The Heart Remains A Child (1996) – Everything But The Girl

(The Cupid Chronicles: Complexions of Love – Stuck In Love’s Sandbox)

Tracy Thorn explores the psyche of a woman who still dreams of her ex from time to time. Although she is occasionally tempted to try and contact him, she isn’t sure that she wants to hear that he has since moved on. Instead, a part of her hopes that he is fairly miserable and misses her. Despite this selfishness, she hints that she is disappointed at how begrudgingly she accepts the idea that he might be happy, that her ego prevents her from wishing him the best. Ben Watt’s cadenced loop-based arrangement evokes a metropolitan walk among the skyscrapers downtown, where Thorn, her alto warm and soothing, can sort through her conflicted feelings. But, like a child who pouts when things don’t go her way, her heart is unable to overcome her feelings of inadequacy and rejection, her unfulfilled need to feel loved, and the likelihood that he is better off without her.

Listen to "The Heart Remains A Child" and purchase from iTunes Music Store.

Kim (2000) – Eminem

(The Cupid Chronicles: Complexions of Love – Caught In The Grip Of A Jealous Rage a.k.a. The O.J. Syndrome)

If one gets past the bloodcurdling misogynistic violence depicted in “Kim” (which is really of the variety one would expect to see in a Wes Craven movie), what emerges is Marshall Mathers’ songwriting talent. His conversational delivery flows naturally like movie script dialogue written in rhyme, blending the distinction between rapping and speaking (well, in this case, screaming) by infusing histrionics into well-crafted meter. After cooing over his toddler daughter, Eminem resumes the abduction of his ex-wife. He murdered her new husband and his four-year old son, but is going to make it appear that she was responsible and committed suicide. All the while he rants like a lunatic, portraying both the raging assailant and his whimpering victim, avowing that if he can’t have her, he must kill her—which he ultimately does by slitting her throat. The venom with which Eminem expectorates his vituperation is enough to repulse the average listener, and even the most seasoned rap fan is apt to be a little uncomfortable. Yet, despite this graphic homicidal fantasy preserved for posterity, the rumor is that Kim and Marshall are engaged for a third time. Looks like they really want to give that “’till death do us part” vow one more shot.

Listen to "Kim" and purchase from iTunes Music Store.

See also "Who Knew" (2000) - Eminem

I Confess (1982) – The English Beat

(The Cupid Chronicles: Complexions of Love – The Adulterer Who Knows No Contrition)

What otherwise seems like a breezy calypso on a sunny tropical island is really the account of a man who reveals his infidelity to his wife. However, rather than feeling contrition, he turns a bit vindictive. Dave Wakeling admits that this declaration of apathy is done “out of spite,” that he is indifferent to the fact that the marriage is over because it has been dead for a while. In fact, he wouldn’t even care about who he hurt with his indiscretions were it not for the fact that it will affect him (alimony, child support, loss of custody). The romanticist within him was always “searching for paradise” with new women, even though he risked ruining three lives: his, his wife’s, and, presumably, his child’s. Although he acknowledges that he was wrong for his philandering ways, he is numb to the aftermath. His confession, then, is threefold: he’s guilty of adultery, he feels no remorse, and he doesn’t care what happens next. In doing so, he neutralizes any emotional vengeance she might attempt to inflict upon him, selfish to the end.

Listen to "I Confess" and purchase from iTunes Music Store.

That’s The Way Of The World (1975) – Earth, Wind & Fire

“That’s The Way Of The World” is a musician’s elysium where euphoric strains waft across golden fields lambent with the lustrous convergence of harmonic elements: Larry Dunn gently lays down twinkles of Fender Rhodes electric piano over a heartbeat of drums; a duo of trombones puff out clouds of muffled brass sprinkling droplets of glockenspiel; Al McKay’s guitar gently massages out a syncopated rhythm; strings glide in airiness. In exalting spiritual transcendence over the mundane, Philip Bailey’s falsetto lends a lofty altitude, while Maurice White’s soulful drawl digs deep into the nitty-gritty. Verdine White’s bassline springs in elasticity as a fulcrum, scaling and shuffling in steps that traverse the ambit of the chord, constantly seeking resolution over surprising and stirring chord progressions. That he co-wrote this song is evident in the line’s momentum that injects a little funk into an otherwise placid ballad, perambulating in one of the most expressive performances ever recorded. Johnny Graham metes out an elliptical solo played on a brand new Stratocaster which forced him to be more restrained than usual, building tension by spacing, sustaining and bending his notes with such finesse so as to elicit facial contortions of gratification. In its calming diffusion, “That’s The Way Of The World” elevates the listener to the upper reaches of enlightenment where a reinvigorating sojourn awaits.

Listen to "That's The Way Of The World" and purchase from iTunes Music Store.

Suds In The Bucket (2003) - Sara Evans

With her slightly twangy, yet warm and appealing, voice, Sara Evans recounts the tale of a small-town girl who runs away with her boyfriend, leaving impetuously in mid-chore. “Suds” incorporates all of the elements of a country music soap opera: the toll on her parents, the scuttlebutt, the community’s judgment, and the shotgun wedding. With its honky-tonk hokiness, “Suds” glosses over the repercussion of a deed that can tear a family apart, advising those left behind to resign themselves to the notion that this was inevitable.

