Free Local Music MP3s: Listen, Download

When the mundane seems exotic

Posted May 28, 2009 by Clarisa Gerlach

Updated May 28, 2009 at 03:21 PM

“Take out the garbage, maybe, but the dishes don’t get done.”

“I Apologize,” the song that line is taken from, is about a lovers’ quarrel, and there are tons of songs on that topic in any genre.

Growing up on arena rock, though, I never heard anyone mention taking out the garbage or doing the dishes. The Coasters and Chuck Berry could sing about the more mundane aspects of teenage life in the 1950s, but that was for comedic effect.

There’s nothing wrong with songs about rocking and rolling all night or Siberian khatrus or Achilles’ last stands but, as Morrissey would put it, they say nothing to me about my life.

When your musical diet is all epic parties, celestial planes and herculean battles, songs about buildings and food can seem pretty exotic.

“Don’t Worry ‘Bout the Government” from “Talking Heads 77,” threw me for a loop when I first heard it and it’s still one of my favorite songs by that band.

In the song, a man sings about his new apartment building which “has every convenience.” It was as far away from what I knew as rock ‘n’ roll subject matter as I could imagine.

I’ve listened to that song at different periods in my life, and I hear something new each time. At first I just recognized a songwriter going against the prevailing grain. Later I started to hear alienation, loneliness, desperation and consumption as a coping tool. The Clash sang about those topics more explicitly in “Lost in the Supermarket.”

Maybe it’s time for rock ‘n’ rollers to start doing the dishes again.