Hooray for Craigslist!

“I’m getting a bookshelf! I’m getting a bookshelf!”

I’ve been browsing Craigslist recently in order to see if I could find anything funky and neat for the new apartment or, at least, listings for garage sales and the like.  Today, though? I’m picking up this:

I am probably entirely too excited for a $20 used bookshelf, but I’m pretty sure my ginormous Oxford English Dictionary will fit on it, which will free up a lot of space on my other bookshelves.  Even with that space, though, I’m probably going to have to buy another set of bookshelves to match the ones I already have.

When it comes to moving, though, that’s the one thing I’m not looking forward to moving–all the books.  I’ve already packed four boxes of books, and I haven’t even touched the books in my office or in the family room yet.  It’s never a fun process, moving, but it’s even less fun for a bibliophile–not only are books heavy dead-weight, but packing and unpacking them takes forever as well.  Still, despite all of my grumbling, I really am looking forward to moving; while the process will be a pain in the ass, it will be nice to become more fully invested in the graduate school and social lives I’ve slowly begun at school.  Plus, this year, I’m the social chair of the English Graduate Organization, so living near campus will make that aspect of the year go a lot better.

Edit: Boo for me, as I completely misjudged the size of that bookcase and the OED definitely won’t fit on it.  Ah, well.  Perhaps I’ll use it for the materials related to my thesis.

Burning down the house.

I love torch songs.

If the term is unfamiliar, Wikipedia describes the torch song as follows:

A torch song is a sentimental love song, typically one in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, where one party is either oblivious to the existence of the other, or where one party has moved on. Singers (predominantly female) of the Pop Vocal tradition are referred to as “torch singers” when their repertoire consists predominantly of such material. Torch singing is more of a niche than a genre, and can stray from the traditional jazz-influenced style of singing, although the American tradition of the torch song typically relies upon the melodic structure of the blues.

Another thing people who know me know about me, aside from my rampant, congenital negativity, is that I’m a giant sap. Chick flicks, weddings, and that sort of thing–I’m there. So, it’s no surprise that I’m a fan of love songs in general.

The problem, though? There’s a lot of really shitty love songs out there. Let’s face it–there’s not often a lot of complexity in songs of requited love. “I love you so much / I long for your touch / I love you so dear / whether far or near,” and that sort of sing-songy Hallmark card music tend not to work for me. I mean, there are exceptions–there are good, happy love songs out there, but the sheer amount of crappy, trite ones makes Sturgeon’s Law look optimistic, and are probably what give the entire sappy song category a bad name. I mean, after hearing things like this on the radio every hour, I’d be singing “Down With Love” myself. I think it’s from the late ’90s, if I’m recalling correctly:

I love you, always forever
Near and far, closer together
Everywhere, I will be with you
Everyday, I will devour you

I’m sure we could come up with a gigantic list of songs like that (“I Honestly Love You,” for yet another example). But, as I said earlier, today’s not a day of OOOH HATE KILL HALLMARK CARD SONGS; rather, it’s a day celebrating the sad, the wistful, and the unrequited: the torch song.

Let’s face it–the problem with the happy love songs is that there’s little drama, little conflict–little to make the lyricist stretch his or her wordplay. They joke about “moon/June/swoon” rhymes for a reason, you know. The unrequited and longing parts of torch songs provide drama, uncertainty, and universality–almost everyone has either worshipped from afar or been rejected at some point in his/her life. And still, despite that shared experience that evokes empathy and connection, the torch song is often more personal, more divergent from the common experience, because it becomes the story of one person, but one most can relate to, whereas the fulfilling love songs tend to sound the same in many respects.

Here are a few torch songs I particularly enjoy, listed by rendition rather than lyricist:

“Hallelujah,” Leonard Cohen (1984 lyrics 1988 lyrics): I love just about every version of this song. Every combination of verses. Every version by every artist who recorded it. The 1984 version from Various Positions doesn’t have quite the same torch song gutpunch as the 1988 version from Cohen Live, though. One of the things I like about both versions are the way they end on a surprisingly sweet, touching note (lyrics from the 1988 version, but there isn’t much variation):

I did my best, it wasn’t much.
I couldn’t feel, so I learned to touch.
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come all this way to fool you.

Yeah even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand right here before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.

Instead of regretting the past, the voice remains thankful, despite all the heartache–a surprisingly sentimental closing from someone who sings “all I’ve ever seemed to learn from love / is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you.”

And if you’ve never heard the song, you can check out various renditions at My Old Kentucky Blog.

“You Don’t Know Me,” Ray Charles (lyrics): I really don’t have much to say for this one, but it is so super-good. It’s a perennial on my saved song list on my space radio. It comes on so many stations, too–the standards station, the blues station, the ’50s station, the love song station, and one country station. I think everyone is supposed to like Ray Charles.

“Please Call Me Baby,” Tom Waits (lyrics; streaming audio): I just love this so much. Tom Waits “for the win,” as the kids say. There’s just something about the narrative of the doomed relationship and the lovers that keep struggling in it that gets to me.

“One for My Baby,” Frank Sinatra (lyrics): I mean, wow. It kind of echoes what Scott McCloud writes in Understanding Comics about the strength of “cartoony” comics art–that we’re able to project more of ourselves if the elements are more universal, so we see “human being” rather than “this specific human being”–but it does it lyrically. The speaker only refers to the story he is going to tell, but never tells the actual story (by the end, he thinks the story has actually been told and, in a way, it has–just not explicitly).

“La Vie en Rose,” Edith Piaf (French lyrics; English lyrics): I have no idea what she’s saying (and, when it comes to songs, I never trust the versions translated into English), but it melts me every time. It may not even be a torch song for all I know.

…….

Ok. Torch songs. List your favorites. Three. Two. One. Go.