I have become a suburbanite. The one thing I never wanted to become, I have become. It was time to move out of Allston after a neighbor turned our apartment building into an art studio, complete with an 125 attendee opening night party that involved a huge piece of bad art being placed in front of my door, a full carpet of Miller Light cans left on our front stairs (Where did your taste go, young art goers? Go with Molson if you want a cheap beer.), having the artist-neighbor tell my husband that the artist-neighbor is “a f— horse,” non-existent security after some was promised, and people playing slide on our interior stairs with margaritas in their hands.
The morning after, my husband had to go take an ax he had borrowed (he needed to cut up our broken futon in order to remove it from the apartment) back to his parents house, and while taking it to the car, scared off the homeless man picking up the carpet o’ beer cans. He had to run down the street – with the ax – to convince the homeless man that he wasn’t threatening him, just taking an ax to his car, and to encourage him to please take all the beer cans. Luckily, this happened at 6:30am on a Saturday morning, otherwise I think this would have become more of a problem than it was.
So we moved to the ‘burbs. (Truthfully, it was in the works way before this art opening/ax incident, but it helped seal the deal.)
Moving to the suburbs means I now have a long-ish commute on the commuter rail, which in turn leads to me spending much quality time with my iPod, which in turn has led me to the following conclusion:
Every Train song is the same.
From their 2001 introductory hit, Meet Virginia, to the ubiquitous Hey, Soul Sister, to their new single, If It’s Love (which is immensely catchy) and all of the mild adult-contemporary rock hits in-between, most Train songs follow the s
ame storyline, which can be summarized as the following:
“I am a guy with no particular aspirations except to find peace, love and understanding, grow my hair shaggy (including my chest hair) and find a hot-but-not-too-untouchable girl to sing about. You are a girl with a job you do not particularly care for (probably a waitress or something service-oriented), where people dump on you all-day, with high aspirations of stardom or just clarity, who marches to the beat of her own drum, who likes the sun and guitar-strumming guys, and may be swayed by a song written about you. I lust after your laissez-faire attitude about life, and want to mend your perpetually-broken-by-men-and-the-real-world heart.”
This is not an attack on the band’s fans or their music – hey, I am the one that has several of their songs on my iPod – but the theme is overwhelming. Maybe this is why the band has been so successful? You know you’re not going to be surprised. They are going to deliver a catchy song with a cute message that many people would like to relate to.
And in popular – pop – music, isn’t that all that matters?
As someone who wikipedia-ed Train after their spring performance on “Dancing with the Stars” to see if they really were as old as they looked (yup … definitely 40) I discovered that Drops of Jupiter was written in honor of the lead singer’s deceased mother. Weird because I had always thought it was just another “laissez-faire” love song. Definitely think it still functions as such. And definitely still turn up the radio when it comes on. And as an avid top-40 listener … in regards to the overwhelming theme: consistency is comforting … especially when you never know what Lady Gaga is gonna do next.
That’s interesting to hear about Drops of Jupiter, because it does definitely give off that same vibe. They have that When I Look to The Sky song, which totally makes me bawl every time I hear it, that does not fall into this generalization at all, and sounds like it could also be about his mother. While writing this, I totally found both songs on my iPod. Train ESP?
And your summation of top-40 is excellent!