Pop Matters: Big Country, "East of Eden"

"Some days will stay a thousand years
Some pass like the flash of spark
Who knows where all our days go?"

My favourite song, by one of my two or three favourite bands.

Paul Kimball

Pop Matters: George Harrison, "All Things Must Pass"

Without a doubt, my favourite George Harrison song is "All Things Must Pass", both for the beautiful music, and equally for the beautiful lyrics. Here is a video of Harrison performing it live, with just his acoustic guitar, followed by the album version.

The only thing that is permanent in this world is change. It's how we handle that realization that defines us.

Harrison understood that, as did some of my other favourite writers and philosophers, from different perspectives.

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another."

- Anatole France

"Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer."

- Shunryu Suzuki

"If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing."

- Saint Augustine

"Every beginning is a consequence - every beginning ends some thing."

- Paul Valéry

"Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are."

- Bertold Brecht

"Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour."

- Arthur Schopenhauer

My favourite quote about change, however, and our need to accept it - indeed, to embrace it - comes from W. H. Auden's poem "The Age of Anxiety":

"We would rather be ruined than changed;
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die."

Harrison framed his song within the context of a break-up with a lover. I would take that metaphor and apply it to the broader picture thusly: the lover who will leave us behind is going to be our illusions about ourselves, and that's always going to be hard for people, just as it's hard when the girl you love leaves you. But that's okay, because there's always someone else out there for you, just as I think that there's something else out there for us.

All things must pass, and then we face another day.

The key is to embrace the change, and make it a better day.

Paul Kimball

Pop Matters: Bob Dylan, "With God On Our Side"

With more than one candidate for the Republican presidential nomination claiming that God has told them to run for President, and with American leaders constantly telling citizens that America has God on their side, this song is more timely than ever.

Paul Kimball

Pop Matters: Radiohead, "Videotape"

"No matter what happens now
I won't be afraid
Because I know
Today has been the most perfect day I have ever seen..."

The best lyrics are always tricky things, open to myriad interpretations, but in this song, which is one of my favourites by Radiohead, I think Thom Yorke is basically saying: "no regrets, because it was worth it."

Words to live by.

Paul Kimball

Pop Matters: Billy Bragg, "Help Save The Youth of America"

A great live version of Billy Bragg's classic "Help Save the Youth of America", which is more relevant today than ever. Politicians in the United States are always talking about creating a better future for the children, even as they use one hand to grab the cash today and the other to flush the future down the toilet. Shame on them all.

As an added bonus, whoever posted this also included "Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards", which remains my favourite Bragg tune. I've already posted it once here, but it bears repeated listenings, now more than ever.

Paul Kimball

Pop Matters: The Northern Pikes, "Unimportant"

A thought-provoking pop gem from the great Canadian band The Northern Pikes.

No matter how different we may seem to each other in this life, we're all headed for the same end, and a final equality. In our shared "unimportance" lies a recognition of our true humanity - and the beginnings of an awareness of our our real importance.

Paul Kimball

Pop Matters: Aimee Mann, "Wise Up"

There's an interesting site called Song Meanings, where lyrics to songs are posted and people comment as to what they think they mean, or what they got out of it (not always the same thing). The discussion of "Wise Up" can be found here.

Paul Kimball

Pop Matters: The Housemartins, "Hopelessly Devoted to Them"

"In the morning, when I’m woken
By the sound of my alarm
Stretching out my arm
I want to screw it up in my palm

And I’ve taken this route to work
A thousand times or more
And when you’ve seen it all before
you tend to get a little bored

They’ve got the keys to all my doors
They hold my where and when
So I guess I’ll always be
Hopelessly devoted to them

In the office when I’m working
There’s a funeral atmosphere
I know I lost someone dear
But I didn’t see him disappear

And I’m lying in my bed
'Cause its keeping me awake
And you think there's no escape
They’ve bound me up in their tape

They’ve got the keys to all my doors
They hold my where and when
So I guess I’ll always be
Hopelessly devoted to them."

One of the great, underrated bands of the 1980s, The Housemartins combined great pop melodies and harmonies with radical and biting lyrics by lead singer Paul Heaton, who was concerned with social inequality, and the class system, often reflecting a fair dose of social gospel Christianity (although Heaton has repeatedly stated that he is an atheist). As the phrase on the cover of their classic album London 0 Hull 4 said: "Take Jesus - Take Marx - Take Hope".

I heartily recommend listening to both London 0 Hull 4 and The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death (their second and final album) while reading Situationist philosopher Raoul Vaneigem's The Revolution of Everyday Life.

Paul Kimball

Pop Matters: Billy Bragg, "Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards"

"In the former Soviet Union, the citizens demand
to know why they're still the target
of Strategic Air Command,
and they shake their fists in anger
and respectfully suggest,
that we take our money from our missiles
and spend it on hospitals instead."

Indeed.

Paul Kimball

Pop Matters: Steve Earle, "Jerusalem"

Most modern popular music is an intellectual and moral wasteland*, but there are "pop" musicians who still  work hard to make a difference, bards who sing about a better way and a better day, troubadors who raise important and thought-provoking issues - philosophers of the people.

Like Steve Earle...

Paul Kimball

* Don't misunderstand - there's nothing wrong with a good dance tune, from time to time, but that's not all that pop music has to offer.