I have no intention of quitting short. Or late. Or satisfied.

It’s a pensive kind of night tonight.
Although, I have a problem with that sentence. Because I have a deep-seated hatred for the word “pensive” and I don’t know why. Although it does remind me of a really good scene from Ten Things I Hate About You:

Joey: *Shows modelling picture to Bianca*
Bianca: You look… pensive…
Joey: Damn. I was going for thoughtful.

Ohhhhh, I miss that film. I haven’t seen it in so long. And Joseph Gordon Levitt is so right.
Anyway. Right now I am sitting in bed munching on watermelon (and I feel the word “munching” is appropriate because it makes a crunching sound when you eat it, and THE RHYMING HAS TO MEAN SOMETHING, RIGHT?!?!?!).
Eating watermelon in bed is one of life’s simple joys. Like the aforementioned writing on a banana, or watching someone try and wedge a huge bunch of helium balloons into a tiny car, or being the first one to use the new tube of toothpaste, or butter, or vegemite, or finding a pair of replica wayfarers for two dollars in an op-shop (YES) or having glow in the dark stars on your ceiling when you go to sleep.

The other good thing about watermelon is that it’s cooling. A small, elderly Hungarian woman informed me of this a little while ago. Watermelon and cantaloupe. Both cooling. Which is good, because it’s a warm night.

Anyway, I’m lying here eating my watermelon, and listening to some nondescript mournful indie pop music, and it got me thinking about the plethora (OOH, important sounding word, TWENTY LITERARY POINTS TO ME) of potentially embarrassing songs I have on my Ipod. Now, I actually think I have a fairly minimal amount of embarrassing songs from one perspective. I have a friend who persists in having both Hillsong AND the theme song from “Blue Heelers” on her Ipod. So by comparison, I feel fairly okay. Fairly hip. Fairly fly. (Although, after the previous two sentences, levels of coolness have dropped considerably).

But then, when I compare some of said embarrassing songs with my general mash of horribly pretentious indie-wankery, I curl into the foetal position in shame and terror.
WHAT WOULD BECOME OF ME IF THE COOL KIDS WITH THEIR FRINGES AND THEIR POETIC QUOTE TATTOOS AND THEIR TIGHT PANTS, THEIR SUPER TIGHT PANTS, THEIR EXCEEDINGLY TIGHT PANTS, AND THEIR FLANNEL AND THEIR VINTAGE CARDIGANS --- WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF THEY FOUND OUT?!?!?!

So, with the certainty that almost no one reads this blog, I present, for your cringing pleasure, a list of the Most Embarrassing Songs in My Collection that I Shamefully Enjoy, much as a social worker presents their history of a past life selling crack to children.
Enjoy.

1. Gold Digger – Kanye West
Okay, so I feel this one is debatable, because my shame is really not that genuine in relation to this song. I make no excuses for my undeniable, unshakeable love for Kanye. He is so wonderful. He is so conceited. He is so arrogant. He is such a fucking tosser. But HE’S TRYING TO BE A DOPER PERSON. YOU GAIZ. I love him. I love him and his self-satisfaction and his sexist attitude and his ability to interrupt an awards show to tell everyone that Beyonce is better than Taylor Swift because HE WAS RIGHT, BEYONCE IS BETTER. And, most importantly, I love his music. I love this song. I know all the words, and I wish I were even a teeny weeny bit gangsta so I could not be the whitest girl alive when I sing it.

2. The Day You Went Away – Wendy Matthews.
I was brought up on Wendy Matthews. When I was about four years old, my older sister and I used to close off the lounge room and jump around singing Wendy Matthews songs, despite the fact that I couldn’t pronounce her name and unfailingly called her “Windy”. It was logical. I was four. Shut the fuck up. Anyway, the interesting thing is, this was actually my dad’s doing, not my mum’s. My dad was (possibly still is) a hardcore Wendy Matthews fan. He also likes chick flicks – discuss. The point is, I am fully aware of how wanky and shameful this song is, but… somewhere deep down I still think it’s really quite good, and sad, and stuff. You know…

3. White Houses – Vanessa Carlton
Look I KNOW. I KNOW OKAY I KNOW BUT IT’S TOO LATE NOW, YOU CAN’T CHANGE WHAT’S ALREADY BEEN DONE. I have no excuses for this one. Somewhere in my subconscious… or my conscious… I apparently appreciate her girlish American whine, particularly in this song, which appears to be about her losing her virginity when she was at ballet school. HOW she managed to lose her virginity to someone at BALLET SCHOOL I do not know.

4. Too Lost In You – Sugababes
Oh god. At the start of this, I don’t think I fathomed fully how painful this experience would be. Four songs into the list, and I am already disgusted with myself. Gold Digger? Not really soul-destroying, I’ve come to terms with my love of pop-rap. The Day You Went Away? Worse, but bearable. I can deal with a song that has roots back in my youth – these things happen. But at White Houses the shame had fully hit, and now here I am at Too Lost In You considering beating myself to death with my Ipod dock. Look. It was in “Love Actually”, okay? That’s all I’ve got. Be kind.

5. Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinead O’Connor
Mmmmm, okay, but this one gets brownie points for originally being by Prince. It kind of weirds me out that Prince didn’t have such a hit with this when he performed it, but then a shaven-headed Irish woman with spectacular vocal pyrotechnics made it into this romantic epic. Interesting fact: this song was number one on the charts the day I was born. Interesting fact the second: I am not telling you what day I was born, work it out yourself, you creep. I see you typing it into Google…

6. More Than This – Roxy Music
Yes, well, this is similar to the Kanye issue – I know I SHOULD be ashamed by it, and so it is here, but I love this song. I love it even more when I see Bill Murray sing it in “Lost In Translation”, drunken and slurred and in a small apartment in Tokyo. I had this as my ringtone for a large period of time in year 12, and one day a few friends and I were having a study session with my lit teacher when my phone started ringing. My teacher promptly started flailing and doing a fairly impressive air-drum solo to it. This was particularly wonderful as he is quite a large, articulate man. It was a good day in my life.

7. Happy Ending – Mika.
Uggggh. I watched an episode of “Gossip Girl” one night when I was in a particularly low mood, post break-up. In the episode, though, I think Dan and Serena were at a masquerade and they thought they kind of sort of might possibly perhaps break up, but then Dan was all: “I ONLY LOVE YOU” and Serena was all “AWWWW I LOVE YOU TOO” and then they macked for a while and the camera spun around them and this song played (inexplicably) and all was well in the Upper East Side. I vaguely (see “clearly”) remember that I spent most of that night sobbing hysterically in bed to this song until I fell asleep. In conclusion: fuck you, television. NOTHING IS LIKE YOU SAY IT IS. But Mika looks out for me.

8. Come Said The Boy – Mondo Rock.
This is a dirty, dirty song. I heard a fact a little while ago that this song is the most requested on a popular radio station between the hours of 3.30 and 6pm on weekdays – WHICH IS THE PRIME TIME FOR PARENTS PICKING UP THEIR CHILDREN. THIS SONG IS PLAYING IN THEIR CARS ON THE WAY HOME. WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?!?!!? Anyway. The thing is, it’s really cheesy and basically about some guy going to a party at the end of his high schooling, getting drunk, and having sex with a girl on a beach. I really appreciate, however, the complete lack of subtlety, and to be honest if some guy said to me “Come, let’s go down to the sand, let’s do what we wanna do; let me be a man for you” I probably wouldn’t say no. Particularly if alcohol was involved. Oh, I’m such a hussy.

9. Milkshake – Kelis
I see you look at me with that look, that “you-and-your-appreciation-for-sexually-explicit-mainstream-pop-songs-that-demean-women-disgust-me” look. But, there is no one, male or female, anywhere, who has not shook something while listening to this song once in their lives. I don’t care about your protests in the negative, I can see you now, avoiding my eyes, and walking away in shame. I rest my case.

10. Bouree – Jethro Tull
In this ingenious version of Bach’s “Bouree”, Jethro Tull plays the piece and then SWINGS it and MAKES TRILLING SOUNDS and OTHER STUFF. He is truly a king among musicians. Look, no, actually it’s okay. And I’m a flute player, so I have to own this kind of stuff. But I just thing Jethro Tull is a load of wank. Sorry, fluties. I’m disappointed in myself on so many levels.

11. H to the Izzo – Jay Z
Oh, fuck it, I love this song. I care so little what you think.

12. Iris – Goo Goo Dolls
Welcome to the well-trodden path of 90’s try-hard pop-rock music. Too many whingey, vaguely-raw-and-husky, kind-of-deep vocals, overworked string lines and melodramatic lyrics. But. You know. Goo Goo Dolls kind of did it first, before everyone else. Before Lifehouse and The Calling and those other wanky bands with skinny lead singers with art-wank hairstyles and toned forearms. And I appreciated this song, like everyone else did, in spite of the fact that it was on the soundtrack to a Nicholas Cage film.

13. Born To Run – Bruce Springsteen
If you have been a long time reader of Everyone Is Mental (see – two people and the other people who run this blog) you will recall that I have a weird, misdirected love for Bruce. Well. I’m not sure if it’s misdirected, but I do feel kind of wrong about it, so let’s assume that it is. This I blame on my sister. Who, in turn, I’m pretty sure blames on my mother. It’s hereditary in my family, it would seem. Anyway, like I said, long time readers will recall that once, a long time ago, in a haze of insomnia and anxiety, I wrote a blog regarding my old friend Bruce, who was on Rage at 3am one morning when I couldn’t sleep. Long time readers will also remember my unbridled rage when Rage failed to play “Born to Run” despite playing at LEAST an hour’s worth of Bruce Springsteen. I WAS SO MAD. SO MAD.
Incidentally, my favourite coffee shop at uni used to play Bruce Springsteen (“used to” because the coffee shop is under new management – I was more of a fan of it when it was run by a whole bunch of tattooed, particularly butch lesbians with a penchant for Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen and 80’s indie music). One day they played this song, and I teetered merrily in a dance-like manner on my inappropriate heels, and felt better about life. Bruce Springsteen – Getting today’s youth through University.

And with that, I offer you the culmination of my embarrassing playlist. I’m quite surprised with myself, actually. Only 13 truly embarrassing tracks. I need to get my act together. Where is my sense of social self-destruction?

And so tonight I’ll leave you with another really excellent, completely irrelevant, Joseph Gordon Levitt quote, from “500 Days of Summer”, in the spirit of the imminent Valentine’s Day:

“Roses are red,
Violets are blue;
Fuck you, whore.”
Have a good one.
xx