Day 18: Quitter!

I was late. I'm typing this at 1 in the morning and it's bugged me all day that I posted an "R" blog yesterday when we were on "Q". Whatever. I'm just going to power through because I am really enjoying writing daily but the silly false pretense of doing the alphabet is getting old. I still plan on continuing in this fashion but when I'm done, I'll probably keep writing daily only it won't feel as forced because I'm not keeping to some kind of imaginary time table.

                         That was a disclaimer. This is actually about the song Quitter from the Toadies.

 I don't know what it is about the Toadies but their music is very visceral. With only a few words per song, the main guy that writes the songs can tell a bigger story. It's sort of like a jazz album but where in there you'd be listening to the notes that aren't being played, you're listening for the words that the lead singer isn't saying. This is not only my favorite Toadies song but one of my favorite songs ever. It's one of those songs where it's vague enough that it works for every break up you will ever have and, with the quiet breakdown in the middle, it's the perfect song for drinking and crying or drinking and then calling someone and yelling at them. I like the vagueness but it's not too vague like a Linkin Park song, which is so completely formless that any angsty teen can point the lyrics at whatever teacher, parent or ex that they want to be mad/sad about.

I bought Rubberneck, the album that Quitter was on, one day and then, about a year later, I was reading some music review blog and hearing about the Toadies and thinking "Wow, I've gotta get this album!" and not realizing that it was sitting on my shelf the whole time. The problem was, when I bought the album, I was young and not quite fully in the world. I had moved out of my dad's house and lived with some friends from work. A year later, I had my heart broken a couple times and realized that maybe life doesn't get better, sometimes it just floats along on the same level. Some knobs move up and some move down but there's always a median and it seems to stick to where I think it should be.

"Quitter" is a song about a relationship that ended. However, it's also about life in general. It's almost like that sort of introspection that happens at the end of a relationship. I could practically imagine the singer staring in the mirror and saying these things. "I thought I was getting something right." It's about failures on his part and someone else giving up on him and how angry and useless that sort of relationship can make a person feel. I think it might also be about murdering an ex's new significant other, too. I'm pretty sure most of the Rubberneck album was about murder on some level, though, so that's a given.