5/2/01: Badly Drawn Boy: The Recovery
What the hell is it about music that does this to me?
I know it’s not an original thought, but music, lorDEE. Last night I saw Badly Drawn Boy live and even though I can’t tell if it was the best concert I’ve ever seen or the worst, even now, I’m still spinning, spinning around it like a planet around the sun. So I have my launch.com just playing the video for Once Around the Block over and over and over, because I can’t stop. I don’t watch it, mind you, I just listen to it. It’s gorgeous. Like Menolly, whenever the song ends, I “suffer a shock as keen as pain.”
I feel like I’m in love with this idiot Damon Gough, Badly Drawn Boy himself, who doesn’t know if he’s Bruce Springsteen or Andy Kaufman. He veers wildly from pretentious asshole to a guy who passes a photograph of his little baby daughter around in the crowd so we can see how cute she is, and mournfully says, “is she back?” when the photograph doesn’t return as fast as he had hoped. It’s all incidental, his Rocky posturing and his big wooly hat; all I know is, a person who could make music like this, I could just throw myself at his feet and stay with him forever.
It isn’t just BDB, of course. You know this about me already if you’ve noticed that I’ve devoted a whole section of my site to the Prodigals. They are lovely people, and a great band, but what moves me to spend so much time on their site? And why did I chase the boy in the red shirt? Why was the guy on the train even better when he had a guitar? Why can I just sit there for hours with Daphne playing the same five chords over and over until I fall asleep with my guitar still in my hands?
Did I ever tell you about my roommate who couldn’t tell one song from another? I feel like I have told you before.... She was raised without any sort of music in her life and as a result felt nothing for music one way or another. I think that might just be hell. I don’t know, though.