The Vine: April 24, 2009
Dear Sars,
My husband is driving me crazy. He’s trying to remember a song he heard, oh, maybe five or 10 years ago, about the world ending (and no, it isn’t REM’s “End of the World As We Know It”). So now he’s got me wracking my brains, because I think I know the song he’s trying to remember, and I can’t remember it either. Stupid song.
It had lyrics about the sun setting, something about rowing, swimming, or wading in the ocean, looking back at the shoreline, and watching the world burn or go up in flames or something like that.
I know it’s not much to go on, but we’re hoping that your vast readership might be able to help us figure out what this stupid song is, so I can to back to listening to Blossom Dearie in peace.
I Feel Fine
Dear Fine,
I assume you’ve already tried various strings of lyrics on Google to see if anything jogs his memory, but you never know when a TN reader is going to have just the thing on her iPod.
Readers?
Tags: Ask The Readers popcult
It’s not one of the multitude of versions of 99 Red Balloons, is it? It doesn’t quite match the lyrics suggested, but seems vaguely similar in idea of watching it happen.
Walk on the Ocean by Toad the Wet Sprocket is the first thing that popped in my head… but it’s not about the world ending… so probably not right.
I really, really hope it’s not “Santa Monica” by Everclear (“We can live beside the ocean / leave the fire behind / swim out past the breakers / watch the world die”)
That song has been haunting me for like two weeks and I really don’t like it.
I think it’s “Santa Monica” by Everclear:
I am still living with your ghost
Lonely and dreaming of the west coast
I don’t want to be your downtime
I don’t want to be your stupid game
With my big black boots and an old suitcase
I do believe I’ll find myself a new place
I don’t want to be the bad guy
I don’t want to do your sleepwalk dance anymore
I just want to see some palm trees
I will try and shake away this disease
We can live beside the ocean
Leave the fire behind
Swim out past the breakers
Watch the world die
I am still dreaming of your face
Hungry and hollow for all the things you took away
I don’t want to be your good time
I don’t want to be your fall-back crutch anymore
I’ll walk right out into a brand new day
Insane and rising in my own weird way
I don’t want to be the bad guy
I don’t want to do your sleepwalk dance anymore
I just want to feel some sunshine
I just want to find some place to be alone
We can live beside the ocean
Leave the fire behind
Swim out past the breakers
Watch the world die
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/e/everclear/santa+monica_20052041.html
My best guess is Everclear’s Santa Monica: “We can live out by the ocean/ Leave the fire behind/ Swim out part the breakers/ Watch the world die.”
Sounds like Tool’s Aenema.
Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call la
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
Any fucking time. any fucking day.
Learn to swim, Ill see you down in arizona bay.
Some say a comet will fall from the sky.
Followed by meteor showers and tidal waves.
Followed by faultlines that cannot sit still.
Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits.
I’m probably totally wrong here, but the lines about swimming and the world on fire made me think of Smash Mouth’s song All Star:
“The water’s getting warm so you might as well swim
My world’s on fire how ’bout yours”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM96bQkJ-mc
Is it Great Big Sea’s (appropriately titled) End of the World?
Dave Matthews Band, When the World Ends? Maybe?
The first one I thought of was Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire” but…that would be too easy, right?
If it’s none of the others, it might be Counting Crows’ Einstein on the Beach. Though that doesn’t have beachiness other than in the title.
Liz, Great Big Sea’s End of the World As We Know It is the same as REM’s End of the World As We Know It. It’s just a remake.
Walking to Hawaii, by Tom McRae
Falling feels like flying,
Till you hit the ground.
And everything is beautiful,
Till you take a look around.
So, let it go.
Turn the bow into the wave boy,
I feel a storm coming in.
But every bridge we build we burn,
And never learn to swim.
No we never learn to swim.
So, let it go.
Lead me to the edge and watch,
See how far we both can drop.
Let it all just slip away.
Let it fade.
We walk to Hawaii,
A final sunset on the waves.
The perfect girl, the perfect place,
To watch the world go down in flames
Wouldn’t that be a shame?
So, let it go.
Lead me to the edge don’t stop.
Beauty always had a cost.
And as the air slips from our lungs,
We’ll sing songs
Of love
If you’re British, it could maybe be one of the Eurovision entries by Frances Rufelle years ago called ‘Sink or Swim’ that was all about the world flooding and everyone dying: ‘And there’ll be no cure, and we’ll see no shore. Sink or swim’.
But I expect it isn’t.
