whatever

Today's theme: disillusion. Not because this is a sudden feeling, prompting me to pursue the natural Me Generation course of action by spilling my anonymous, twisted, unspecial guts into an open forum. Actually, it's because that temperament is pretty much the norm for me and my fellow phlegmatics. (Which is fine, whatever.) 

And it's also because some of the angstiest (therefore the best) songs are, ironically, those consciously devoid of angst; devoid, in fact, of anything at all. I'm talking about numbness, people! Complacent defeat! The perenially-beloved stylistic motif that is the deathlessness of stunted-adolescent melancholia! Or something.

Andrew Jackson Jihad - "Growing Up"

"Growing up really fucking sucks." 

A hilariously accurate deluge of detached worries, lodged by the folk-punk Champions of Disenchanted Youth. True enough to be dogma.

Belle and Sebastian - "I Don't Love Anyone"

"I don't love anything, not even Christmas. Especially not that." 

Leave it to these twee Scots to make worrying emotional disengagement sound so damn cute.

The Promise Ring - "Nothing Feels Good"

"I don't own any albums, I don't know anything. I don't go to college anymore." 

Who better to pseudo-sympathize with your own deadened soul than the original renderers of the Dead Soul, Musicalized? True '90s emo at its best, heaviest-lidded self.

Fugazi - "I'm So Tired"

"I'm so tired, sheep are counting me." 

If you hadn't felt apathetic already, you will now. But it's never felt so pretty, right? 

Pink Martini - "Je ne veux pas travailler"

"I don't want to work, I don't want to eat. I only want to forget, so I smoke." 

I was seriously bummed when I found out that Pink Martini is from Portland, because this song is so French! Which, actually, should have tipped me off that they're American. French people would never be so trite as to pronounce their own apathy.