We were laying in bed, watching music videos.
"the world is a vampire." My father was excited by the Smashing Pumpkins. He bought several copies of the album melancholy and the infinite sadness.
I remember him explaining how melon is is a fruit and collie is a dog, a dog like lassie, but put them together and it is a special type of sadness, the narcissistic kind.
I remember him explaining the lyrics to a song by Bush, swallowed. It was striking to me because I knew he was dramatically mishearing the lyrics. Something like "Mr. Worm, I laugh a lot."
It was odd, and a bit disturbing. I thought my father was something of a fool, but now, with hindsight, everything has a glow of sorrow.
I share these reflections on the internet, because it occurs to me that primary use of music is for, what
I term, 'french time travel', the technical use of memory.
Beautiful People, Dope Show, the Wrong Way, Blue Cars, all bring me to another time for three to four minutes, wherein I can listen in to conversations i thought were thrown away.
I am suddenly glad my father watched TV instead of, i don't know, what my mother thought fathers should be doing. He kept my childhood safe, and now it's on youtube, through easily accessible talismans of memory. The music video with its fast editing and urgent symbolism offers the brief adages one might expect from a parental unit, but with a better market research team than is available to the working Dad.
Whether MTv is enough to save my life, however, will be discussed in my next entry.
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