Coulda Gone With Ground, Man

I wish I could say, here, that I know loads of stuff about rock and roll. I wish I could list all the cool bands I love, with names like Steel Dirigible and Snog. I wish I had the imprint of a thousand sweaty concerts all over me, my ear drums decimated by years of being cool, my attitude sniffy when other people say that their favourite Tumbling Pebble song is something obvious that everyone likes.

I like that obscure B-side from an album they released in an alternate 1990 where everyone has clones played by Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan. Or something. Something that's not about the most amazing book of all time that I read in one go the other night.*

Yeah, that's the kind of rock and roll fan I want to be.

But I'm not. I never will be. Because I like the bad kinds of music.

You know the ones I'm talking about. Your bad Uncle used to tell you all about those kinds, when he was trying to frighten you into going to sleep. I don't know why bad Uncles seem to think that making you shit your pants in bed and be forever tormented by the skull face book you didn't want to look at is a sound plan, but there it is. They do, and they also tell you horrifying stories about The Bad Kinds of Music.

The stuff that isn't cool and sweaty. Maybe it's even sung by an ex-contestant of some dreadful singing show. Perhaps it has words in it that rhyme really obviously, like sound and ground. The slick glossy creature that wails this Bad Music doesn't have tour jackets with things that are bleeding on the back. You can't wear lots of eyeliner to her concerts, because people with sweaters over their shoulders will throw drinks on you.

And the drinks will be really obvious, too. Someone will have seen them on the latest episode of Gossip Girl, or something like that. Hell, the song from the person I embarrassingly like will probably have featured on Gossip Girl, too.

But I just can't stop. I love Halo, by Beyonce. All right? I do. I think it's an amazing, amazing song even though she doesn't even rhyme sound with ground. No no no. She rhymes down with sound.

Down!

Awful, just awful. And in the video she's all mooning on this guy with veils blowing around and oh how I mourn for my lost bleeding jacket eyelinered dipped in sweat coolness. The closest I get to cool rock and roll is probably U2, and even I know that they are Not Cool. Maybe once they were, back when they had weird Johnny Cash songs on their albums and sang in German and shit, but not anymore.

Though the truth is, I don't even know. That's how uncool I am with rock and roll. I don't even know what's cool and what's not. I don't even understand it on any level. I just listen to Cryin' by Aerosmith, and pretend. I listen to The Fly, by U2, and can almost fake my way through the imaginary coolness I invent for myself, in my head.

But even my head knows the truth: faker.



*Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro