Seriously, I wonder what it is that makes me (& people in general) get hooked on a song. Apart from the words. Words are just a part of the whole. I often pay attention to lyrics but sometimes I totally don't, sometimes a really long time goes by before I even notice/read them & then I'm like "Oh" bc they mean absolutely nothing to me. But I do find it super interesting to learn their story, if there is one.
Dunno why I like "Marlon JD"(off the MSP new album) so much, but I do. It's explained in this NME interview.
'Marlon JD': Here at least is one that's slight more clear what it's about...
NW: Well, it's clear, apart from the JD bit.
I assumed that was for James Dean.
NW: Well, a lot of people have said that. But the lyrics in all honesty, quite a few of them are stolen, well, not stolen, borrowed from the film, Reflections In A Golden Eye. Marlon Brando does actually say in it (adopts Brando wheeze): "I'd like to live without clutter, live without luxu-reee". So um, the film itself is beautifully shot. Richey did have a fascination with the idea of Marlon Brando, with someone that was so beautiful.
JDB: He loved him because he was the idealisation in his mind of what the ideal man could be, but also because he turned to shit as well.
NW: Exactly, yeah. The idea that he walked around his island in a nappy, eating and fucking.
JDB: That's why he's his kind of like perfect role model, because he rejected his innate beauty and talent turned into Jabba The Hutt.
NW: And Brando is such a complicated... well sometimes he seems utterly superficial, but just all those things... combined. And he did talk to me about that film a lot, Reflections In A Golden Eye, he was really into that, and I think that Young Liars, with Marlon Brando when he's a German officer.
JDB: I think this is one of the lyrics where Nick just proved he can be one of the greatest researchers in the world and just did great research on it.
NW: And you know, to use the sample on it as well, and I actually wrote the tune, apart from the Bloc Party bit.
JDB: And the middle.
NW: The harmonics bit! [Producer] Steve Albini didn't do this one, it's slightly more modern. It's still live, it's still done in the same way. But it's a more Neu!, motorik kind of thing.
I must confess I haven't seen the film.
NW: It is the classic thing where you've got two minutes focusing on Elizabeth Taylor's arse and Marlon Brando staring... I mean, he loved Elizabeth Taylor as well. It's kind of homoerotic. Well, the sexuality in the film is very blurred, it's not homoerotic, it's just that everything is blurred, relationships are blurred, no one loves each other.
JDB: Pain and pleasure's blurred.
NW: The one's that do love each other are not allowed to love each other.... I think bizarrely it might be John Huston, which is odd.
And the horsewhip across the face mentioned in the lyric, that's an actual scene from the film, right?
NW: It is, yeah. He fucks up Elizabeth Taylor's horse, and she humiliates him in front of everyone by whipping him across the face. There's a lot of humiliation in the film. Private and personal and public. So I think it's more for once, I don't think it necessarily hugely relates to him. It's more a kind of general inspiration and we all kind of went down that route.
Maybe more about how Brando's role in that film relates to Brando's whole life.
NW: Yeah, and maybe that then relates back to his admiration for him. And you know, maybe the line, 'learn to live without clutter, to live without luxury' has a slightly deeper resonance. Cos he was ridding himself at that time, he did seem to be ridding himself of any material complications. [Very slowly] It was just books, or watching the TV or listening to music. There wasn't really anything else involved.
Kinda wanna see it now. I have a few movies downloaded to watch, but I gotta admit I'm sorta lazy with films...my attention span is kind of short I guess, & I get impatient. It's hard for me to watch one without wondering when it's gonna be over. That's why I do better with series, I guess. But this is what I got
- 500 days of summer
- Madagascar 1 & 2
- Ponyo on the cliff
- The Machinist
- Nick & Norah's infinite playlist
- End of Evangelion (I saw, but want to see again)
- Whatever works
- Daft Punk Interstella 5555
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