Bad idea.

One thing I love about digital music is the freedom to find and play insipid novelty songs. This dates to college, when we figured out how to share MP3s on the LAN, and somebody dug up a recording of “New Age Girl” by Deadeye Dick. This is an achingly stupid song, and everyone played it constantly. I still play it. Shouldn’t I have the right to listen to tasteless music in my own home without everyone knowing? Do I really want to feel like I’m expending social capital when I put on a Roxette song? Do I want my friends seeing a notice that says, “Your friend Daryl enjoys music by Genesis.”?

Online radio program Pandora integrated some of its features with Facebook recently, enabling a little box that shows what artists your Facebook friends like. I swiftly disabled it after a message appeared saying “Your former girlfriend also enjoys the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.” I imagined a reciprocal message announcing, “Daryl is currently listening to Ke$ha” and decided to put a lid on that.

To be sure, my most-played list in iTunes isn’t particularly shameful. It’s a lot of power pop and catchy music by indie singers like Neko Case and Ben Folds. Entirely appropriate to my branding as a geeky writer in Brooklyn. But scroll down and there’s “Skipper Dan” by Weird Al Yankovic, played 48 times. There’s “Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes,” by Edison Lighthouse, played 44 times. Below that are “That’s Not My Name” by the Ting Tings, and “High School Never Ends” by Bowling for Soup. For these songs, I offer no explanation. I just say, “Mind your own business.” On the blog, I can do this, but on iTunes Ping, I might not have that luxury of context. Is it acceptable to announce that I’m a Brad Paisley fan?

I don’t want to worry about what people think of me when I load up my iPod. I need the small joy of listening to totally uncool music. That’s my message to Apple and Pandora and everyone else working to encode word-of-mouth marketing into a software program that extracts our money $1.29 at a time.

Come to think of it, this isn’t an Apple problem or even a music problem. It’s a social media problem. Quite often, what we share doesn’t reflect our actual behavior. It reflects whom we aspire to be, or whom we want our friends to think we are. As we get used to sharing things—what we watch, what we listen to, where we go out to eat—I’m worried that social media is pressuring us to pretend to be things we’re not. In the future, we will all listen to Grizzly Bear for 15 minutes. Then we’ll disconnect from the Internet and crank up some Steve Winwood, tapping our toes in delicious secrecy.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

Country radio stations recently started spinning a song called “Way Out Here” by Josh Thompson.

At first listen, it’s a celebration of the nobility of the American small town. On the second listen, it’s a rallying cry supporting God and guns, criticizing government welfare, and boasting that people from small towns are more likely to serve in the military. “If it was up to me I’d love to see this country run like it used to be,” Thompson sings.

So it’s a Republican political song. That’s fair. At least, until the chorus comes around, which goes like this:

“We’re about John Wayne, Johnny Cash and John Deere, way out here.”

Oh no he didn’t!

Hearing Josh Thompson summon the name of Johnny Cash is nails on a chalkboard. Johnny Cash was a protest singer, a social justice advocate, a reformer. It’s impossible to imagine him asking for America to be “run like it used to be.” Thompson has Johnny Cash’s politics exactly backwards.

Johnny Cash played his most famous concerts for prisoners. He refused Richard Nixon’s song requests for “Welfare Cadillac” and “Okie From Muskogee.” He stuck up for the poor and the mistreated, flatly denouncing the “white man’s greed” in “The Ballad of Ira Hayes.”

But mostly, we remember Cash for writing and singing really good country songs. He used music to tell stories about love and lust and personal struggle. His songs were humble. In “I Walk The Line” and “Ring of Fire,” Cash was singing about the fight to be a good man, not boasting about how great his values were. In “Don’t Take Your Guns To Town,” he was singing about the love of a mother for her son, not taking a stand on gun ownership.

Cash was a religious man and sang about Christ as a vehicle for love. “Man In Black” has these lyrics:

“I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you’d think He’s talking straight to you and me.”

Compare that to this lyric (repeated twice) from “Way Out Here”:

“Our houses are protected by the good Lord and a gun, and you might meet ‘em both if you show up here not welcome son.”

Sing what you want to sing, but if that’s your message about God and love, leave Johnny Cash the hell out of it.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

Related: I found a post about Las Vegas from 2000, when I stopped there for one night with my friends Tim, Brian and Ryan on our cross-country road trip. During the trip, we were posting real-time, text-only updates on a web site using a little hand-held gizmo called a Philips Velo 1. The device had to plug into a phone line, which then e-mailed my PowerMac back at the university, which then posted our updates on a rudimentary web server I set up. This was pre-blogging. Rather than gambling and gallivanting, we went driving around Vegas looking for a Kinkos. Good times.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

Now the story:

Earlier this month, my brother Gerritt and his wife Melanie hosted a party at their house. Gerritt made a playlist of party music, and I suggested we play a movie to serve as “visual noise” for people to talk about and smile at. I went on Netflix queued up the 1963 epic Jason and the Argonauts.