Probably not, but just in case, another Billy Joel suggestion (Miami 2017):
Seen the lights go out Broadway
I saw the Empire State laid low
And life went on beyond the Palisades
They all bought Cadillacs
And left there long ago
They held a concert out in Brooklyn
To watch the island bridges blow
They turned our power down
And drove us underground
But we went right on with the show
I’ve seen the lights go out on Broadway
I saw the ruins at my feet
You know we almost didn’t notice it
We’d seen it all the time on Forty second street
They burned the churches down in Harlem
Like in that Spanish civil war
The flames were everywhere
But no one really cared
It always burned up there before
I’ve seen the lights go out on Broadway
I saw the mighty skyline fall
The boats were waiting at the battery
The union went on strike
They never sailed at all
They sent a carrier out from Norfolk
And picked the Yankees up for free
They said that Queens could stay
And blew the Bronx away
And sank Manhattan out at sea
You know those lights were bright on Broadway
That was so many years ago
Before we all lived here in Florida
Before the Mafia took over Mexico
There are not many who remember
They say a handful still survive
To tell the world about
The way the lights went out
And keep the memory alive
Oh no. Now that Everclear song is going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day.
Hah, Everclear was the first thing that sprung to my mind, too. I never would’ve thought of Tool’s Aenema; that’s a fun juxtaposition to what I was imagining. I hope it’s that Tom McRae song. That sounds cool.
You guys are great. It is, in fact, that stupid Everclear song. So, many many thanks to you all.
But now how do I get that earworm out of my head? Blossom Dearie isn’t doing it…
The reader didn’t mention if the singer was female or male, so i’m going to suggest The Swimmer by Sleater Kinney, even though most of the suggested songs happen to be malecentric in the comments….
First thing I thought of was “Keep It Together” by Guster
When we all had finally washed ashore
It was clear there was no one else around
We declared a national holiday
A chance to build it from the ground
So far away from everyone and everything starts today
Let’s keep it together
Can we keep it together
We’re singing a new song now and everything starts today
Can we rise
Can we get along all right
Can we miss the storm that sucked the whole world in
And the boats went out at night
And the choppers in the sky
They searched, but they could find no trace of us
So far away from everyone and everything starts today
Let’s keep it together
Can we keep it together
We’re singing a new song now and everything starts today
The thunder struck the clouds appear
Our fearless crew was not prepared
And pretty soon the boats came for us half a million strong
We gathered arms and fired shells
We built a wall around ourselves
And pretty soon the spirit was a lot like it what it used to be back home
I always hear the first line of “Santa Monica” as:
“I am still living with your goat”
despite the clear intended meaning, rhyme with “coast,” etc.
the first thing that popped into my head was Nick Cave’s (I’ll love you) Til the End of the World. http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/untiltheendoftheworld/illloveyoutilltheendoftheworld.htm
It’s kind of amazing how many songs use that same idea…
There is a cure for Earworm. I warn you… it is worse than the disease. Well, in fact it is another earworm, but I give people the cure anyway. Because? I am evil.
Start humming “It’s a Small World.”
The only known cure for that is “The Song that Never Ends.”
Christ, I just remembered how much I hate that stupid Everclear song. And now it’s stuck in my head. Damn and blast!
@Liz in Minneapolis: I, too, always hear the first line of ‘Santa Monica’ as
“I am still living with your goat”.
It was especially amusing because a friend of mine at the time had goats, and, being in the eighth grade when the song came out, we would bleat at the goats, and then when we heard the song on the radio and misheard the lyric, we would go crazy bleating.
Yeah, I would have called Santa Monica too.
My earworm cure is either “The Gasman Cometh” by Flanders & Swan or this.
Click the link. You won’t be sorry.
@Vicky Lee — I also use It’s a Small World as my earworm-replacing earworm! Is that a known thing? I thought I had invented it…
“SOOOOOOLLLLL-dier boy! Oh my little soooooolllll-dier boy! I’llllll beeeeee truuuuuue toooooo youuuuuuu.”
Curse you, Sars.
My earworm is “Africa” by Toto.
You’re welcome.
My BF sings it all.the.mothereffing time ’cause he’s working on a website that has to do with climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. Bastard.
Here’s another cure-is-worse-than-the disease earwork fixer.
Rock Star by Nickelback.
They used it for a commercial in the UK and just when you got rid of it, back it was. I was singing it for months.
@Sami: I am going to come over to your house, and I am going to CUT YOU. With a tiny little bouncy lion. Heh.
KENNNNNNNYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
I love the lion’s gums slowly sliding down the giraffe’s leg. Also, the thought of Kenya peeing on Norway will probably keep me smiling all day. Thank you.
Sami, thank you for that link, I have had the “Come to Somalia, we got pirates” parody stuck in my head all week (for obvious reasons) and it’s such a relief to see the original Kenya version instead.
