waiting on a subway line!
i was thinking about the john legend song "ordinary people" yesterday. i heard it while i was giving blood. but i'll get to that later. but the song, right, it's so wierd! i must have heard that song about 50 times. no joke. i mean i think i heard it in TDR last year about 40 times.
anyway, so the song, you've heard it. it was everywhere last year. a pop r&b sensation, right? but it's so unlike every other overproduced radio hit-- there's no danceable beat, no swoopy harmonies or anything. just a guy and a piano.
i used to not like the song. the words just kind of got to me. they seemed way to literal and, i guess, ordinary. i don't know. seemed like something out of a nicolas sparks novel? "though love sometimes hurts/ i still put you first." and then the phrase "we're just ordinary people" always irked me-- it's honesty was a little too much. i found myself kind of feeling icky after hearing it, you know?
but as i was sitting there, getting drained of a pint of blood, i realized how unlikely a hit the song was. how many songs do you hear on the radio that are just a guy and a piano? it's at once a reaction against the overwrought production of most radio hits, embracing simplicity and honesty in songwriting rather than posturing and booty shaking, and a continuation of the same genre, somehow appealing to the same audience as other pop standbys.
of course, my knowledge of r&b goes about skin deep.
anyway, you know when you give blood, and they fill up the bag, and then they fill up about 6 test tubes for, you know, testing. the nurse, through a series of clamping and cutting or something, somehow diverts the blood to a different tube, and into this contraption that snaps onto the test tubes (lots of tubes, sorry). the nurse snaps the test tubes onto the contraption, opening the flow of blood, and it shoots into the test tube! a fine stream of speeding blood, right before your eyes. it's unreal, like seeing a wild animal roaming the streets. normally that animal's trapped inside your veins, but now you see it running wild, filling up a little tube.
wild.
anyway, so the song, you've heard it. it was everywhere last year. a pop r&b sensation, right? but it's so unlike every other overproduced radio hit-- there's no danceable beat, no swoopy harmonies or anything. just a guy and a piano.
i used to not like the song. the words just kind of got to me. they seemed way to literal and, i guess, ordinary. i don't know. seemed like something out of a nicolas sparks novel? "though love sometimes hurts/ i still put you first." and then the phrase "we're just ordinary people" always irked me-- it's honesty was a little too much. i found myself kind of feeling icky after hearing it, you know?
but as i was sitting there, getting drained of a pint of blood, i realized how unlikely a hit the song was. how many songs do you hear on the radio that are just a guy and a piano? it's at once a reaction against the overwrought production of most radio hits, embracing simplicity and honesty in songwriting rather than posturing and booty shaking, and a continuation of the same genre, somehow appealing to the same audience as other pop standbys.
of course, my knowledge of r&b goes about skin deep.
anyway, you know when you give blood, and they fill up the bag, and then they fill up about 6 test tubes for, you know, testing. the nurse, through a series of clamping and cutting or something, somehow diverts the blood to a different tube, and into this contraption that snaps onto the test tubes (lots of tubes, sorry). the nurse snaps the test tubes onto the contraption, opening the flow of blood, and it shoots into the test tube! a fine stream of speeding blood, right before your eyes. it's unreal, like seeing a wild animal roaming the streets. normally that animal's trapped inside your veins, but now you see it running wild, filling up a little tube.
wild.
posted by Chris DeWitt at 9:40 AM
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