While browsing through the archive the other day, I realized it’s been awhile since we’ve had a contributor for the Lost MP3. So, I put out a call to some trusted associates, asking if there was anyone who’d like to take a turn at writing something up. Fellow Popdose associate Dw. Dunphy answered the call with this alluring write-up of a tune and artist yours truly had never heard until now. Ah, and thus, the whole point of having different voices here. So, without further delay… -Taylor
This is nothing new, really. Don MacLean had a fairly big hit with his maudlin folkie, “Vincent,” in case you don’t recall, but even though Vincent Van Gogh is also the protagonist of the song “Skin” from VOL (1995) by Vigilantes of Love, the similarities end there. First off, lead vigilante Bill Mallonee is one of the most insidious songwriters I’ve ever come across. He will take a character, historical figure or event and start the song from there, then sneakliy shift focus. It was about this, but it’s really about that.
Vigilantes of Love, “Skin” (download)
The same holds true here. The line “Your princess, she don’t want to know you / Your princess, she don’t want to hear / So Vincent, he picked up the blade / And he put it to his ear,” goes far enough into framing Van Gogh’s instability. But after that, the song recasts itself into something many songwriters dread and far fewer navigate gracefully: The pep talk tune. They dread it because it is almost impossible to write one convincingly, and because it’s even harder not to drown in the murk of inspirational cliches and Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling montage scores. “If you’re gonna come around here and say those sorts of things / You’re gonna take a few on the chin / Talkin’ ’bout love and all that stuff? / You better put on your thickest skin.” Nowhere is the listener being discouraged from being openhearted. On the contrary, it’s being encouraged, but with the implicit proviso that a cynical world may not react kindly to it.
The chorus is sewn up with this less than triumphant sentiment: “Sometimes you can’t please everyone / Sometimes you can’t please anyone at all / So you sew your heart on to your sleeve / And wait for the axe to fall.” I suspect what songwriter Mallonee is trying to say is that it is Van Gogh’s peaceful scenes that we remember most (the starry night, the fields of corn that, disturbingly, he would go to in a suicide attempt). Other painters may have made their bones on angst and torment, but Vincent’s work, while ornate, had a naivete that gave off a second life, a third and a fourth. If I say Picasso’s Guernica, do you automatically see it in your mind? If I say Van Gogh’s Starry Night, how about that? I rest my case.
It is Mallonee’s ability to extract universality out of unlikely sources that make the most powerful statements. If you gamble looking for love, you may find it as much as you may fail and crash. If you seek peace versus violence, you might get a punch in the face. If you stand for right, even when the power you speak truth to would rather you joined them or should just shut up, you could die. The nobility of love, peace and the just remain undiminished, and that’s where immortaility truly lies.
A parting thought, though: In today’s climate of prescription heart-menders, pain smoothies and mood lifters, could an artist like Vincent Van Gogh even exist?
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The first time I heard 
I “fell in love” so many times in ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=5ea61e76-f8ea-4eee-9652-2e4c4af44df8)
Being an obsessive music hoarder has its drawbacks. The questions of, “How often do I really listen to ______ ?” and all those albums that you really mean to get around to listening to, you’re just never really “in the right mood.” Or those albums that you think you hate then decide you like on a re-listen before you put them in the “sell to record store” or “delete” pile. Then there’s the organizing of one’s library. Any modern music aficionado is often dealing with three to four formats: digital, ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=72f5f887-13b8-4165-b323-ab21e41a3833)
John Fahey has been recommended to me enough times that I’ve lost count, and has been cited as an influence by a decent chunk of the bands in my listening library, and yet, though I’ve had The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death for ages now, it’s taken me an absurd amount of time to properly listen to it. The only explanation that can be offered is that, like many a critic can – and, truthfully, should - it’s perhaps too easy easy to get wrapped up in one’s own listening process and discovery method, and to be a little stubborn about breaking from it. Now that fall is being obstinate about its arrival, it finally felt like the right time for Fahey (and it probably helps, too, that 
It’s horribly cliche, but over the past couple summers, the moment the temperatures move towards 80 degrees, I reach for my Doors collection. I always start out more or less listening to everything of theirs I own, then as the summer progresses, I cling to a particular song, usually one I hadn’t paid much attention to before. Two years ago, that song was “You’re Lost Little Girl.” Last year, it was “Love Her Madly.” This year, the contenders were “Crystal Ship” and “Riders on the Storm.” “Crystal Ship” ended up edging out “Riders on the Storm,” because it’s more mysterious, more compelling, more weird, less what the casual listener might expect from the Doors. “Riders on the Storm,” on the other hand, as much as I love it, is a little more typical, a little more straightforward. And most of the reason why I like it is contained within the second verse (beginning with, “Girl, you gotta love your man…”).
During the spring of my junior year of college, I listened to Huey Lewis nonstop. One day, while working on the campus newspaper, I was sorting through the shared music of the local club offices and put on “I Want A New Drug.” The song was an apt anthem for how I felt about the guy I was seeing at the time, both for the obvious reasons, and for reasons I don’t dare mention on the Internet. I decided I needed to own Huey Lewis & The News’ Greatest Hits.
Nearly two years ago now, I posted 
Fourth of July is, without a doubt, my favorite holiday. Firstly, because it’s not religiously affiliated. Secondly, because it generally involves some combination of the following three items: fire, grilling meat and alcohol. All in the name of patriotism. I’m not sure how our fourth of July traditions evolved to include these potentially disastrous things together, but I’m thankful they did.