Lou Barlow covers La Roux for youx

Whereas the original song (by British electropop duo La Roux) is all sheen and hard candy shellac, Lou Barlow‘s interpretation of it is almost haunting. For me when I hear the original, it feels like sparkly nights out dancing, and the lines that stand out are the ones about “been there, done that, messed around, I’m having fun, don’t put me down.” She’s bulletproof the way a cartoon superhero is; she doesn’t bleed real blood.

But here Lou takes it and turns it inside out, makes it echo with all the empty space. When he vows, “this time baby, this time I’ll be…bulletproof,” I find that I don’t believe him, any more than I ever believe we can completely seal off our hearts as hermetically as we’d sometimes like.

Bulletproof (La Roux cover) – Lou Barlow

Watch the three-song video set from SPIN; Barlow has a new album out this month on Merge called Goodnight Unknown.

And speaking of all things Barlow: you Denverites can win tix for Dinosaur Jr‘s upcoming stop Thursday night via the classy people at Donnybrook Writing Academy (they who can be eternally thanked also for this piece on Stupid Band Names).

Hookin’ up words and phrases and clauses

I am so ridiculously excited about this post. If you are roughly in my age bracket, or if you are younger and have *exceptionally* cool tastes, then you know what I am talkin’ about when I say, “I’m just a bill. Yes, I’m only a bill. And I’m sitting here on Capitol Hill….”

Schoolhouse Rock! was instrumental in my academic formation, and contributed extensively to my mad verbal skills today. As their website says so eloquently; “Every Saturday morning between 1973 and 1985, a classroom of imagination defying enormity was assembled on ABC, run by a small cadre of renegade Madison Avenue ad men. Class sessions were short but intense – squeezed between episodes of Scooby Doo and LaffOlympics, and Underoos met the dress code. No one assigned homework, no one slapped your knuckles with a yardstick, no one beat you up for your milk money. The institution of learning was called Schoolhouse Rock, and if you can recite the Preamble of the Constitution by rote and know the function of a conjunction, you probably attended faithfully.”

Don’t you feel smarter just remembering all this stuff? Three times six is … eighteen! School House Rock was great at breaking down complex issues into easily understood (and damn catchy) rhymes. In 1996 a bunch of their songs were re-done by good people so now you can rock a little as you learn (from the CD Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks). Please enjoy these as much as I do. And all good English majors should remember:
“I get my thing in action (Verb!)
To be, to sing, to feel, to live (Verb!)”

Splendid.

Conjunction Junction – Better Than Ezra

Three Is A Magic Number – Blind Melon

I’m Just A Bill – Deluxx Folk Implosion

No More Kings – Pavement

My Hero, Zero – The Lemonheads

The Energy Blues – Biz Markie

Verb: That’s What Happening – Moby


Also, today is my sister’s birthday – my childhood companion on the couch in our jammies, watching and learning all this stuff, filing away all the tunes into our encyclopedic musical memories. Happy birthday, big sis! Love you!