[Music] TISM - The White Album
Jan. 12th, 2005 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsWarning: this post contains adult language and situations.
Okay, so I've finally listened to the TISM album all the way through, and I've got to say, this one had me absolutely laughing my fucking head off. By now, we've all heard Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me, but there are better songs on this record. No, really. TISM perfectly captures the existential angst of guys my age. It's made by late 30-somethings for late 30-somethings. The song Bone Idol is a great expression of that whole "self-improvement thing" that we seemed to be pressured to undergo: "I must invite my vegan neighbors round for a barbecue,/ I'll go on a liver cleansing diet 'cause I've got lots of drinking to do..."
And then there's I rooted a girl, who rooted a guy, etc. (Man, that title length gets annoying fast!). It's about how you're not famous, and not likely to be. It's the angst of being too old to go partying, and too young to admit it.
Do you remember the song, Love The One You're With by one of those hippie bands from the sixties? TISM has an answer for them: "Love the one you're with, and if you can't love the one you're with, go fuck yourself!" There's something postively liberating about-- and joining in-- this shout about how the whole hippie thing just seems so totally fucked up now, thirty, forty years later. The song launches into all the petty evils we refuse to repute even as we dismiss them in others: "Love your flights of adolescence/ Love your cruise to obsolescence/ Love the charity you can't afford to give/ And if you can't love the one you're with..." You know the rest.
But the best song on the album, the absolute total best song on the album, is the unfortunate Cerebral Knievel. It says what I've wanted to say in a long time: young snots are just that. It takes the Beatles' songs "Revolution" and "Revolution Nine" and turns them on their collective arse with a response so biting, so harsh, so incredibly, nastily, horribly vicious that I cringed inwardly that I was like that once upon a time, and then I laughed so hard I nearly had to pull off the side of the road. And it's only four words long! I don't even dare ruin it for you. You simply must hear it. If you're under 25, you won't get. If you're over 35, you'll laugh yourself sick.
It's such a shame that the album is intermixed with heavily political songs like Ken Bruce has Gone Mad, Sorted For D'n'M, and Message from a Big Day Out Port-A-Loo (although, really, the last one's anti-political: "fuck the news, who cares who Abdel Anzis Rantisi is, let's go disco..."). I mean, yeah, TISM is an Australian band, and they're instrumentally talented and their lyrics are amazing, but if they want to sell anywhere else... they'll have to sell out. I don't know if they'd be the same.
But damn, I want more.
Okay, so I've finally listened to the TISM album all the way through, and I've got to say, this one had me absolutely laughing my fucking head off. By now, we've all heard Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me, but there are better songs on this record. No, really. TISM perfectly captures the existential angst of guys my age. It's made by late 30-somethings for late 30-somethings. The song Bone Idol is a great expression of that whole "self-improvement thing" that we seemed to be pressured to undergo: "I must invite my vegan neighbors round for a barbecue,/ I'll go on a liver cleansing diet 'cause I've got lots of drinking to do..."
And then there's I rooted a girl, who rooted a guy, etc. (Man, that title length gets annoying fast!). It's about how you're not famous, and not likely to be. It's the angst of being too old to go partying, and too young to admit it.
Do you remember the song, Love The One You're With by one of those hippie bands from the sixties? TISM has an answer for them: "Love the one you're with, and if you can't love the one you're with, go fuck yourself!" There's something postively liberating about-- and joining in-- this shout about how the whole hippie thing just seems so totally fucked up now, thirty, forty years later. The song launches into all the petty evils we refuse to repute even as we dismiss them in others: "Love your flights of adolescence/ Love your cruise to obsolescence/ Love the charity you can't afford to give/ And if you can't love the one you're with..." You know the rest.
But the best song on the album, the absolute total best song on the album, is the unfortunate Cerebral Knievel. It says what I've wanted to say in a long time: young snots are just that. It takes the Beatles' songs "Revolution" and "Revolution Nine" and turns them on their collective arse with a response so biting, so harsh, so incredibly, nastily, horribly vicious that I cringed inwardly that I was like that once upon a time, and then I laughed so hard I nearly had to pull off the side of the road. And it's only four words long! I don't even dare ruin it for you. You simply must hear it. If you're under 25, you won't get. If you're over 35, you'll laugh yourself sick.
It's such a shame that the album is intermixed with heavily political songs like Ken Bruce has Gone Mad, Sorted For D'n'M, and Message from a Big Day Out Port-A-Loo (although, really, the last one's anti-political: "fuck the news, who cares who Abdel Anzis Rantisi is, let's go disco..."). I mean, yeah, TISM is an Australian band, and they're instrumentally talented and their lyrics are amazing, but if they want to sell anywhere else... they'll have to sell out. I don't know if they'd be the same.
But damn, I want more.
