward to Transformers, though.  Shia LaBoof, heheh.

[RGMike]

XTC gets a WOS.  This song shows a complete lack of respect for human willpower.

OK, you're gonna have to explain that...

Ok, time to get on my soapbox  

The jist is that bad things happen in this world, so XTC can't believe in God.  So they're really not taking into account that the vast majority of unfortunate things happen because people themselves make decisions/actions that lead to them. (I know, the consequences of the decisions spill out to others too.)  Regardless of belief, if God/Yahweh/Allah/exists does that automatically guarantee that 100% of people's stupid decisions will be automatically overriden?  Somehow, I doubt it.

*steps off soapbox*

I'd argue that their point is also that people do bad things and use God as an excuse (regardless of whether he exists or not).

[Gazoo]

The Dead's best line of the decade: "shipping powders back and forth / singing black goes south, and white comes north."  That says a lot.

[Gazoo]

XTC gets a WOS.  This song shows a complete lack of respect for human willpower.

OK, you're gonna have to explain that...

Ok, time to get on my soapbox  

The jist is that bad things happen in this world, so XTC can't believe in God.  So they're really not taking into account that the vast majority of unfortunate things happen because people themselves make decisions/actions that lead to them. (I know, the consequences of the decisions spill out to others too.)  Regardless of belief, if God/Yahweh/Allah/exists does that automatically guarantee that 100% of people's stupid decisions will be automatically overriden?  Somehow, I doubt it.

*steps off soapbox*

I'd argue that their point is also that people do bad things and use God as an excuse (regardless of whether he exists or not).

Mike's reading is what I take from the song as well, but I see where you're coming from too.

[RGMike]

BOS3 Los Lobos.

But really, despite 3 BOSs from me, this is the closest AL has come to a snoozer.

[urth]

Here's my BOS:

Los Lobos, One Time One Night.

This is the only bustout of the set (another surprise to me), but also lots of rarities in the 1- or 2- play category.

[mshray]

This is my most enthusiastic BOS vote in the set, and I believe a Db bustout as well.

ETA: I see Urth has confirmed that for me.

[mshray]

Here's another Bustout & another enthusiastic BOS.  I think I'll retract my earlier votes & call it a 2-way tie between LL & X.

[urth]

Followed hard on its heels by my BOS2: X's version of Dave Alvin's stellar Fourth of July. So many good versions of this. This one is second only to Dave's.

I remember hearing Dave Alvin once tell a story about being on the road, in a motel someplace, and turning on David Letterman just in time to hear Willie Nelson play this song on national TV. He said the royalties on that one performance paid his house payments for about four months.

[Tinka Cat]

love David Hidalgo's voice, another BOS for Los Lobos

btw, Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women are in town this week..

[RGMike]

BOS3 Los Lobos.

But really, despite 3 BOSs from me, this is the closest AL has come to a snoozer.

Ooops! got called into a meeting and missed what woulda been BOS4(th of July), X, used brilliantly on the Sopranos a couple years ago.

But still... like Dave, AL avoided anything truly "pop" in 1987.

[RGMike]

6/23/09 - Tuesday!  Time spent in...1987!!!

   1.  U2 - One Tree Hill
(News:  Soviet-U.S. Summit)
   2.  Bodeans - Only Love
   3.  Bruce Springsteen - All That Heaven Will Allow
(News:  PTL & Falwell)
   4.  XTC - Dear God
(News:  Tammy Faye)
   5.  New Order - True Faith (BEST OF SET!!)
(News:  Iran Contra)
   6.  Pink Floyd - One Slip
   7.  Psychedelic Furs - Heartbreak Beat
(Wall Street--The real world & the movie!)
   8.  Grateful Dead - Throwing Stones
(News:  Montage-Pope visits U.S.)
   9.  Los Lobos - One Time One Night in America
 10.  X - 4th of July

BONUS TRACK (from Lisa in Oakland):  Squeeze - Hourglass

I guess "Lisa from Oakland" misses Dave...

[Tinka Cat]

XTC gets a WOS.  This song shows a complete lack of respect for human willpower.

OK, you're gonna have to explain that...

Ok, time to get on my soapbox  

The jist is that bad things happen in this world, so XTC can't believe in God.  So they're really not taking into account that the vast majority of unfortunate things happen because people themselves make decisions/actions that lead to them. (I know, the consequences of the decisions spill out to others too.)  Regardless of belief, if God/Yahweh/Allah/exists does that automatically guarantee that 100% of people's stupid decisions will be automatically overriden?  Somehow, I doubt it.

*steps off soapbox*

I'd argue that their point is also that people do bad things and use God as an excuse (regardless of whether he exists or not).

Mike's reading is what I take from the song as well, but I see where you're coming from too.

I suppose it's open to interpretation (like the bible), but I feel the speaker is "losing his religion," (apologies to REM) -- he's realizing the relationship he had w God is not what he thought, and that it was all a construct that has now come tumbling down (no apologies to John Melloncamp).  This lyric speaks pretty loudly:

Did you make disease, and the diamond blue?
Did you make mankind after we made you?
And the devil too.

I think the next song the narrator would sing would be Free Will by Rush. 

[mshray]

XTC gets a WOS.  This song shows a complete lack of respect for human willpower.

OK, you're gonna have to explain that...

Ok, time to get on my soapbox  

The jist is that bad things happen in this world, so XTC can't believe in God.  So they're really not taking into account that the vast majority of unfortunate things happen because people themselves make decisions/actions that lead to them. (I know, the consequences of the decisions spill out to others too.)  Regardless of belief, if God/Yahweh/Allah/exists does that automatically guarantee that 100% of people's stupid decisions will be automatically overriden?  Somehow, I doubt it.

*steps off soapbox*

I'd argue that their point is also that people do bad things and use God as an excuse (regardless of whether he exists or not).

Mike's reading is what I take from the song as well, but I see where you're coming from too.

I suppose it's open to interpretation (like the bible), but I feel the speaker is "losing his religion," (apologies to REM) -- he's realizing the relationship he had w God is not what he thought, and that it was all a construct that has now come tumbling down (no apologies to John Melloncamp).  This lyric speaks pretty loudly:

Did you make disease, and the diamond blue?
Did you make mankind after we made you?
And the devil too.

I think the next song the narrator would sing would be Free Will by Rush. 

I take Tinka's interpretation one step further.  The whole song represents the arc of the narrator's anger/frustration/despair, but at the very end he's still desperate for a God to believe in.  The last lyric is not ironic as such, but in the same vein as when you have a knock-down, drag-out fight with your spouse/partner and you say "I Hate You!", but at the same time you know you aren't leaving.

"If there's one thing I DON'T believe in...it's YOU, Dear God." 

Not only is the narrator still talking to the God he doesn't believe in, but it's clear to me that XTC has the child's voice come back for those last 4 words for a reason.

[RGMike]

BOS2 New Order.

"when I was a very young boy
Michael Jackson talked to me..."

wow , I posted that Tuesday morning and 2 days later he was dead. (cue Twilight Zone theme...)