Dancing On The Floor

It’s a blue, bright blue, Saturday, hey hey.

Bob’s post yesterday about Danceworld led me to thoughts of Goldfrapp.

I’m an alien to this place called Danceworld. Modern dance and I are vinegar and water. Between opera and modern dance, I probably feel more ignorant and clueless in modern dance, because opera carries this sense of being from a different historical era, so it makes sense that I wouldn’t get it. Modern dance feels, well, modern. Which means we moderners -- especially those who appreciate art and creativity and dancing -- should have a better sense of it than we do.

Yet here I am, an illegal alien in Danceworld.

This thought led me to Goldfrapp’s video for A&E, easily one of my favorite songs of the past decade.

And the pain has started to slip away, hey hey.

The video seems to me a perfect example of what Bob talks of in Danceworld: What happens in the video has almost nothing to do with the subject matter of the song, yet somehow the underlying emotion and feeling of the song is very much being communicated. It’s one of the more haunting videos I’ve run across in a while.



I’m in a backless dress in a pastel ward that’s shining.

I’ve put this song on a lot of mixes in the past few years. In fact, it’s fair to say that if you’ve received a mix CD from me in the past two years, there’s a 95% chance this song has been on one. And this song has come up in conversations after the fact on several occasions, far more than most of the songs I’ve included. I can think of four people who have said something like, “That Goldfrapp song is really mesmerizing/beautiful/memorable.” And I will nod and enthusiastically agree.

And then I ruin it for them.

“You know what it’s about, right?” I ask.

I think I want you still, but it may be pills at work.

“The narrator is in the hospital after a botched suicide attempt,” I say.

“What? I'm not sure that's what it's about.”

“Oh yes. It definitely is. She’s either in the ER or the psych ward, but she’s definitely in the hospital. And it’s definitely because of an overdose.”

“I thought it was just a break-up song.”

“It IS. And it's a love song, too! That’s what makes it so freaky and haunting and beautiful!”

Do you really wanna know how I was dancing on the floor?
I was trying to phone you when I’m crawling out the door
I’m amazed at you, the things you say that you don’t do
Why don’t you ring?

Apparently, the song was inspired by an experience Allison Goldfrapp had in the A&E -- the UK’s version of the “ER” -- but I’m comfortable betting that she’s far closer emotionally to this song than a mere visit to the emergency room. This song feels, to me, like it could only be written a safe distance away from an intensely-connected past event, and she’s in a place where she can look back on her more intense and passionate and lost and foolish self and think, “You were royally screwed up, but my God you were beautiful.”

There might be a fine line here, but I don’t think she’s wishing she had succeeded in her suicide attempt. Rather, I think there’s something about that past version of herself she remembers and loves in spite of her near-fatal flaws. And what has to be the best line becomes the translation of post-overdose convulsions to "dancing on the floor."

And the pain has started to slip away, hey hey.

It’s a love song to her old self, a self better left in the past, but necessarily remembered. That I finished Jennifer Egan’s mesmerizing Letters from the Goon Squad, a novel that won roughly a bajillion awards including the Pulitzer Prize at the same time I'm rekindling my love for this song is perfect serendipity, because the song reminds me of Sasha, the main female character around whom the novel flows.

But that’s for another day. Back to the video.

No matter how beautiful I find this song, the video had to come from a different place. A concert video wouldn’t work, nor would some attempt to literally translate the song for the viewer, because it would freak people out in the wrong way entirely.

So you turn to some dreamy, psychadelic modern dance in the woods. Goldfrapp becomes some fairy tale character in white, surrounded by dancing leaves and trees who eventually break up their synchronized routine to go their own expressive invidual ways while she loses her mind. Then they return to settle her back down into her dreamy slumber. Then it all becomes some vision or dream of Goldfrapp’s other member, who’s out on his own camping.

But early on, when she stands in the center of four "leaf-dancers" in the shape of the cross and takes herself a nice little crucifictitious pose... wow.

A&E - Goldfrapp (mp3)

Totally freaky. Totally weird. Totally Goldfrapp. And a perfect match for a song few people seem to like more once they know what it’s about.

"Coupla Numbers From Leon"

Leon Russell--"Magic Mirror" (mp3)
Leon Russell--"Delta Lady" (mp3)

An homage, if you will, for two lost friends.

There is one death I have never quite come to terms with--as evidenced by the fact that I don't know exactly when it happened or why or how. For most of us who knew Bob (no relation, for you existentialists), suicide is the most likely explanation.

The last time I saw him was about 16 years, when he came through town on his way back west. He had checked himself out of a mental hospital against doctor's orders and declared himself cured of the overwhelming depression that left him unable to get off the bed and take a shower most days. We had a good time here, including a night of Jaegermister and a favorite cd's competition.

I knew Bob in both high school and college. He was that kind of friend who pulled his shy suburban friend into all of the situations he wouldn't have gone to otherwise, but may have needed to--first rock concert, first beer, first date, first marijuana, first trip without parents (with them not figuring out what was going on until they compared notes as we were riding away on a bus). He got me to start playing guitar. He got me to read all kinds of counterculture books. In college, he flamed out freshman year because of his hyper-achieving parents, whose coup de grace was a Valentine's card that read "Happy Valentine's Day. We know you'll bring home all A's. Love, Mom and Dad." Within two months, he had joined the Moonies cult out in Booneville, CA. After his parents had him deprogrammed, he returned to Penn and, out of sync with me, became close friends with my brother instead.

After college, we lived on a farm outside of Lansdale, PA, where he was in a rock band and I was writing a novel. From there, he went back to California, dated an ex-girlfriend of the Dead's Bob Weir, started a cheesecake business, got an MBA, and, though as far away as possible from his parents, crashed anyway and ended up in a hospital.

After the last time I saw him, he worked for my brother in Chicago, had a falling out with him over some stolen checks, and ended up back in California, where he changed his middle name to his last name to break connection with his parents. And eventually died in an ambiguous way.

There are large portions of my life that don't make sense without him, and for about the last six years, my attempts to understand his life have made no sense either. He got lost, and I lost him.

The other lost friend is Leon Russell. Because of a thriving elderly population, Venice, Florida, where I spent Thanksgiving, has an exceptional library system, and we would go there just about every day ourselves. I especially enjoyed ransacking their electic, almost unexplainable, cd collection to see what I might slap into the condo's boombox while we're down there. This time, The Best of Leon Russell was among the many surprises waiting for me.

I'll bet it's been 25 years since I last listened to Leon. If you don't know him, he's probably not known anymore, but if he were, it would be for several notable accomplishments. First and foremost, he is a gifted songwriter, having crafted a number of stunning ballads, like "This Masquerade, " "A Song For You," and "Superstar" (classically done by both The Carpenters and Sonic Youth), that were hits for other people. But he is/was quite a performer in his own right. If you ever heard or saw George Harrison's Concert for Bangledesh, you know that he is the one who rocked the shit out of that staid, self-important affair. When George mutters, "Coupla numbers from Leon," all rock and roll hell breaks loose. I know what kind of hate mail I would get if I declared that his "Jumpin' Jack Flash" is better than the Stones, but he made the song his own and rocked it like the bastard son of Jerry Lee Lewis.

The connection? Bob, of course, introduced me to Leon Russell and championed him during those glitter rock high school years of the later '70's. May my friend finally rest in peace.

The Best of Leon Russell is available at Itunes.