POPULAR NARRATIVE

I don't know about you, but I love narrative fiction and I also love music. And there's something so witty and powerful about when the two are combined.

Obviously this is not a new phenomenon. And there's a lot of shit passed off as 'story telling in pop.' But I am suddenly actively appreciating artists whose lyrics specifically want to tell you a story about someone or something.

Recently, Marina and the Diamonds have taken a sort of funny turn that I don't know if I can condone. To assure myself that I do still like her, I've been rewatching stuff from her first album. I say 'rewatching' as apposed to 'relistening,' because her videos are always an intrinsic part of the narrative aspect of her song. My favourite it Hollywood, for several reasons:

- It poses complex questions about the desirability of the American aesthetic in terms of pop culture, life and moral choices.

- She states that she is, 'obsessed with the mess that's America.' A statement that calls herself into moral questioning, because she is openly admitting her admiration that she conversely knows manifestly not to be good.

- She tells the story of a Polish girl in America who is after the modern, glamourised 'American Dream,' while expressing her own desires to have this life she knows to be false, and, simultaneously, commenting on all of our desires to adhere to this idea of beauty, desirability and aspiration.

- The video is a witty and beautifully executed addition to the song's layered messages, making the aesthetic both desirable and ridiculous in it's pastiche of Americana. This is further highlighted by the sinisterly produced hook that starts the song: 'American Queen is the American Dream.'

- The clever and insightful lyrics:

'She is a Polish girl in America/ Tall, tanned hot blonde called Anya/ I asked her, "Why would you wanna be a Hollywood Wife?"/ "Because I don't want to end up living on a dive on Vine".'

'Hollywood infected you brain/ You really wanted kissing in the rain/ I've been living in the movie screen/ Puking American dreams.'

'Your mind is just like mine/ All filled up with things benign/ You're looking for the golden light.'

Not your regular lets get drunk, get on the floor, get in the sack sort of pop lyrics. Tres bien, Marina.

I can hear what you're thinking: Sure, there are about a million other examples in folk, nu-folk, rock, indie and all other kinds of music. What about amazing left-field artists like Joanna Newsom, Bob Dylan etc, etc? And you are right. But what I like about this specific example is the apparent mainstream nature of it all. It's like it's subtly sabotaging it's own world but in a way that might initially go unnoticed.

Her more recent single Primadonna hints at a similar interest in deconstructing the apparently desirable American pop image, but the lyrics are nowhere near as insightful. I can't help feeling she's succumbed to it a bit. The blonde hair with big black roots is an interesting statement though. And she has been releasing singles from Electra Heart in singles titled as Part 1, Part 2 and so on, implying they are parts of a story that makes up the album, or facets perhaps. In interviews, she has said this entire album is about love. Urgh. But it still has some MATD idiosyncrasies. I still have faith.

Anal, Marina and the Paris Review.

A bits and bobs sort of post because I'm super busy right now.

Or we could call it a Quotes Bonanza.

Or we could call it a four day weekend. A four day weekend.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but it is an obligatory bank holiday tradition that Super Girl is on at some point. It hasn't yet - but I'm still holding out. While we're waiting you can enjoy these quotes/videos/incredible 80's film still.

'Overall I'd say it was okay - like going through a little door into a big room. I prefer vaginas.'

- The narrator of Matt Sumell's short story Toast in the 200th edition of The Paris Review on first time anal sex with his girlfriend.

Life is, 'Tragic in Structure; comic in texture.'

- John Lanchester, discussing his recent novel Capital on BBC 4's Open Book with sexily huskily spoken Mariella Frostrup. I like that one very much.

'The imagination is in love with the feel of fact.'

- John Bailey, on verisimilitude in literature.

'The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.'

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (someone emailed this to me yesterday).

This video, which was sent to me by Robert Van Oz. Check it out:

I'm well feeling Marina and the Diamonds recently. Her new album, Electra Heart is out on 30th April. And here's a couple of highlights:

I'm also getting pretty obsessed with the Drive soundtrack. Fuck - everything to do with that film is great.

The video theme seems to be projections on walls with people in front of them. Curious, no?

Oh well, back to Super Girl then.

