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Songs that have shaped my love life: Poe, Hey Pretty
When I first started writing these “Songs That Have Shaped My Love Life” posts, I had a pretty long list of artists in mind that start with the letter P. Thus far, I’ve only mentioned the worst of these, Pearl Jam. At this point I’d like to direct your attention to one of my favorite female musicians who, sadly, is no longer performing: Poe. Poe’s second album, Haunted, came out in The Year 2000 (and yes, back in the day, we half-jokingly wrote it like that, feeling like everything was suddenly super futuristic) – five whole years after her first release, Hello. Fans of the former immediately snatched up the…
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Songs that have shaped my love life: Sarah McLachlan, Possession
We all know the story of Sarah McLachlan’s song “Possession,” right? No? Okay, check this out: While it sounds like a pretty hot love song on the surface, it’s actually a series of increasingly disturbing “love notes” from McLachlan’s real-life stalker. Yeah, how’s that for 50 shades of fucked up? The first time I listened to this song, naturally I figured it was a hot love song. I listened to it a lot. It was on one of the first CDs I bought in high school, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. If FTE had been a vinyl record, I would’ve worn the damn thing out, that’s how many times I listened to…
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Songs that have shaped my love life: Metallica, Enter Sandman
If you’ve read my previous installment in the “P is for Pop Songs” series, you already know that most of the bands I plan to write about start with the letter P. But this one’s different. Because this one’s METAL. Let’s talk about Metallica. My very first boyfriend was a guy from New York. The Bronx, in fact, which he claimed was a much maligned borough, mostly because despite news reports to the contrary, it was much less frequently on fire than, say, Staten Island. (Which is, in fact, true, but possibly only because Staten Island’s dump often spontaneously burst into flames. Then again, this is true for most garbage…
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Songs that have shaped my love life: Pearl Jam, Better Man
For some reason, I seem to get a lot of great ideas after I hit the gym. Maybe it’s all the endorphins and adrenaline rushing around, maybe it’s just the increased blood flow to my brain, but whatever the case may be, this week I got the bright idea to put together an anthology for Valentine’s Day entitled Everything I Need to Know About Love I Learned From Pop Songs. As a result, I thought it would be interesting to start blogging about some of the pop songs that have shaped my own views of love as I seek out some funny, cynical, and even serious essays from others on…




