3.15.2002 [almost 5am]

there's this song, flowers become screens, just has this BRILLIANT bit about a minute and a half in, when the wicked throbbing snarl of the bassline comes in. i love that part. you get just whispering back and forth before that. then, fading to just a few notes, long and stretched. this faraway, getting closer, woman. very low: ooooh, ahhh.

then, the establishing beat in the drum loop. just makes you move to it. a measure of that. the bass comes in. omg. i'm not kidding, it's the most wicked bassline i've ever heard. just this one note, this one rhythm. backing everything, you know? it's like this thread down below. it's so...id. heh. it's like something half-buried unearthed. the woman speaking. horrible lyrics, but wtf, it sounds good. from 1:30 to about...3:30, maybe? BRILLIANT two minutes. friend of mine heard the song and said this about it, about the visuals you get, and it's totally right: this woman. you only see her back. long black hair, and like, bare skin, her arms up, moving like snakes.

and like, blood. very dark, almost black, snaking down her snaking arms. hard to explain. just an image, heh. it's just something about that bassline that's utterly snakelike. it's the most subversive 2 minutes in all the songs i've heard.

THEN! it's RUINED! by this soary bit! well...i guess the song has to go somewhere. but i always think it's such a pity, that it was so much better all low and dark and lustful. like black anacondas.

fuuuuuck. it's cool. hahhahahaha.

do songs do this to everyone? have this sorta visceral effect? heh. some songs are just made for sex. seems all the songs i like are somewhat sexy to me, but i think there's a reason for that. it's like...songs appeal to a more basic part of your mind. there's not formula for why you like a song. it's like beauty and sexual attraction: just happens. just is. i think i've talked about this before.

listening to lucinda williams now. Essence.

i don't like the lyrics, some of them. too obvious, heh. but like, shit, her voice is sexy when you have those in-ear earphones on, so she's smouldering right in your ear.

it's long, it's such a low and long song, something about the way she sings that last long sprawl of the chorus: "I am waiting for your e...ssence." drawn out like a two lane highway out in the desert. heatsoaked.

but it moves. the song moves because of the guitar riffs (fucking brilliant), and the drum line, which has a bit of that even one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four thing going, split fours into fours again. moves things along. swings.

so you get that movement. something you can sit in a smoky cafe and tap your foot to, nod to, not because you agree with the words but because you agree with the rhythm and the sound.

then you lay the vocals down on top of it. lazy. it's raw want, but no...not raw, tempered. you think of she-panthers in heat, urbanized. panther-women in scuffed blue jeans prowling on the back porch. a little disheveled, no quite civilized, something dangerous in their eyes. cigarettes and brandy, long loose limbs like liquid in the sun, husky low voice at night, when the moon is behind a cloud, and their eyes are gleaming.

it's a fucking addictive song. especially at almost 5am, when i'm tired, in a semistoned state because i'm so tired, and this song just repeats and repeats, and i never get tired of it.

she-panthers in blue jeans.

desert roads.

aw. yeah.