Song Of The Day 9/15/2015: Peter Case – “It's All Mine”

Let's Go Do Some Crimes – This one's about armed robbery. I for one have never been big on armed robbery. I have actually never championed any kind of robbery, except for a couple of high school hijinks in which it could be argued the targets got what they deserved. But that was most definitely unarmed robbery. I have a relationship with weaponry that's not exactly cuddly. I don't presume to extend that relationship into other people's weaponry, or even public policy, though I do marvel at America's apparent idolatry of firearms. I could never actually love a gun. It's like asking me to love a blender. I don't care how powerful that blender is, or how fast it goes, or how often it reads me Keats when I am in melancholic repose and the wick flickers into vapor and aligns itself with the dwindling conveyor of minutes soon to be immortalized in benign amber. I am simply never going to develop romantic attachment to that blender. Not my type. I prefer Cuisinarts.

But that's not the point, the point is robbery. I don't like to steal things by force. I don't even like to steal things by proxy. I even bristle at the idea of convincing someone to give me something via the weapon I use the most: the gentle, singsong meter of my elegant prose. If you want to give me something I prefer you give it in full control of your faculty for volunteerism. French onion dip, for example. You may have it. You may offer it. And I might take it. Actually I'm pretty sure I will take it. But under no circumstances am I going to get all Socratic on you and try to persuade you to give it to me if you don't want to. For one thing I suck at philosophy and couldn't engage you in discussions on Socrates if I wanted to. I've been going around for years telling people I'm a devotee of Wittgenstein just so they'll change the subject. If you want to discuss philosophy with me -- tell you what, you stay right here and I'll call my friend Ian on Skype. He'll out-philosophize me any day of the week. You want Socrates, I'll give you Ian. I can help you in all matters pertaining to Aaron Spelling.

Well, back to this song. It's Peter Case, whose was the leader of a very fine band called the Plimsouls, then had a solo career with lots of very strong highlights. This one's from an album called Six-Pack of Love, which was perhaps a bit over-produced, but that's what the times were like. It was 1992. Anyone who was in a recording studio that wasn't wearing lumberjack shirts was being manhandled by oil-barrel drums and there was nothing security could do about it. Six-Pack of Love has one of my favorite songs of all time called "Never Coming Home." (Wait, maybe it's "Never Going Home." Hold on... discogs.com... ah, it's "Never Comin' Home." With the lazy action verb. Anyway, yeah. I love that song so much I had to look up the title.)

Moral of the story? (a) Armed robbery is bad, and (b) writing blog posts in a hurried frame of mind is also bad. Both are very dangerous. One can lead you down a terrible path of criminality, barbarity and perpetual remorse, and the other one is armed robbery.