Jeff ([info]badlydrawnjeff) wrote,
@ 2008-03-20 19:11:00
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Entry tags:general life, music

Life With Ann #243450

Originally published at Jeff's Journal. You can comment here or there.

Ann: “Play that Decemberists song I like.”
Jeff: *fires up “We Both Go Down Together”*
Ann: “I love this song, but it makes me uncomfortable. It’s such a nice song, but then he rapes her.”
Jeff: “What?!”
Ann: “Yeah! Why else would she be crying?!”
Jeff: “Uh, because it’s sorta like Romeo and Juliet. They’re in love and can’t be together, and it makes her sad.”
Ann: “Oh, come on. It’s a class thing, first, and second, why would she be crying.”

*keeps listening*

Ann: “Well, regardless, that shows how different you and I are. You hear romantic love, I hear rape.”

Tomorrow’s Ann’s birthday. Give her some love.

EDIT: Later

Ann: “I get the impression that they jump off a cliff, but at the end of the song, he says ‘Meet me at my veranda.’ Does he jump off a cliff into a veranda? Is the cliff a veranda? The only reason I know what a veranda is is from The Three Amigos.”

EDIT #2: “I never knew why she jumped off a cliff with a rapist. That confused me.”


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[info]lightupmyroom
2008-03-21 12:22 am UTC (link)
I don't know. I think there are some rapey tones going on there. I always thought so. And like, every other Decemberists song is about rape anyway. See: A Cautionary Tale, Shanty for the Arethusa, The Bachelor & the Bride, The Landlord's Daughter, etc etc etc

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[info]lightupmyroom
2008-03-21 12:23 am UTC (link)
Leslie Anne Levine (sort of, it's a kind of a sequel to WBGDT I read somewhere), Odalisque, etc etc etc

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[info]amyawesome
2008-03-21 12:33 am UTC (link)
I'm with Ann, it's supposed to be a prequel to Leslie Ann Levine. My thoughts are that the implication is that he rapes a woman he believes to be beneath him, but justifies it, calling her his love over and over, but then due to her pregnancy, pushes her off a cliff, again justifying it as a suicide pact, maybe he's a fan of Blue Oyster Cult. :)

Anyway, he says "my parents will never consent to this love" which is just speculation on his part, it's not that they don't consent, he assumes they wouldn't.

Then he goes back and forth with how describes her, once as a tattooed tramp but then as "my sweet untouched Miranda"

And of course the rape: "I laid you down in the grass of a clearing, you wept but your soul was willing." that doesn't sound consensual to me!

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[info]badlydrawnjeff
2008-03-21 12:37 am UTC (link)
Holy crap.

Edited at 2008-03-21 12:38 am UTC

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[info]nowaitbutlisten
2008-03-21 01:04 am UTC (link)
Dude, she's TOTALLY right. That's how I saw it.

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[info]csp
2008-03-21 02:29 am UTC (link)
Haha, your wife is smarter than you!

I'd have more to add if I'd actually ever heard the song.

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[info]amyawesome
2008-03-21 12:34 am UTC (link)
P.S. Happy birthday to Ann, my secret love!

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[info]libation
2008-03-21 12:44 am UTC (link)
Oh yeah, I've always thought the sex was not wholly consensual in this song. My friend Mimi always calls the Decemberists' genre "Rape Rock." There's at least one rape song on every album it seems.

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[info]badlydrawnjeff
2008-03-21 12:56 am UTC (link)
I'm fairly stunned by this turn of events.

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[info]modpixie
2008-03-21 01:31 am UTC (link)
i am so, so glad my crush on colin died before this turn of events.

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[info]libation
2008-03-21 08:09 am UTC (link)
Stunned that we think this, or stunned that you never realized this before?

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[info]badlydrawnjeff
2008-03-21 11:35 am UTC (link)
Both.

i'm still not convinced, mind you.

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[info]libation
2008-03-21 12:29 pm UTC (link)
About this particular song, or about their rape-rockness in general?

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[info]badlydrawnjeff
2008-03-21 12:33 pm UTC (link)
All of the above.

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[info]libation
2008-03-21 12:38 pm UTC (link)
This song could go either way, but come on, the songs someone listed above like "The Landlord's Daughter" are obviously about rape or otherwise non-consensual sex.

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[info]badlydrawnjeff
2008-03-21 12:43 pm UTC (link)
Okay, that one's a tiny bit creepy, heh.

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[info]lightupmyroom
2008-03-21 03:12 pm UTC (link)
I listed it! Me! Mwahaha!

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[info]lightupmyroom
2008-03-21 03:11 pm UTC (link)
hahaha win!

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[info]twerpalicious
2008-03-21 01:24 am UTC (link)
I only like happy love songs, like "Where the Wild Roses Grow."

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[info]dontuhatepants
2008-03-21 02:18 am UTC (link)
Jeff, maybe you should re-think your odd position as "not a lyrics guy."

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[info]csp
2008-03-21 02:29 am UTC (link)
Jeff, maybe you should re-think your odd position on everything.

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[info]badlydrawnjeff
2008-03-21 02:30 am UTC (link)
Apparently, from the consensus view here, I'm quite obviously not one even when I *do* hear lyrics.

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[info]twerpalicious
2008-03-21 04:11 am UTC (link)
You at least get that "The One I Love" is not romantic, right?

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[info]badlydrawnjeff
2008-03-21 11:33 am UTC (link)
I did get that, yes.

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[info]greyseal
2008-03-21 05:44 am UTC (link)
Meloy acknowledged the connection between LAL and WBGDT.

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