Thursday. The ones that got away, and the ones that haven't arrived yet.

Today's listening - "FML" by Deadmau5.

Song titles, are kinda funny.

Evocation of an emotion or a feeling, a memory - can come from a million places. Every time I drive to my local Argos Superstore I think of sperm donors.

Okay, let me qualify that.

On my way there about 4 years ago I was listening to the radio in the car. I swept into the car park, taking the short cut through the bays to avoid the herculean chassis juddering speed bumps. The show on the radio was talking about sperm donation - the ethics, the pros, cons etc. and for some reason, it stuck in my head. Now I cannot fail to drive there, taking the same route through the car park, without thinking of, well - ya know.

Often, after this inappropriate flagstone of an idea was cemented in my head, I have parked up and wandered towards one or more of the three stores (it's a small retail park - a retail patch if you will) thinking about the process of sperm donation. Do you have to fill the pot? Do you get paid by the cc? Do they provide gentlemen's magazines to help the process along? Do the cubicles get sprayed down with spermicide afterwards to appease H&S? 
"Thank you sir, your item will be with you in about 5 minutes - please go to your collection point."

I fully expect to be handed a pot and a wet wipe.

Same with song titles, they can make or break a tune. Take "Imagine" for example. Great song, shit title. It's - ironically - unimaginative. "Bat Out Of Hell" by Meatloaf? Totally different story. AMAZING song title. Works on two, unique and key levels. One, it supplants and underlines the energy of rebellion and having just plain damn enough of your situation...."Like a bat out of hell I'll be gone when the morning comes..." It's catchy, memorable and does everything a pop lyric should do. Two, it references the Greek playwright Aristophanes 414 BC work entitled "The Birds." In it is what is believed to be the first reference to a "Bat Out of Hell";

'Near by the land of the Sciapodes there is a marsh, from the borders whereof the unwashed Socrates evokes the souls of men. Pisander came one day to see his soul, which he had left there when still alive. He offered a little victim, a camel, slit his throat and, following the example of Odysseus, stepped one pace backwards. Then that bat of a Chaerephon came up from hell to drink the camel's blood.'


Two levels, the veneer - and the groundwork of creating the veneer, the bones, the inspiration. The evocation of a memory in the writer of a text, a picture, a thought, a process which stuck. Amazing and beautiful.


Although, quite what Meatloaf was thinking when he came up with "In the Land of the Pig, the Butcher is King" I haven't a fucking clue.


You know sometimes, you have to read a song before you listen to it. Max the experience. As a parent to be names their child after due care, thought and love, such is with songwriters - the good ones anyway. 
As a footnote, here are some titles I will never give to my works, and songs I will never write It would just be wrong.


"Muffin Top"
"Gone Kidding"
"Your Love is Scrunchy"
"There's Always Someone (Who Wants to Pour Sand in Your Pants)"
"In The Bushes"
"Of All The People"
"Stains"
"I Am What I Am And I Will Survive"
"Twitter Me"
"How Much Did You Pay To Get Your Face That Way"
"Don't Touch That It's Sore"
"Gone In 30 Seconds"


And finally...


"Spunk Donor."


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