Saturday, July 19, 2008

Top Five

Here at National Law School, one of the time-honoured traditions of giving students of the First Year a hard time is to make them draw up an impromptu "Top Five" list, usually of their most attractive batchmates of the opposite gender. I thought that I'd apply the same template to myself in listing my "Top Five"...songs of all time.

My thoughts have their genesis in a lovely backseat cab conversation I shared last night. So, for that limited purpose, this entry is quite a dedication.

In no particular order:

1. "The Girl In The Dirty Shirt" (Oasis, Be Here Now, 1997).

"If I may be so bold that I just say something
Come and make me my day
The clouds around your soul
Don't gather there for nothing
But I can chase them all away
Why d'you need a reason for to feel happy
Or shining for the rest of the world
Give me just a smile and would you make it snappy
Get your shit together girl

You got a feeling lost inside
It just won't let you go
Your life is sneaking up behind
It just won't let you go
No it just won't let you go
Guess what I'm trying to say

Is would you maybe, come dancing with me
'Cos to me it doesn't matter
If your hopes and dreams are shattered
When you say something you make me believe
In the girl who wears a dirty shirt
She knows exactly what she's worth
She knows exactly what she's worth to me..."


2. "She Talks to Angels" (The Black Crowes, Shake Your Money Maker, 1990).

""She never mentions the word addiction
In certain company
She'll tell you she's an orphan
After you meet her family

She paints her eyes as black as night, now
Pulls those shades down tight
Yeah, she gives a smile when the pain comes
The pain's going to make everything alright

Says she talks to angels
They call her out by her name
She talks to angels
Says they call her out by her name..."


3. "She's A Superstar" (The Verve, Verve EP, 1992).

"Here she comes
Seven suns
A burning flame
She got my love
Got my head
But It 's all the same
She climbed so high
I don't know why
High, on her own
And I know
She's in the air
And I don't want it to go
I can breathe the air
But I don't want it to go..."


4. "Drops Of Jupiter" (Train, Drops Of Jupiter, 2001).

"Now that she's back in the atmosphere
With Drops of Jupiter in her hair

She acts like summer and walks like rain
Reminds me that there's time to change

Since the return from her stay on the moon
She listens like spring and she talks like June

Tell me, did you sail across the sun
Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded
And that heaven is overrated

Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star
One without a permanent scar
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there..."


I'd probably put "Drops Of Jupiter" at my all-time Number 1 and I'm unsettled enough about the others to not "rate" them at all. Suffice to say that "She's A Superstar" still gives me goosebumps everytime I hear it, "The Girl In The Dirty Shirt" can lift me at the worst of times and "She Talks To Angels" pulls at strings of indescribable emotion.

Notice how two songs are by bands coming from the 1990's Britpop tradition while the other two are by rough, gritty, funk/rock-oriented Southern U.S. bands. Notice also that this list, similar to several "Top Five" conversations, has petered out without reaching is expected conclusion and search for a fifth.

Notice, lastly, how all my four favourite songs are crafted around the central idea of the abstract, third-person "She."

As I said in the cab last night, "It's not as if you're singing to her...you're singing about her instead."

Kay Berry, Inc. v. Taylor Gifts, Inc. 421 F. 3d 199

"If tears could build a stairway
And memories a lane
I'd walk right up to heaven
And bring you home again."

It's funny what kinds of things can hit you when you're studying the Law Relating to Intellectual Property Rights.

I'm not sure if there's a point to this story but I'm going to tell it again.

My photo
India
I've been wilfully caught up in the self-defeating quest to get to know myself for years. I've never expected anything beneficial to result from such a quest. I tend to evoke extremely polarised reactions from people I get to know in passing. Consequently, only those people who know me inside-out would honestly claim that I'm a person who's just "alright." It's not a coincidence that the description I've laid out above has no fewer than, title included, eleven references to me (make that twelve). I'm affectionately referred to as "Ego." I think that last statement might have given away a tad too much. Welcome Aboard.

IHTRTRS ke pichle episode mein aapne dekha...

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