This is a very long post. That is all.

SUNDAY, PART 1

Sarah coming to town last weekend was a jolt of Jolt for me. I’m lucky because, though she lives in England, she’s had jobs that allow her to travel to New York relatively frequently. This makes me think that all of her employers are not only thrilled with her hard work and unparalleled creative vision, but they’re also concerned about my overall wellness. So they send Sarah to New York and I feel better. So, thank you, Sarah’s employers! Splendid!

She came to town for Fashion Week. Josh and I met up with her on Sunday for coffee before she had to dash off for some fashiony to-do. She’s one of those people who leaves a void every time she walks out of a room, so you have to readjust whenever you say goodbye. Josh and I readjusted by going to the movies. We saw "Scoop."

SUNDAY, PART 2

Lisa wrote an exceptionally astute analysis of Woody Allen and his narcissistic filmmaking style on her blog. She said everything in a far more eloquent, thoughtful way than I could, so I’ll just add this about my “Scoop” experience:

While, like Lisa, I’m grateful that Woody Allen is no longer casting himself as a romantic lead, and while it’s slightly reassuring that his demeanor finally fits his body because even when he was young he was old, he’s still intent on directing his actors as himself. So his actors, no matter who they are, come off as overwrought, pervy old men. The thing is, when Allen himself was playing the overwrought, pervy old leading man, he still managed to sell the relationship he was in regardless of how disturbing it was to watch (“Annie Hall” even felt pervy to me back then). Woody Allen needs partners whose neuroses almost equal his, and for his characters’ relationships to be believable, the same has to happen. In “Scoop,” he couldn’t sell the Scarlett Johansson/Hugh Jackman affair: Jackman was so smoooooth and Johansson was mousy and bumbling and babbling and over-earnest and unappealing and annoying and if she were my friend I would have to break up with her. I spent the entire movie wondering why Jackman’s character would be drawn to Johansson’s, and why Johansson insisted on keeping Woody around while she did her bidding. It came off like, once again, Woody Allen wrote a scenario just so he could stick around and stare at an ingenue’s boobs. This time, though, he was doing the audience a favor by not grabbing them.

Also, it drives me mad when actors rely on one single body part to distract from the fact that they can't act. Scarlett Johansson acts with her lips much like how Julia Roberts does (actually, I think Julia Roberts acts with her nose), and that can only take you so far. Scarlett was playing an overwrought, pervy old man so there was a lot of cartoonish gesturing involved (Lisa called her "Ethel Mermanized"), but all the licking and biting of her lips overshadowed any “oy, vey!” hand-wringing.

Other than that, Hugh Jackman could staple a plastic bag to his forehead, paint his ears chartreuse and replace his feet with blenders and he’d still be delicious.

SUNDAY, PART 3

After the movie, Josh and I went to Virgin. Holy mother of $10 sales! Among our spoils (the new "Pretty in Pink" Everything’s Duckie edition! a 3-disc Rick Springfield CD collection! I was in heaven!) was the book I HATE MYSELF AND WANT TO DIE: THE 52 MOST DEPRESSING SONGS YOU’VE EVER HEARD by Tom Reynolds. This book is genius. It’s a comical breakdown of songs so bleating, so chest-beating, clothes-shredding, head-squeezing overdramatic — though Reynolds makes smart distinctions between what constitutes a sad song and what constitutes a depressing song. (The best example he gives of this is “Hurt.” The Nine Inch Nails version? Throw-yourself-off-the-roof self-indulgent depressing. The Johnny Cash version? Poignantly, tearfully sad.) I haven’t read the whole book yet, but what I saw was so hilarious my side still hurts. (Hurt!) It’s worth buying for many reasons, not the least of which is what he says about Celine Dion’s take on Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself.” A terrible, depressing song made even more terrible and depressing by virtue of it being covered by Celine Dion.