The Ane Brun Saga

This Sunday, instead of sacred verbal extracts from either kids or literature, we have the first two visual instalments of a gorgeous short film entitled One. It is inspired by the music from Norwegian singer Ane Brun's recent 2011 album It All Starts With One. Beautifully shot and highly mediative, the full film debuts later this year.

From Ane Brun's Youtube Channel:

The Director for the whole project, Ane's long-standing video director Magnus Renfors, says of the venture:

"Ane's music is like a great ocean housed under the roof of a great old theater, where pictures are hung from the threads of the music shooting out, so it really does the job itself. That said, the images require a certain height at a substantively dramatic level, otherwise the music, sometimes so sublime and skin tingling, can rush over the head of the visual aspects. Ane and I have done stuff together since 2003 and already on the last album we talked about doing something bigger, more coherent, and this time it was really the one. "

"ONE", as the film is called, is a poetic tapestry incorporating various threads interwoven on several levels, integrating and complimenting Ane's delicately composed branches between hope, rage and grief.
A heavy period of post-production is now rolling with the other chapters before the film is fully released in the fall.

I think they are wonderful. Enjoy.

Pop Will Eat Literature.

Recently, I've been noticing how many musicians nick lines from literature.

I suppose it can add a certain weight and intertexuality in referencing certain well known passages. It can also, however, make the musician seem like a right proper idiot. 'I know about books - I read books! God, just because I'm sexy and can bend in half at the MTV Awards doesn't mean I don't read, Jeez.' You know? Like they're trying to prove it. Like in Bad Romance, where Lady Gaga (second verse) quotes the titles of three Hitchcock movies before the extraneous French segment (who knows fatal love patterns better than the French ....?!). Because she's like, so in touch with all art history and stuff.

Perhaps the pop star knows their lyrics will never beat the great wordsmiths of by-gone eras. Perhaps they just read it and liked it and became inspired by it/stole it.

Anyway, here's some I've noticed of late:

1) '... Light of my life, fire of my loins, be a good baby, do what I want.' - Off To The Races (allegedly) by Lana Del Rey.

Originally from the first paragraph of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov:

'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.'

It is interesting to note that on the special edition of Del Rey's Born To Die album there is a bonus track actually entitled Lolita. She's such a fierce betch.

(My favourite comment on this clip so far is: SHE HAS MORE VOICES THAN THE EXORCIST! ... Youtubers can be so cruel.)

2) 'Girls can wear jeans, And cut their hair short, Wear shirts and boots, 'Cause it's OK to be a boy, But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, 'Cause you think that being a girl is degrading, But secretly you'd love to know what it's like, Wouldn't you, What it feels like for a girl.' - What It Feels Like For a Girl by Madge.

Basically completely ripped from a monologue in Ian McEwan's The Cement Garden, as spoken by incestuous seventeen-year-old sister Julie, to our narrator Jack, her fifteen year-old-brother, who she later has sex with. In the film, this line is spoken by Charlotte Gainsbourg, taking us to the inevitable next step of Madonna nicking it to make another point. It's a good point though.

3) 'Heathcliff, don't you know that it's me - it's Cathy! - I've come on home - oooohhhhh let my in at your window!'

Need I say any more?

(This next one's well controversial)

4) Killing An Arab, entire song (and incidentally also first single), by The Cure.

In the words of Robert Smith, this song, 'was a short poetic attempt at condensing my impression of the key moments in L'Etranger by Albert Camus.'

I love this book. I like very much that it has blossomed into music. Although, perhaps they could have chosen a different title ... ? [DISCUSS]

5) To The Lighthouse by Patrick Wolf.

Patrick likes to let people know he reads a lot and isn't just some dumb pop tart. To The Lighthouse not only takes it's name from the Virginia Woolf novel of the same name but also references Virgil in the line, 'Great, great minds against themselves conspire.' Apt given the Woolf shout out. He's a clever bloke - and he knows it. And now we know it. OH GOD!

I'm sure this list is potentially exhaustive. But this is the end for now. I'm off to shit my pants at Harry Potter and The Woman In Black. Another literary adaption. When will things just stick to their own medium for once?