Fake Tales of San Francisco (echo through the room)
“Love’s not only blind but deaf”
-Alex Turner
Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
I was skeptical when a close friend urged me to listen to them. I’d heard…
a few singles from them and for some reason I thought that they were just another one of those bands handcrafted by executives, with the sole purpose of selling to a targeted wide demographic (yeah, you know who I’m talking about). But I still gave them the benefit of the doubt, and that’s how I found one of the most interesting bands that you can find in the Billboard charts every couple years (most recently with Humbug, even though I’m not sure how well that did sales-wise).
While I like Turner’s lyrics, I don’t find them really profound, since most of the time they talk about stupid experiences he’s had (i.e. Fake Tales of San Francisco), which, don’t get me wrong, I find interesting but they’re not the most philosophical or relevant writings ever. However, once in a while I do find some nice phrases to share with my nonexistent audience. One of them being this one, that when I first heard I got so numb (with thinking) that I was unable to fully experience the subsequent explosion of awesome distorted guitars and angry drums.
We don’t really chose who we like (notice: like, not love), because it’s mainly superficial. I think there’s something wrong in this phrase, and that is the use of the word “love”. I understand what it may be saying, though. I believe (because the context of this line in the song is a little fucked up), that Turner is trying to say that some people don’t really belong together (kind of like in A Certain Romance), and he just can’t help but think what perhaps a nice girl is doing with a dickhead like the ones that the Monkeys talk about in this song (“all the weekend rock stars are in the toilets practicing their lines”).
Fuck now I’m realizing that I should’ve picked another quote because I don’t really know what to say about this one. I guess I’ll go look for more awesome quotes, then.
