Sandi Thom

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Say something about these lyrics, if you want:


Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
In 77 and 69 revolution was in the air
I was born too late to a world that doesn’t care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

When the head of state didn’t play guitar,
Not everybody drove a car,
When music really mattered and radio was king,
When accountants didn’t have control
And the media couldn’t buy your soul
And computers were still scary and we didn’t know everything

Chorus

When popstars still remained a myth
And ignorance could still be bliss
And when God Save the Queen she turned a whiter shade of pale
When my mom and dad were in their teen
and anarchy was still a dream
and the only way to stay in touch was a letter in the mail

Chorus

When record shops were on top
and vinyl was all that they stocked
and the super ********* was still drifting out in space
kids were wearing hand me downs,
and playing games meant kick arounds
and footballers still had long hair and dirt across their face

Chorus

I was born too late to a world that doesn’t care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

Comments

[zenith.livejournal.com]

What I said t'other day: That song must have the most offensively moronic lyrical content of any released this year. Yes Sandi, 1969 and 1978 were basically the same, both of them part of a magically Golden Age "When music really mattered". God I hate nostalgia.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

what do the stars signify?!

I would only accept such a point of view if it was propagated by Ashlee Simpson.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The stars signify some hooky russian lyric site not understanding a word.

Apparently the line goes "info highway".

The straw I would grasp at - without hearing the rcd - is that the running together of 77 and 69 is a deliberate nod to the undifferentiating nature of nostalgia and suggests the impossibility of this particular dream.

[zenith.livejournal.com]

I agree that that's happening, but I really don't think it's deliberate. It's more like when a really stupid person explains a mindset in such a way as to reveal how fucked-up it is.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Also I find it slightly interesting that although Ms Thom hankers for a Golden Age of authenticity &c, it is from the perspective of one who is firmly outside that age - she classes herself as part of a generation without any of these things, she admits she is not and never will be a punk rocker with flowers in her hair.

Me says....

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

I wd like to give this silly person a talking to. That's a sticky lump of sentimentalist, nostalgia-fuelled wrongness. And it appears to be utterly not-sarky - a hefty does of irony might transform it into summat quite bearable.

(I have little patience for views of the Olden Days being either a Glorious and Better Time When People Had Values etc, or an All The Poor People Who Lived In The Olden Days How Rub Their Lives Were.)

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Haha she recorded this in a bedsit in TOOTING she is your NEIGHBOUR and wrote this as a deliberate REACTION to your obsessive gabba phase every couple of days. THANKS FREAKYTIGGER.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Actually I do hear someone playing an acoustic guitar ALL THE TIME a door or two down, however I am pretty sure he is a) a he and b) a 'loner' whose inevitable appearance in the headlines will not be along "GETS NO.1" lines.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

"he was so quiet, you wouldn't imagine he was capable of..."

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
Not having to hear Eurobosh played by that cvnt downstair
s"

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I was born too late to a world that doesn’t care
About Paula Abdul's dance routines and Bonnie Tyler's hair

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

thing is, tho it's in general an awful sentiment none of us here will have truck with, the titular idea of mixing up punk and hippie is a nice idea. just the lyrics don't carry it off well "God Save the Queen she turned a whiter shade of pale" is about as far as it gets, with the balance made up of "oo vinyl records, jumpers for goalposts"

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

That line raises the spectre of some horrible "new American Pie".

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

> When my mom and dad were in their teen

This is the worst bit. *I'M* TOO OLD TO LISTEN TO THIS SONG! And I'm sodding YOUNG!

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I honestly believe that this song may be the worst thing ever, in the world, ever.

As a politics student and card-carrying "young person," I object to it a) because it's a load of toss, since clearly everything was not peaceful and fluffy and there was, y'know, nuclear brinkmanship going on and b) for the same reason katstevens does but what really fucking gets to me about it is SHE NEVER LIVED THEN. Neither did I, of course, but I could handle Willie Nelson or someone singing a song to the effect of 'ack in my day, we respected our jumper-goalposts' or what-have-you but she's saying 'Back in my parents' day things were great and kids washed behind their ears etc.' AND WHERE IS THE LOGIC IN THAT?!

Unless, of course, this is all a backlash against that whole nu-metal 'hate your olds' movement of a few years ago and it's now all 'envy and covet your olds' lives.'

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

it's the same old rockist "back to basics" everything now is so ephemeral and less interesting, old stuff is just more interesting man crud

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think it's interesting tho that this is being so starkly expressed in a song by a Young Person. Generational guilt!

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i maybe getting on, but i seem to recall this was quite a common syndrome of beliefs at "college age". ppl insisting on playing either "non mainstream" or reckids from 20 years ago, but nothing "now".

More generational guilt, from the early 70s

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

We'll go walking out
while others shout of war's disaster.
Oh, we won't give in,
let's go living in the past.
Once I used to join in
every boy and girl was my friend.
Now there's revolution, but they don't know
what they're fighting.
Let us close out eyes;
outside their lives go on much faster.
Oh, we won't give in,
we'll keep living in the past.

One might also throw in The Beatles' "Revolution" at this point.

Re: More generational guilt, from the early 70s

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

haha every singing of The Internationale!

[friedslice.livejournal.com]

She's managed to cast aside her technophobe ways long enough to get a website (http://www.sandithom.com/site/index.php) up where you can hear the full horror.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

= computers are still scary hurrah

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Also I suspect that this single is not vinyl-only, it may even be available on those new-fangled download things she disapproves of so strongly.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

these lyrics represent everything i stand against.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure there's much difference between this pose (which I don't think she's "actually" holding but wvs) and usual nostalgia eg The Clash's "Weren't the 50s brilliant?", where you're wistful for a state where everything was brilliant but you were young so it wasn't your fault that it fell apart. In fact you're more likely to have clearer nostalgia for stuff that you had to be introduced to after you're grownup than for events that you experienced in your childhood - EG "Yes I remember punk it was brilliant and it swept all that rubbish prog rock off the charts FOREVA! (err, don't ask me about Styx)". or Nirvana/Hair Metal/Gunz'n'Roses.

I am hearing this song as being sung performed by Dead Blonde Girlfriend, and I approve thoroughly.

[zenith.livejournal.com]

The opportunity to give her a big fat zero is not one to be missed, I think.