As we played this movie at the party, we were all amazed at how every scene seemed to sync perfectly with whatever song was playing. When the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” came on, it was truly a Pink-Floyd-meets-The-Wizard-of-Oz moment.

We imagined a video: the greatest scenes from Jason and the Argonauts condensed and synchronized to “I Gotta Feeling.” Making that video felt not only logical, but mandatory.

The following week, I attended a panel discussion about Internet video at the South-by-Southwest conference in Austin, at which I heard two film/video artists (Brett Gaylor and Elisa Kreisinger) talk about the creative energy that goes into remixing other people’s work. I felt inspired. People really enjoy creating and watching these mashups. This helped me justify investing some of my spare time in this editing project.

Back at my computer, I started clipping and ordering the best scenes from Jason and the Argonauts. I soon realized that “I Gotta Feeling” is a stupefyingly long song. To make this project as fast-paced and funny as I envisioned, I would need more monsters. This led to a month-long obsession with the brilliant work of special effects artist Ray Harryhausen. I scanned through The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Mysterious Island (1961), One Million Years B.C. (1966) and Clash of the Titans (1981). One scene at a time, I built this video synced to the Black Eyed Peas song.

I find digital video editing to be good stress relief. I get lost in the positive feedback loop of every scene coming together, getting better with each hour spent. One reason I appreciate the precision of digital video so much (other than that I’m a control freak) is that I learned video editing in college using VHS decks, which were an exercise in frustration and creative compromise. The most basic editing tools on today’s home computers are a thousand times better than the old way.

I made this video for fun, but I think it improved my editing skills, too. I also found a renewed appreciation for the hand-built, analog creations of Ray Harryhausen. His stop-motion models still hold their magic decades later, viewed frame-by-frame on a digital screen.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

But does being specific always serve us well? Is it possible to omit detail to reach some deeper truth—say, in a song or a poem (or an image caption)? I thought about this recently after listening to two songs, one with very strong lyrics and one very weak lyrics. The stronger song tells, the weaker song shows. Do we have this rule backwards? See what I mean…

1. “Human” by The Killers

This is a tightly played and tightly written song, but the lyrics are anything but specific. Take a look at the end of the first verse:

Close your eyes
Clear your heart
Cut the cord

What’s it mean? I don’t know, but my mind translates the rhythm of those nine, one-syllable words into a deep feeling of risk and anticipation. A few bars later, we get to the song’s most powerful verse:

Pay my respects to grace and virtue
Send my condolences to good
Give my regards to soul and romance,
They always did the best they could
And so long to devotion
You taught me everything I know
Wave goodbye
Wish me well
You’ve gotta let me go

It’s a song about casting off from some place safe, about confusion and creative danger. The song builds to a soaring bridge that asks: “Will your system be all right when you dream of home tonight?” That’s where the song comes closest to sinking into the mire of bad high school poetry, but it’s saved by the choice of one unexpected word—system. This is a damn smart song. It’s so good that we’ll even forgive the odd grammar in the chorus (“Are we human or are we dancer?”). Somehow it works.

2. “Fireflies” by Owl City

Lots of people enjoy this song, but as a piece of writing, it is almost unfathomably bad. And its badness comes from too much of the wrong kinds of detail. Here’s how the first verse begins:

You would not believe your eyes
If ten million fireflies
Lit up the world as I fell asleep

Holy specific! We get a species of insect and an exact census: Ten million of the critters! The lyrics don’t improve much in the chorus:

I’d like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly
It’s hard to say that I’d rather stay
Awake when I’m asleep
‘Cause everything is never as it seems

Do you hear any certainty or conviction in those words? This ain’t exactly the 23rd Psalm. That’s five wimpy lines burned with nothing to show for it. This song wastes words like H&M wastes clothes. Continuing:

‘Cause I’d get a thousand hugs
From ten thousand lightning bugs
As they tried to teach me how to dance
A foxtrot above my head
A sock hop beneath my bed
A disco ball is just hanging by a thread

Calculator please? In a mass extinction, we’ve gone from 10 million fireflies to just 1/10 of 1 percent of that. Even if we politely ignore these numbers, what do we make of the image of 10,000 bugs hugging the singer? It’s hard to escape the image of a man overcome by a horrific swarm. Also: Foxtrot? Sock hop? Disco? Welcome to the lamest dance party ever. These details do not help the message of the song, which is that dreams are bizarre. It’s trying to be profound, but it’s not.

* * *

Consider this. “Human” and “Fireflies” are essentially the same song. They’re both perky pop songs about a young adult character in confusing times. Both songs were carefully engineered and marketed to get spun at parties and rack up downloads on iTunes.