@ Elise… I’ve been using “Small World” since grade 10 French class. I had a Mickey Mouse watch that would sing that tune on command. Ask me why I was the Dateless Wonder in high school…
@Elyse @JenV: I KNOW! I hate that song, and my brain is a huge fan of earworms, so I’m stuck with Everclear until something worse comes along. (I can’t even LOOK at a picture of Katy Perry, or hell, cherry ChapStick, without being screwed for the day.)
My husband’s earworm solution is “Menomena.” Bum BUM ba-da ba-dum. Menomena. Works every time. And you get to picture the Muppets while singing it.
Okay, I kid you not…the best earworm cure is Girl from Iponema. It will get rid of whatever song is in your head, but it doesn’t get stuck in your head either! We learned this trick in a psych class back in college, and I’ve used it ever since. Works like a charm.
Back to the songs, here’s one from way back – Jefferson Airplane, “Wooden Ships”. And yes, it has earworm potential, but maybe only if you listened to it several hundred times as a teenager.
Black sails knifing through the pitchblende night
Away from the radioactive landmass madness
From the silver-suited people searching out
Uncontaminated food and shelter on the shores
No glowing metal on our ship of wood only
Free happy crazy people naked in the universe
WE SPEAK EARTH TALK
GO RIDE THE MUSIC
If you smile at me you know I will understand
Cause that is something everybody everywhere does
In the same language
I can see by your coke my friend that you’re from the other side
There’s just one thing I got to know
Can you tell me please who won
You must try some of my purple berries
I been eating them for six or seven weeks now
Haven’t got sick once
Probably keep us both alive
Wooden ships on the water very free and easy
Easy you know the way it’s supposed to be
Silver people on the shoreline leave us be
Very free and easy
Sail away where the mornin sun goes high
Sail away where the wind blows sweet and young birds fly
Take a sister by her hand
Lead her far from this barren land
Horror grips us as we watch you die
All we can do is echo your anguished cry and
Stare as all you human feelings die
We are leaving
You don’t need us
Go and take a sister by her hand
Lead her far from this foreign land
Somewhere where we might laugh again
We are leaving
You don’t need us
Sailing ships on the water very free and easy
Easy you know the way it’s supposed to be
Silver people on the shoreline leave us be
Very free
And gone
NO C’MON
GO RIDE THE MUSIC
C’MON RIDE IT CHILD
Because I’m in a torturous mood.. the worst earworm EVER has GOT to be “Wonderwall.”
It pops into your head at random time swith ZERO provocation… just ask my boyfriend who asked what I was humming the other day while LISTENING TO NPR!
Stupid, STUPID Oasis!
I always sing “One Hundred Bottles of Beer” to dislodge earworms. Usually get bored around the eighty ninth bottle.
@pixie, which Bad Seeds album is that on? I loves me some Nick!
“Some people started singing it,
Not knowing what it was … “
Hmm…it’s not an exact match, but I’m thinking it COULD be “Sunny Came Home”, by Shawn Colvin?
Sunny came home to her favorite room
Sunny sat down in the kitchen
She opened a book and a box of tools
Sunny came home with a mission
She says days go by I’m hypnotized
I’m walking on a wire
I close my eyes and fly out of my mind
Into the fire
Sunny came home with a list of names
She didn’t believe in transcendence
It’s time for a few small repairs she said
Sunny came home with a vengeance
She says days go by I don’t know why
I’m walking on a wire
I close my eyes and fly out of my mind
Into the fire
Get the kids and bring a sweater
Dry is good and wind is better
Count the years, you always knew it
Strike a match, go on and do it
Days go by I’m hypnotized
I’m walking on a wire
I close my eyes and fly out of my mind
Into the fire
Light the sky and hold on tight
The world is burning down
She’s out there on her own and she’s alright
Sunny came home
Sunny came home…
Off topic, but I think the line “Sunny came home with a vengeance” is funny. Every time I hear it, I think of this girl slamming the door open so hard the walls rattle, shouting, “I’M HOOOOOME!” Like Ricky Ricardo on steroids.
Hmmm, can’t help with the song, but if you go to last.fm and search by lyrics, it will bring up the song and you can click and play it!
“Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden?
I agree that the only way to get rid of an earworm is to replace it with something else, usually something bad enough to stick. My usual pick is “Copacabana”. Happy Monday!
@KTB – Menomena? Hours and hours on end in my head. Thanks for the reminder :P
Trade ya – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9GPNsNxuZ4
Curse you all with your earworm replacements! I was trying so hard NOT to think of “It’s a Small World” and “Menomena” (even avec Muppets) is just as bad. Might as well suggest the Numa Numa song… aaaaaargh!