Beautiful Freaks 33: My Guilty Pleasure by Beautiful Freaks [beschikbaar tot 15/11/2010]

‘Street Spirit’ is our purest song, but I didn’t write it. It wrote itself. We were just its messengers; its biological catalysts. Its core is a complete mystery to me, and, you know, I wouldn’t ever try to write something that hopeless. All of our saddest songs have somewhere in them at least a glimmer of resolve. ‘Street Spirit’ has no resolve. It is the dark tunnel without the light at the end. It represents all tragic emotion that is so hurtful that the sound of that melody is its only definition. We all have a way of dealing with that song. It’s called detachment. Especially me; I detach my emotional radar from that song, or I couldn’t play it. I’d crack. I’d break down on stage. That’s why its lyrics are just a bunch of mini-stories or visual images as opposed to a cohesive explanation of its meaning. I used images set to the music that I thought would convey the emotional entirety of the lyric and music working together. That’s what’s meant by ‘all these things you’ll one day swallow whole’. I meant the emotional entirety, because I didn’t have it in me to articulate the emotion. I’d crack…

Our fans are braver than I to let that song penetrate them, or maybe they don’t realise what they’re listening to. They don’t realise that ‘Street Spirit’ is about staring the fucking devil right in the eyes, and knowing, no matter what the hell you do, he’ll get the last laugh. And it’s real, and true. The devil really will get the last laugh in all cases without exception, and if I let myself think about that too long, I’d crack.

I can’t believe we have fans that can deal emotionally with that song. That’s why I’m convinced that they don’t know what it’s about. It’s why we play it towards the end of our sets. It drains me, and it shakes me, and hurts like hell every time I play it, looking out at thousands of people cheering and smiling, oblivious to the tragedy of its meaning, like when you’re going to have your dog put down and it’s wagging its tail on the way there. That’s what they all look like, and it breaks my heart. I wish that song hadn’t picked us as its catalysts, and so I don’t claim it. It asks too much. I didn’t write that song.

Dat schreef Radiohead’s zanger Thom Yorke over hun nummer ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’, een van hun mooiste en meest intense liedjes. Volgend jaar komt er een nieuw album, maar het is nog maar afwachten of dat het niveau gaat halen van hun hoogtijdagen.

Op ‘Street Spirit’, enkele post-rock songs en wat verdwaalde indie-folk na draaiden we vandaag in Beautiful Freaks haast alleen maar guilty pleasures; bands die voor ‘serieuze muziekliefhebbers’ eigenlijk not done zijn, maar stiekem wel erg leuk. In die categorie Electric Light Orchestra, Barclay James Harvest, Toto, The Moody Blues en misschien ook wel Queen. Zelfs Coldplay zouden we zo kunnen noemen. Maar wees gerust: al deze nummers zijn – op Toto na – als guilty pleasures eigenlijk ook Beautiful Freaks; song die misschien als vreemd of fout worden gezien (Freaks), maar wel goed (Beautiful) zijn. Ze hebben ons seal of approval.

1. Eels – Beautiful Freak

2. Antony & Bryce Dressner – I Was Young When I Left Home
3. Isbells – Dreamer
4. The Tallest Man on Earth – A Lion’s Heart

5. Electric Light Orchestra – Standin’ in the Rain
6. Electric Light Orchestra – Big Wheels
7. Electric Light Orchestra – Summer and Lightning
8. Electric Light Orchestra – Mr. Blue Sky

9. Toto – Hold the Line
10. Queen – The Prophet’s Song
11. The Moody Blues – Night in White Satin [Single Version]

12. Barclay James Harvest – Poor Man’s Moody Blues
13. Eels – Bride of Theme from Blinking Lights

14. Coldplay – Strawberry Swing
15. Jónsi – Around Us

16. Sigur Rós – Hoppípolla
17. Motek – Motives
18. Radiohead – Street Spirit (Fade Out)