Rules of the Game #11: Toothpaste and Coffee

[koganbot]

More Ashlee. I try to do right by the craftsmanship and the poetry. (Thanks to Nia for inspiration.) I also pose a question that I suppose is really "Why do we care about artistry?" Any thoughts?

The Rules of the Game No. 11: Toothpaste and Coffee

EDIT: Here are links to all but three of my other Rules Of The Game columns (LVW's search results for "Rules of the Game"). Links for the other three (which for some reason didn't get "Rules Of The Game" in their titles), are here: #4, #5, and #8.

UPDATE: I've got all the links here now:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/179531.html

Comments

[koganbot]

As for ways to identify with lyrics, I'm all over the place. I can imagine myself singing the Chad Mitchell lines, even if I don't identify with the narrator of the song, who goes off shootin' skeeters down in Tennessee. I can both identify with the lyrics of "Autobiography" - yeah, in fact I did walk a thousand miles while everyone was asleep - but they're more thrilling coming out of the mouth of a nineteen-year-old girl. They make her attractive and she makes them attractive.

But if you heard a loud noise in early December 2005, that was my jaw hitting the floor when I finally (almost a year and a half late) bought the album and first heard those words. I was hit with sudden, unexpected affinity, but also sudden recognition - damn! she's Byron, Whitman, Dylan, Eminem (and I don't know if any of those has had as good a one-liner as "I walked a thousand miles while everyone was asleep," and it seems to be original with her*, not an old saying) - like, where'd she come from. (And that line's part of a song that seems built around the idea of a personals ad: "Got stains on my t-shirt/And I'm the biggest flirt/Right now I'm solo but that will be changing eventually.")

[koganbot]

*or John or Kara