shyness is nice

sometimes you realize you just have a different world view.  growing up half a world away, being older and more weary than most of the people around you, and having completely different music in your head can show you how true this is.  have you ever found yourself singing a song in front of someone and realizing they have never heard it? the person listening in may never have heard the band or song, they have no idea the singer was influential in your life, or the generation you came to age within.

this just happened to me, i am sitting at a table in a crowded cafe.  there are people all around me, there is music playing over the noise of conversations, kitchen sounds and staff saying "hi, good afternoon" as people walk past the front.  i heard a song this morning, and went to wikipedia to look up the band, that led to youtube and the song again.  the smiths are one of those seminally important bands for a kid that grew up in a preppy town, attended a preppy college and found alternative music during the anti-alternative years of the reagan administration.

the sounds of morrissey's lyrics and johnny marr's guitar are both haunting and comforting when they are viewed from the time and distance of maturity.  the intelligence of the prose were mulled over so many nights ago; they came at a time when life had a narrowness that was just beginning to be opened by books.  they are now viewed by experience.  a song like cemetery gates with lyrics that invite you to come together with

A dreaded sunny day, So I meet you at the cemetery gates

Keats and Yeats are on your side, While Wilde is on mine

is perfect for the liberal arts major who is being shown the classics for the first time.  gone are the pop artists of youth, the world of substance is opening.  with it you find a band that makes you feel that intelligence and passion are both allowed and normal.

now add to that songs like girlfriend in a coma, that taps onto an emotion that anyone going through early adulthood will have felt, 

Girlfriend in a coma, I know, I know - it's really serious

There were times when I could have "murdered" her

(But you know, I would hate, Anything to happen to her)

i can remember singing this as loud as possible in my dorm room, feeling the depth of the emotion, enjoying the fact that someone else could feel it just as clearly as i did.  that someone in the world had put a voice to the emotion.  i have sang this same song again over the years, but maybe never as loud.

other songs just make me smile, no matter how many times i have head the words i break into a grin and love the fact that morrissey could be comfortable enough to record some girls are bigger than others.  the oblivious to shame song that starts:

From the ice-age to the dole-age

There is but one concern I have just discovered :

Some girls are bigger than others

Some girls are bigger than others

Some girl's mothers are bigger than other girl's mothers

and then ends with the offer of a lifetime:

Send me the pillow ..., The one that you dream on ...

Send me the pillow ..., The one that you dream on ...

And I'll send you mine

songs like this can make you feel good even at times when you might need to be more guarded and aware of your surroundings.  like driving back from a late afternoon family gathering when you reach for the volume button to turn up the beat to sing along with the band.  it is common for the kids to hear morrissey's lyrics; they have grown up with them.  most of the car sings along as a happy reflex, done without a second thought; until you realize the kids have been joined by your mother in-law.  she is sitting behind you and is clearly wondering why you and your nine year-old daughter are so happily crooning these lyrics of comparison.

but the song that made me smile today was ask.  i am close to sure it is one that the pretty chinese girl sitting next to me had never heard before.  the half turned head with the hidden smile, one meant to not be shared with her lunch mate, was just for us.  the words that had come from my laptop where:

Shyness is nice and shyness can stop you

From doing all the things in life you'd like to

i did not understand this song when i first heard it so long ago.  i needed to see more of the world, to meet more people with different world views.  doc savage was trying to teach us about the world he had seen, but we were unable to grasp what he was saying.  even with the smiths to back up his stories, we didn't have the experience or openness to accept the message.  as i look over and see a smile, so many years later, the next verse comes across so clearly:

Coyness is nice and coyness can stop you

From saying all the things in life you'd like to