Same message, different writing styles. The Killers song sets up some arcs and lets us fill in the details ourselves. It demands just a little bit of work from the listener: It’s your song, feel what you want to feel. And it’s good. Owl City’s “Fireflies,” despite its massive commercial success, won’t stand the test of time. “Fireflies” gives us the details first (10,000,000 bugs!) and then tries to wrangle them into some kind of flimsy framework (It’s all a dream!). The song relieves the listener of the burden of thinking. In this case, the songwriter who preferred the general to the specific did a better job.

In conclusion, The Killers rock and Owl City sucks.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

This particular song is the antidote to cynicism. It kicks gravel in the face of everyone who would cast scorn upon somebody else for trying too hard.

Twelve weeks at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Winner of two Grammys and an Oscar. The most successful rap song of all time. A song that never wears out. (How many other songs from 2002 have 36 million plays on YouTube?)

The best song of the decade is “Lose Yourself” by Eminem and anyone who says otherwise is itching for a fight.

This song debuted as part of Eminem’s 2002 movie “8 Mile.” It was an instant smash. Since then I’ve listened to it before job interviews and public presentations, before bike rides and while running. The beat reminds me of a military operation or a sports contest, and no doubt it’s been used to get countless people pumped up for both. But the character in the song is neither a soldier nor an athlete; he’s an artist.

Eminem’s character is a rapper who has to prove he has a quicker wit and better flow than his opponents. His bombs are lines, his lab is where he writes. At its heart, it’s a song about writing, and for obvious reasons I freakin’ love this. It has some of Eminem’s best and most challenging internal rhymes, dropped like laser-guided missiles.

I can imagine this song being played over a montage of American news clips over the last decade. It’s the sound of Detroit, of New Orleans, of everyone who fights for justice. It’s the sound of 9/11, of dusty wars, of Barack Obama, of the credit crisis, of the relentless pace of innovation.

This opportunity comes one in a lifetime. You can do anything you set your mind to.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

Here’s what we did. I’m going to include Friday and Sunday, just for good measure.

Friday

• Dinner at Franny’s on Flatbush Ave in Brooklyn.

Saturday

• Breakfast at Lindo’s diner on 5th Ave in Brooklyn. Spinach and feta omelet, black coffee.
• Grocery shopping at various markets along 5th Ave: Eagle Provisions, Lopez Bakery, Big Apple produce. Make turkey sandwiches for lunch.
• Ride the subway into Manhattan. Go for a walk through High Line Park. Buy a cold soda and drink it outside on the folding chairs in the little traffic triangle at 14th Street and 9th.
• Walk to the Lomography store on 8th Street and check out the funky cheap plastic cameras.
• Walk through Washington Square Park, which is filled with people dressed like pirates for Talk Like a Pirate Day.
• Beers at the Village Pourhouse on 3rd Ave, where a large group of well-mannered Virginia Tech alumni have crowded in to watch the Tech-Nebraska game on about 30 big TVs. Tech comes from behind and scores a winning touchdown with under 2 minutes on the clock. The place goes crazy.
• Ride the subway back to Brooklyn. Stop for a slice at any random pizzeria.
• Go see a concert at Southpaw on 5th Ave. Tonight: The Brooklyn Country Music Festival.

Sunday

• Bagels at the Bagel Factory on 5th Ave. in Brooklyn.
• Church potluck lunch.
• Unwind from the busy weekend with a long walk through the Green-Wood Cemetery.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

A banged-up Volkswagen sedan picked me up at the hostel. As I climbed in the back, the driver apologized in part-English, part-Portuguese for the busted rear window, which was stuck open. We turned onto the road that parallels the beach. The air that blew through the car was warm and smelled like the sea.

We followed the coast and passed through tunnels cut into seaside cliffs. I was on my way to go hang gliding for the first time. This is a touristy thing to do, but the gliding conditions were good, and I felt excited.

The car had a cheap stereo with a detachable face — the kind people buy when their factory radio gets stolen — tuned to an FM station playing American pop music. A song came with a ukulele and a twangy guitar, then a mellow voice be-bopping across some inane lyrics. Well-a you done done me and you bet I felt it… I knew this song, but not what it’s called or who sings it. John Mayer? Jack Johnson?

Later, I learned it’s called “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz. It’s a generic, mass-produced summer pop song. The Bud Light Lime of music. This is not the kind of music I usually enjoy. It’s boring! It does not rock! But in a slightly scary place, in a slightly scary car, about to do a slightly scary thing, a boring American pop song was called for.

Hang gliding was a kick. Vacation is a free pass to enjoy the tacky. Out of New York, away from my job, not being observed, I felt relieved of the burden of good taste. And so Mr. Mraz was a welcome sound. I’ll always feel good when I hear that song.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

I wonder how many people who see this sign in Williamsburg are familiar with the movie and/or song?

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.