There once was a time, when you could not find most songs from the radio by typing in fragments of the lyrics that you had managed to understand into google. As a matter of fact, even nowadays this song-seeking technique may not prove successful, especially with new or unknown bands. In these cases you had to and may still have to hope that a human presenter tells you either the name of the band or the name of the song, or you can hope that the radio station offers its playlist online.
Thus, in 1998, I suffered a great deal when the Munich alternative underground station M94.5 decided to put this awesome song on heavy rotation, of which I could actually understand pretty much every line from the chorus except for a small bit that seemed to be in Spanish to me: “…Cause you and I know it”s all over the front page, you give me ?Rodriguez?, Racing through the best days…”. I searched and searched and searched, yet in vain, always thinking that that strange spanish part wouldn”t be of much importance. Also, at young age I already had decided for myself that lyrics of pop songs definitely need not make sense, so I never questioned slot machine why this all-English song would completely randomly make use of an incomprehensible Spanish word. Only much later did I find out that the words that I never had understood actually would have been the missing puzzle piece necessary to track down the song: “Road Rage” by Catatonia from Wales – one of the best pieces of all times:
But alas, at the same time M94.5 had yet another song on heavy rotation. It wasn”t as fabulous as Road Rage, yet most definitely came astonishingly close and was just as desirable. This time, I definitely understood the most frequently repeated verse in the piece: “Stop doing – what you keep doing!”. But where ever I asked or searched, nobody had heard of a piece with this title. After discovering “Road Rage” I started to explore the pieces of Catatonia, and to my great surprise, also this piece was by them, and also this time the title shows up in the lyrics, yet at a less prominent place: 1998 “Mulder and Scully”:
Thankfully, the online-radio-playlist technique can work if you look up the song quick enough after, which enables you to still discover hidden gems, where the title doesn”t appear anywhere in the lyrics, even though the lyrics seem to go on and on for ever, and where the most frequently repeated lyrics don”t give any clues about the song title. In this case I initially went for “I”ll be knocking on, I”ll be knocking on, I”ll be knocking on, I”ll be knocking on your door for-ever”, which is what you have to do, when you truly, madly, deeply want to find a piece that was played on that way-too-impersonal radio. Because in the end, it pays off. Truly magnificent pop, made in Switzerland – the band Sheila, she loves you with “Don”t give us poets, give us bread”:
Have a misunderstanding-free week,
Eric