Sad Songs
By B
Grade: A+
The other day a Jew For Jesus sat next to me on the subway. You can always know a Jew For Jesus because they tend to be dressed very wacky (for instance in a coat of many colors) and the first thing they tell you about is how they are an artist of some sort. Don't bother asking what kind of artist because next they will give you a real tarradiddle about how they started going to church because they love music. Jews for Jesus all love music; at least that is part of their sales pitch. The one that I recently spoke with was a rather saucy earth mother type who was obviously not ever Jewish in the first place-- maybe once a hippie but not a Jew. They are not the same despite what you might have observed at Emily's synagogue.
In general when someone tries to give me religion I tell her that she needn't bother; I am Catholic and I love Mary even better than I love God so save it. This time, however, I changed my tactic because i've discovered that no evangelical likes to hear about Mary. It just gets them going. They would rather that you worship the devil because at least Satan does not have a vagina as far as anyone knows.
Since I was drunk and feeling ponderous, I actually took the woman at face value. I gave religion some thought-- like maybe God would be a good idea although certainly not the Jew For Jesus type of God. Finally I decided that I don't need religion because i have sad love songs instead.
What I believe in is when you think you hear the sweet, clumsy guitar of someone you once loved, like they are in the next room playing for you, but it turns out it is just "the ra-di-ooo."
that is a religious experience. how can it not be?
I felt that I should share my belief system with the Jew for Jesus next to me. Partially because I thought she might think I was so retarded that i did not deserve to be saved (God hates retards) but partially also because I was actually being totally serious. And she did say she loved music. Maybe I would be able to convert her! Anyway, fat chance. She started quoting some nonsense from something called "the bible" which was not technically the true Bible but some Jew For Jesus fakery. I stopped listening to her. I was listening to a secret telepathic radio station that plays Karen Carpenter at all times. It is a little like praying except with a deceptively peppy but actually devastating horn section.
I believe that sad love songs may be the point of everything. I am not joking with you. Like maybe it was a cave man or cave woman who hummed a primitive bar of "I Will Always Love You" and that was where evolution took a leap and cave man became actual man. And now the entire job of humanity is to keep them spinning. We wake up and eat (or in KC's case don't eat) and go to work (if that is our thing) and make money and everything just so that someday we can fall in love and then out of love and someone can write a sad song about it and thus perpetuate a weird alternate circle of life. even if you keep it all to yourself, it still goes into the cosmic pool and then one day, as Lisa Loeb memorably discovered, you will "turn the radio on, turn the radio up," and find that "some woman is playing my song!" or you will write a girl a letter with everything you meant to say and it will fall out of a hole in your old brown overcoat. and you know what happens after that. Yes. Someone will find it and make a song out of it and your girl will hear it on the ra-di-o. woah. on the ra-di-o.
What is with the radio? Or the ra-di-o? Why is it so important in so many of the great sad love songs? Is there some kind of secret message that we are supposed to be understanding here? I am thinking that maybe one day the clock radio will wake me up in the morning and it will not be Howard Stern. It will be, oh, say, Dionne Warwick singing HEARTBREAKER or something like that. And from the tinny, staticky speaker, an angel will emerge, two fingers slightly extended. She will look just like Dolly Parton but with bigger breasts and more makeup. i don't know what happens next because i am not privy to all cosmic knowledge-- only some. But whatever it is it will be important. It will break my heart and it will be gorgeous. This is all very Angela Chase of me. I know. But.
I believe in George and Tammy. I believe in the sappiest harmonies and a dying girl on the drum set. And exactly three chords because there's no reason to get fancy here. I believe in the radio. The Jew for Jesus moved seats when i started singing.
Comments
omg, i forgot to tell you!! i was on the shuttle last week going from times square to grand central when, as the doors to my subway car shut, i start to hear a strange, synthesized sort of sound swelling throughout the car. before i knew it what was happening, some mysterious canadian-tuxedoed lady was doing a little dance and singing.... "ON THE RADIO"... INTO A MICROPHONE. She had actually brought an entire KARAOKE SOUND SYSTEM with her on the subway, and was just shuttling back and forth between times square and grand c, singing this one amazing donna summer song over and over and over
again. Do you want to know the best part??? SHE WAS TOTALLY GOOD. it transformed my mood from "wow what a lunatic--who brings a whole karaoke machine on the subway for a train that only goes ONE STOP" to "WOW THIS LADY IS SOME SORT OF MYTHICAL SUBWAY FAIRY."i felt like i was watching that episode of my so-called-life with the disappearing juliana hatfield, minus the part about me being an abused teen runaway. by the end i totally wanted to hug all of my stinky subway neighbors, as if we had all just "shared a moment."