Paperboys and Passions

I love music.  When I listen to music, it is like one of those corny scenes from a B movie where everything else goes away.  My total attention is focused on listening and hearing.  If a song hits me, I may listen to it intently 4, 5, 6 times in succession.  It is rare for a song to sound the same to me.  It may be one of those things where I am picking up on secondary or tertiary elements, or it could be a case of a song speaking to my personal circumstances.   I got through an indescribably tough death of a friend with a song…and lots of love and support from my little world.  It could be a song that played in the car when I was with a friend.  Even if the song doesn’t fit, it may be their song forever.  On a car trip to a friend’s house to pick cherries, my then seven-year-old began singing along loudly with a particularly fabulous song blaring through the SUV’s kickin’ sound system.  Now Mars Needs Women is forever attached to that trip even though I have had the pleasure of seeing it performed live.  Sometimes a song puts me right back where I was the first time I heard it…a stretch of road…a party…the gynecologist’s office…

I suppose I was made this way.  My Mom had a record player and a couple inches of vinyl.  I would spend endless hours turning tunes in my parents’ living room.  Her collection and my tastes are on different vectors, but it didn’t keep me from listening again and again.  We all sort of have our musical heyday and my Mom’s was clearly in the 1960s.  I was drawn into the big vocals of Mama Cass and the close harmonies of the Serendipity Singers.  For those of you not blessed with a Mom with a love of folk music, The Serendipity Singers were a holesome, crew cut and bouffanted group comparable in size to Mars Volta.  I listened to more Barry Manilow than anyone who is not being assaulted with psychological warfare should. 

Having music on shuffle is a dangerous and exciting prospect.  Maybe the next song takes me to the 8^th grade Catholic Church dance and my fist kiss.  Maybe it causes the abdominal acid drop from storing the hate and hurt in songs easily tucked into my I-Pod.  Conversely, the Mama’s and Papa’s Words of Love has no choice but to land my heart right back in my childhood home; where, in the privacy of the family room, I would belt out big tunes as off key as those I now murder in a thrilling round of Rock Band.  It is unfortunate that my love of music doesn’t translate into an amazing musical talent.  That would be nice, but eh, being a fan isn’t so bad. 

My taste continues to change.  Sometimes what got me going one week is a fail the next.  I haven’t hit my heyday.  Every download brings about a Gig of audible divergence.  Just like one person’s wardrobe is likely not a perfect fit for another person, my musical library likely won’t line-up directly with someone else’s.  I like rock.  I like metal.  I like music that makes me smile, or cry, or laugh, or makes me think of something that makes me smile, cry or laugh.  My I-Pod and access to such love/hate/pain/pleasure comes with me everywhere in my purse. 

 What song has been rolling through my I-Pod lately?  Lonesome Traveler by the Norwegian hip-hop group, The Paperboys.  I am not a huge hip-hop fan, Norwegian or otherwise.  This song is awesome.  It is like fruit salad that has sat in the fridge overnight.  It has an inordinate amount of sounds and styles integrated in a fun, closed way.  Lonesome Traveler has spray cheese elements of Kid Rock’s Cowboy, canned Euro-trash beats, entertaining raps, moments of almost chain-gang soulful singing, and a call to my childhood living room sessions with a hook re-recording of a folk classic by the same name.  Just like a good fruit salad, the flavors overlap and complement instead of compete.  The Album, The Oslo Agreement, a bit much in totality, provides a soundtrack while following the Timothy McVeigh-esque tragedy that has beset this beautiful country.  I imagine that in happier times the Paperboys became part of some of these tragically young men and women’s collective memories.  Unfortunately, the only video of the song I can find portrays the lead as the grim reaper riding on a tricycle through a desert graveyard.  Oddly prophetic?  Here, you decide.

Paperboys Lonesome Traveller