The book got me thinking: Record collectors have their own ways of organizing their stuff à la HIGH FIDELITY. I’m lame and categorize mine alphabetically. Josh is a giant nerd and does his by genre and gawd-knows-what-else (it isn’t just straight by genre, though he won’t explain it to me because that would apparently take us to Defcon 1). So I thought:

What if you organized your music by how much each record depressed you?

I started mentally scrolling through my own catalog: Way at the bottom would be “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers because it makes me unreasonably happy, as well as anything even remotely related to Neil Finn, my fantasy husband. And the entire Billy Bragg songbook, which is brilliant because Billy Bragg songs SHOULD be depressing but they aren't and they make me want to join a union and overthrow some fascists. Somewhere in the middle would be “Bad Reputation” by Freedy Johnston, which I always liked and found to be breezy (that's my stab at music reviewing: breezy), though his later albums got so boring that “Bad Reputation” now depresses me a little. And at the very top would have to be something completely earth-shattering, a song that I can hardly bring myself to listen to: “Cats in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin, a song so depressing that I refuse to even own it. That, and anything by James Taylor. James Taylor records manipulative music specifically to make you cry, and I’m actually pissed at him. I want to throw eggs at his car. I’ve gotten rid of all of my James Taylor records, which I owned around the time I went to camp because we’d sit around and sing “You’ve Got a Friend” and sway a lot and hug and cry, but now — ugh — James Taylor drives me to drink. “Fire and Rain” could have just been really sad, but it stepped into the realm of depressing when it embraced treacle. Incidentally, this is also how I feel about Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals.

I have a hard time discounting what I know about the artist from how I feel about the music, so if someone dies in an exceptionally tragic way or goes down a bad path, then their music automatically becomes depressing even if it used to make me happy. “The Love You Save” was my absolute favorite Jackson Five song, but now I just ruminate on the way Michael Jackson used to be and I want to sit shiva. Ditto “Rock with You.” “Never Tear Us Apart” always made me horny, but then Michael Hutchence died and all I want to do is cry alone and eat ice cream when I hear it. On the flipside, a song like “Space Oddity” is pretty damn depressing, but the David Bowie coolness factor certifies it as a joyous, celebratory ode to drifting off into the depths of space to die; David Bowie has spent years 12 steps ahead of everybody else and he still looks relaxed and happy and gorgeous and stylish. As opposed to Madonna, who’s starting to look like keeping ahead of the masses is wearing on her, which is why “Spanish Eyes” would be near the top of my list. Her liberal use of leotards has gotten seriously depressing.

And then there are the records that would be homeless, because while I adore Ben Folds, “Brick” is the most depressing song ever recorded in the history of all that is holy so I don’t know where I’d put it. (It’s in the Reynolds book. I’m jaded enough to say that I pegged it as a song about abortion from the start, though the analysis in the book treats it as one about a bad breakup — all the while recognizing that that take is completely incorrect.) My Marvin Gaye section would be separated from my entire collection, because the “I’m happy it’s Marvin Gaye!” vs. the “I’m sad Marvin Gaye is dead!” to-and-fro just requires that he have his own shelf; it’s also indicative of the respect that Marvin Gaye deserves, in my eversohumble opinion.

Categorizing your music by severity of depressive effect is an undertaking, sure, and a far-from-uplifting one at that, but I do know this: “Total Eclipse of the Heart” scared me to death when I was a kid because of the creepy video with the eyeless choirboys and implication of bats and ravens. And now I have an uncontrollable urge to sing that song in front of a live audience because I FEEL THE MUSIC, DAMMIT, AND I WANT TO SET IT FREE. The depressing part? I can’t sing for my lunch and thus, my career as the frontperson of a Bonnie Tyler cover band is quelled. “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is at the very bottom of my list, because it’s seven minutes of gravel-voiced cheesy bliss.

Also, the reader who sent me the link to the theme song from "Blossom"? Way at the bottom of my list. It had me so giddy that Josh The Media Snob was even laughing and shouting, "Oh my GOD! I remember this!" Mayim Bialik in a floral hat = good times.

So my question to you is this: What is the most depressing song you’ve ever heard? And is it worse than “Cats in the Cradle?”