When Kellie Pickler sang this on American Idol Season 5, Simon Cowell made no bones about his bias against country music and complete unwillingness to listen to it with an open mind, instead attacking the song’s title. Had he at least given it a fair shake, he would have realized that “Suds” reinterprets The Beatles’ “She’s Leaving Home” for the red states. True, whether or not that’s a good thing may depend on how many shots of Jack ya’ll had.

Listen to "Suds In The Bucket" and purchase from iTunes Music Store.

Lost and Found (1987) – Echo and The Bunnymen

For the better part of the Bunnymen’s career, Ian McCulloch’s lyrics were often abstruse and obfuscated. However, there were moments when he mined the emotional mother lode, striking upon glimmers of undisguised sensitivity. “Lost and Found” finds McCulloch in a cemetery, lost in contemplation, seeking counsel from the spirits of the dead. For it is only when surrounded by death that he feels life extolling its virtues. It’s not until the fourth verse that he substantiates his brooding: the girl is inscrutable, and her disinterest makes her all the more desireable. Unrequited love goes a long way toward justifying gloom. Although his bandmates have found more to do in prior outings, resigning themselves here to background duties, they do so with unassuming gracefulness, cloaking McCulloch in harmonic textures with the promise of hope in the mire of his despondency. Having found the fortitude he seeks, McCulloch communes with ghosts; the chilling wind that howls through the graveyard revives his soul, reaffirming with piercing acuteness that he is indeed alive.

Listen to "Lost and Found" and purchase from iTunes Music Store.

Surfboard (1967) – Esquivel (Antônio Carlos Jobim)

Arguably, the 1994 Bar None release of Space Age Bachelor Pad Music, which compiled sundry Juan García Esquivel selections, was single-handedly responsible for the mid-century modern revival of the mid-1990s. Its quirky ebullience opened the door for a new generation to lounge in the futuristic atmosphere that the modernists crafted in their architecture, their furniture, their fashion, their cocktails, their music. Capturing this aesthetic, Esquivel’s adaptation of this zippy Antônio Carlos Jobim instrumental is an ambrosial mixture of Star Trek otherworldliness and downtown department store shopping excursion whimsy. Esquivel imbues intrigue, caprice and zest into the exoticism inherent in Jobim’s compositions. “Surfboard” washes ashore on a swell of cymbal and trumpet exclamations, receding to staccato driblets of casino organ, syncopated pecks of wood block, and isochronal dabs of double bass that samba in simpatico rapport. Throughout, celestial female vocables “oohoohoohoohooooh” in astral etherealness, “beedoopbeedahbeedoopbeedaah” fancifully, and “bopbopbopbopbopbopbopbop” with gusto. A hollow-body guitar sneaks furtively through the atrium of an Eichler to partake of splendid vistas through the ceiling-high glass panes of an Eames-adorned living room. At times, Esquivel’s arrangement blends its elements so well, audio mirages insinuate themselves: Is that a duo of women shrieking along with the trumpets in the introduction? Is there whistling along with the organ in the second verse? Such indistinctness enhances the vagaries. In embracing the leisurely modus vivendi of space age bachelors, “Surfboard” serves up a sonic slice of suburban utopia for an artifical atomic age.

Not available from iTunes Music Store.

Who Knew? (2000) – Eminem

Eminem’s craft lies in his lyrical vexations and mocking singsong hooks that pester until they lodge themselves in your brain (check out “Rain Man,” for instance, in which he plays the idiot savant to a tee): in other words, he’s a master of the annoyingly catchy rhyme. As good an example as any, “Who Knew” serves on a broader sociological level as a catalyst for discourse on the ultimate responsibility for teenagers’ behavior. It’s also highly entertaining, if only to hear Eminem blurt out words mocking those who are incited by his lyrics without regard for their context.

Skulking to slinky sequenced synthesizers and beats, Eminem feigns ignorance about the effect his lyrics could have on a teenager who might kill himself or strike a girl. Of course, he’s not that naïve, but he has a point: you can only blame music for so much. To the extent that teenagers act out violence upon self or others, Mr. Mathers shunts the blame to parents and to the teens themselves who idiotically take his lyrics to be literal behavioral cues.

While parents shouldn’t necessarily hand over a copy of The Marshall Mathers LP to their 10 year-old, Eminem gives us fair warning that we are better off teaching our children about the violence, profanity and misguided views (misogyny, homophobia) to which they will inevitably be exposed, so that they might develop a sense of right and wrong that will serve them well as adults. In that regard, it’ll be interesting to see how his daughter Hailie grows up. His love for her is well-documented, but one has to wonder what hearing songs your father wrote about killing your mother and dumping her in a lake (“Kim”; “’97 Bonnie and Clyde”) does to a young girl. Even Slim Shady himself admits in 2002’s “My Dad’s Gone Crazy” that he wouldn’t let her listen to his music.

Listen to “Who Knew?” and purchase from iTunes Music Store.

See also "Kim" (2000) - Eminem