Cymbal #8::Cheeky Morning Jacket

A man with a guitar, singing about a hot librarian.

You need a pretty dead sense of irony to not see how ridiculous the concept is. Irony, by the way, it appears is the currency of the musical world . If you're "ironic" enough, you can even play Van Halen and Kiss songs publicly, and you will be forgiven. I haven't mastered this irony - I hide my Kiss away, because I obviously enjoy them to a socially unacceptable extent.

It would be merely funny if it wasn't actually a very pretty song. It's still really funny, and somehow that doesn't detract from the beauty of the song. Like movies and plays and books, humor can avoid necessarily cheapening music.

My Morning Jacket - Librarian - 2008

There are moments which really strain the credibility of the enterprise (the interweb? really?) but something survives the stupidity of the concept and dries its wings at the end. It's a tingling sort of song, an indoors ballad, a little delicate and overwrought.

There's a little bounce to it, which reminds me a wee smidge of Golden Brown. I really wish I knew anything about musical theory so I could say something accurate and helpful about why. To my untrained ear, it's just a tumbling set of notes, circling around.

The Stranglers- Golden Brown - 1981

Oh, what a song Golden Brown is! What a lovely little jewel-box fantasy, so self contained and light, almost lighter than air! And the accompanying 'oriental' video- so full of the obvious references that Edward Said (the late great) would have choked on his nargileh if he ever saw it. And it fades out beautifully like a caravan going over the horizon, nods out into the dusty hazy dawn.

It's a hilarious video but I like it, because I like the Orient, and I like things to refer to internally consistent worlds and a little sepia tone does not disturb me. Perhaps, as you being to realize, I have an underdeveloped sense of irony- underdeveloped enough to appreciate songs about hot librarians? Yes.