Firsts and Favourites: Music Meme

Here’s another music meme I got off Rol.

List 10 musical artists (or bands) you like, in no specific order (do this before reading the questions below). Really, don’t read the questions below until you pick your ten artists!!!

1. Manic Street Preachers
2. IAMX
3. Patrick Wolf
4. The Smiths
5. The Clash
6. Pulp
7. The Indelicates
8. McCarthy
9. David Bowie
10. Stars

What was the first song you ever heard by 6?

Common People. I was watching a mind-numbing stream of music videos about twelve years ago, and then this spindly man with limp wrists and clever lyrics came on the screen – first in a shopping cart and then clapping around hip-level and waggling his finger. I fell in love and have been a disciple of Mr. Cocker ever since.

What is your favorite song of 8?

I have a fair number of favourites from McCarthy, but We Are All Bourgeois Now is one of the catchiest and most memorable for me. And it’s so true, it hurts. But I also really love the lyrics of We Are All Born Creeps:

Evil first entered the world when Adam and Eve tried to know.
They tested the apple of death and Original Sin was passed on from them to us.
So when we’re born, we are bad.
There’s no evil that we’ll not do.
But God’s love can turn us around!
And then we can become warm-hearted people.
That’s what it says in the Bible, and oh, well it may be true.

It may be true what it says,
But in these godless days to Science we look for the truth.
And what does Science say?
That selfishness is in our genes.

So when we’re born we are bad.
Each one of us longs to compete.
And only the strong ones survive.
They reach for the top!
They make all the big money!
And those born with less strong genes –
Well, they make ends meet as dustmen and things like that.
It’s hard, but it’s natural.
Nature won’t be messed with.
Do you want to live in Russia?
No, it’s hard, but it’s natural.
Nature won’t be messed with.

What kind of impact has 1 left on your life?

If you really want to know, read here.

What is your favorite lyric of 5?

I’m all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for the special offer
A guaranteed personality

I wasn’t born so much as I fell out
Nobody seemed to notice me
We had a hedge back home in the suburbs
Over which I never could see

I heard the people who lived on the ceiling
Scream and fight most scarily
Hearing that noise was my first ever feeling
That’s how it’s been all around me

Or…

White youth, black youth
Better find another solution
Why not phone up Robin Hood
And ask him for some wealth distribution

Punk Rockers in the UK
They won’t notice anyway
They’re all too busy fighting
For a good place under the lighting

The new groups are not concerned
With what there is to be learned
They got Burton suits, ha you think it’s funny
Turning rebellion into money

All over people changing their votes
Along with their overcoats
If Adolf Hitler flew in today
They’d send a limousine anyway

Or…several others.

How many times have you seen 4 live?

Don’t rub it in. They were broken up by the time I was five years old. I haven’t even had a chance to see Morrissey live yet.

What is your favorite song by 7?

Ooh….I guess I have to say We Hate the Kids (they have so many brilliant songs). But Waiting for Pete Doherty to Die and New Art for the People are close seconds.

Is there any song by 3 that makes you sad?

Nothing stands out immediately. Some of his songs fill me with a bittersweet feeling, but nothing actually sad.

What is your favorite song by 9?

A favourite song by Bowie? How is that possible to choose? I’ve adored the man since I was eight years old. I refuse to choose. It’s a three-way tie between Life On Mars, The Man Who Sold the World, and “Heroes.”

When did you first get into 2?

I think it was 2005 when I first read about IAMX. I had heard about the Sneaker Pimps only in passing and had never really checked them out, so Chris Corner’s name wasn’t on my radar. Then, of all places and people, I read about IAMX in Noel Fielding’s column of recommendations in the NME.

How did you get into 3?

I’m not entirely sure. I first heard about Patrick Wolf back in the days when I actually read music magazines, so it could have very well been in a few of those. I remember being impressed by his clothing (one photo had him wearing a strange hoodie with large, felt rabbits stuck to it) and then by the descriptions of his multi-instrumental music. He sounded Bowiesque on paper, so soon after, I ordered a copy of Lycanthropy. Then Wind in the Wires. And from there on in, I’ve been anticipating and buying all subsequent albums and singles. All because he first blew my mind to bits with the dark experimentalism and imagery of that first album. He was always the whole package, and I’ve admired that.

What is your favorite song by 4?

This is getting ridiculous. I’m supposed to pinpoint my favourite Bowie song, and now one from The Smiths? Okay, I’ll pick the one that gets me everytime and fills me with a melancholy racing: There is a Light That Never Goes Out.

How many times have you seen 9 live?

Once, but it was one of the best nights of my life. I was third row on the floor at the old Winnipeg Arena for the Reality Tour, screaming my brains out with one friend who was screaming equally as nuttily and one friend who didn’t seem to know why she was there (the latter isn’t a friend of mine anymore – enough said). I know I’ll never have that kind of opportunity again, especially for the pitiful sum of $75 for a ticket. There are still moments when I have flashbacks of Bowie standing right above me on the raised platform as he moved to stage left. Needless to say, the screaming friend and I were hoarse and wild-eyed at the end of it.

What is a good memory concerning 2?

Seeing IAMX live in both Toronto and Detroit within days of each other. For the full account, click here. The shorter version is that I went on my own to the Toronto show a couple of years ago, met some other fans, including a girl who gave me a ride back to my hotel. She then came up with the rather fannish idea to follow IAMX to the next stop in Detroit two nights later. I didn’t need much convincing despite having coursework to do for my MA, and thus, went with a virtual stranger down into the States and back, returning to my apartment at about 4:00AM, just to experience IAMX live once more. It was all more than worth it. I get that music fan mist that falls over my eyes sometimes – it’s like some people’s bloodmist when they’re angry – and I do things that seem highly unlikely or highly dangerous. But my instincts have never failed me.

Is there a song by 8 that makes you sad?

They’re all rather sad because they’re about the reality of society and its political trappings. For the most part, these songs are brutalizing in the lyrics, but sweetly melodic in the music. The Way of the World comes to mind as a heartbreaker.

What is your favorite song by 1?

Motorcycle Emptiness. It breaks my heart again and again, and when I see them perform it live, I find it hard not to throw myself on the floor and speak in tongues.

How did you become a fan of 10?

Through a former co-worker actually. He and I developed a sort of odd work relationship in which we sometimes had long discussions about linguistics, orality and literacy, existentialism, books, music, and films. And sometimes we didn’t speak to each other for weeks. I’ll always remember him asking me if I liked The Smiths, and when I enthusiastically said I did, he said I should try out the Canadian band, Stars. I did, and I’ve loved them ever since. And every time I listen to What I’m Trying to Say, and hear the chorus, which goes, “I am trying to say/What I want to say/Without having to say/”I love you,” I think of that co-worker. Why? Because I remember him telling me how much that particular lyric resonated with him, and considering his outlook on sex and relationships, it made a lot of sense. And he was kind of the first person I had met that had those kinds of views. He had a bohemian charm, but that wore thin sometimes. I also distinctly remember him saying something like “I’ve just fallen in love with you” to which I replied “I think you and I have drastically different ideas of what love is.”

We Are All Born Creeps – McCarthy

What I’m Trying to Say – Stars