2002-11-09 - 1:03 a.m.

Oh my God some songs will never lose their magic. Ever. Like stupid Lovesong by the Cure.

I mean it.

There are some albums I've listened to about ten billion times, like Apollo 18 by They Might be Giants, or Isolation Drills by Guided by Voices, that have proved themselves enough to forever be cherished albums.

Part of me. And I know these albums by rote. Every note. I can sit on a long train ride and listen to the entire album in my head, song to song, without a single skip.

And I have some special artists, like Robyn Hitchcock, who cannot, to me, ever write a bad song. At the very worst, a bad Robyn Hitchcock song (like, say, the Abandoned Brain) is just an unfortunate example of his work.

I�ll sit down with a new Robyn Hitchcock album for hours and hours and hours until I like it. And it�s worth it.

Corpus Christie Carol (for Roy), by Jeff Buckley is a great example of the type of song I really appreciate. More work, more talent, more preparation, more anguish, more joy than I can ever muster went into that song. Does it move me? It is beautiful, but not really. No--it does not move me.

(Years later, maybe I�ll be wrong about that one.)

PJ Harvey is a car wreck victim who tells her intriguing story over and over and over again, holding nothing back, and who includes new, sometimes unrelated, details with each retelling, but we all know she�s OK, otherwise she wouldn�t be telling the story.

I spent some time in college with the Pixies, and I love them to death, but I can�t get into them--where I�m dancing around the room to Break My Body. Everytime I listen to them, I�m thinking this song went on to influence that band, which went on to influence this entire movement, and what not. Or I�m wondering if my theory about Frank Black being a domineering, snobby asshole is actually true.

My friend Randy Research said of Nico (I�m paraphrasing) I just wanna take her out to a restaurant with candles on the tables and sawdust on the floor.

Robyn Hitchcock sang People flocked like cattle to Seattle after Kurt Cobain. And before him, the rain. Hendrix played guitar just like an animal that�s trapped inside a cage. And one day, he escaped.

Sometimes I wanna kick Beck�s ass for being Johnny Smooth at the expense of his talent. Sometimes, I wanna kick Beck�s ass for putting out real fucking shit, �cause I�m not convinced he really means it. He can�t have both--it�s just not fair.

It took me years to welcome Radiohead with open arms. When they were really, really popular, just like REM, I had a hard time believing that folks liked �em for the right reasons.

I won�t get into The Smiths here, but I love how Morrisey only wrote one good song afterwards (Suedehead), and that it�s one of the best songs ever written.

Michael Penn is the friend that says stuff that you ignore at the time, but which comes true later.

And Aimee Mann is the friend that says I told you so.

For each song, or each artist, there was a time in my live when I fantasized that I was that person, that artist, that songwriter. Of course, there�s plenty more not mentioned.

And those artists, those songs, those songwriters, they all slowly became a part of me. I am Lou Barlow comparing myself to the shallow brook out back. I am Lou Reed, the guy that first said if I could make the world as pure and strange as what I see, I�d put you in the mirror I hold in front of me, and goddamn it, I said it before it became a clich�. I am Suzanne Vega telling the world that I�m no cheap trick, that I�ll cost you anything you have to pay.

I said that.

Daniel Johnston�s Wedding Ring Blues. Cornelius� New Music Machine. The Cure�s Just Like Heaven. The Softies� Tracks and Tunnels. Dylan�s Fourth Time Around.

I hoped nobody was looking when I pretended I was on stage, performing those songs. I don�t think anybody was.

But they�re a part of me now.

But oh my god oh my god oh my god, sometimes some songs are still magic, as opposed to a part of me.

I�m not knocking anything. It�s just that sometimes something slips into a part of me which will never be a part of me, and becomes a part all it�s own. A small, tiny part, like a toenail. And there�s the magic--it never occurs to me that it�s a part of me until I see it.

I was in at the Hong Kong with Molly and some other folks, and Robert Smith�s sappy and ever-so-less than clever love ballad, obviously titled Love Song came on the bar�s tinny speakers, and I shut up for five minutes and listened to the song.

Like I always do when it comes on.

That�s the song I�m afraid to write.

When I write that song, it�ll be the last great song I�ll ever write.

And it will fill some teenager�s heart with joy, with a promise of something else, and then I�ll truly go to hell.