I hate Sarah McLachadudaloo
You know, I now realise that I’m probably transmitting the wrong message to people who might have found this exchange (if so, just scroll down; I’ve written about 200 things so far, within the last few days.) But it just has to be said. (And Christmas is wonderful, in a way; in that it makes having such bilious thoughts not only acceptable but the running thing: ’tis the season was only just a mask up.) I hate Sarah McLaughlin. Maybe even moreso than ‘X-rated-guilera.’ Yeah. That much. You know, my best male friend said to me that he wanted a female backing singer, and that– an he could choose– he should choose Christina Aguilera. I said, bluntly, that if that ever should happen, I really would never be able to listen to his music, or help him with it, again. Even though I manage him. Yet, if he had said Sarah McLoughlin, I would have totally gone into a mania. Don’t get me wrong; I’m weedling and I have little agression with me. But when I hear friends talk about Sarah McLachlan, I really go off and start practicing my boxing skills on my wall.
Why do you hate someone who I relate to so much?, some of you will say, ungrammatically. It’s simple. Two reasons. Sarah McNugget, or whatever the hell she is called, is one of the Music industry’s biggest shams. Period. (That last word is particularly relevant for McLachlan.) And, if that were not on its own bad enough, she and her faux-enigmatic sham of ‘poetry’ will forever be linked to the biggest damn turncoat in my life. Hohoho, this is going to be a fun one.
One can see her gazing, from the cover of her latest shit, as though she were in the middle of lesbian sex. That is the image that she is trying to promote to the great self-sorry masses. Yet, on the other hand, she is trying to please the scummy part of the obsessive heterosexual male contingent. She obviously writes lesbian love songs; or, if not, about a very feminised man. Her adherents, not knowing much about her apart from her songs and how ‘Oh so tortured’ she must be, think what the hell they want. Take Google: it does not tell us whether she is straight, lesbian, bisexual. Not that that matters to me: I think that gender division is a century old scam. For me, we’re all the same gender, so the divide between heterosexuality and homosexuality does not for me exist. What bothers me is these people who try to please everyone, just for their own greed. And, as you can see, she loses individuality and even simple details because of her trying to be as generic as possible. She is what I call a personification of a pidgin: she dumbs her lyrics down so much, to appeal to everyone, that they have no fidelity, no meaning in true language. That is she.
What I hate, ‘though, is the fact that she tries to act like a poët to equal Plath, or Dickinson, or Larkin, but her lyrics could have been the result of getting a ‘301 Pop Ballad Clichés’ magnet set and arranging the sentences around according to the destiny of which she preaches so much, of which she says so little. One cannot alienate one’s fanbase, can one? Anyway, here is an example from one of her ‘greatest’ songs, according to the people who praise her with vile ‘cuz she’s grates’ and the like:
You woke up screaming aloud
a prayer from your secret god
you feed off our fears
and hold back your tears
Inventive: no. Meaningful: no. Angstisch cliches per hundred: 99.9. It means nothing. OK? Everything apart from ‘you woke up’ is a cliché (wanted preferably dead, $16 reward.) It’s been slapdashly put together, and has little running link to-gether.
PS. How the **** can you not scream aloud?
Or take this one:
Listen as the wind blòws
Across the great divide
Voices trapped in yearning
Memories trapped in time
The night is my companion
And solitdue my guide
Would i spend forever here and not be satisfied?And i will be the one
To hold you down,
Kiss you soft
I’ll take your breath away
And after I wipe away the tears
Just close your eyes dear
Convulted. Jesus. I feel humiliated. I love the Blockquote function, often using it for my own asides; yet, I have besmirched it with this shit. It’s all written so that idiots can hear a few lines and say ‘yeah, I really relate.’
And anyone who uses such shit, trying-to-seem-deep titles like Fumbling toward Ectasy ought to be rounded up by crazed Trotskyites and shot while everyone sings ‘matchsticks strike when I’m riding my bike to the dépot.’
Before I start, it is such a shame that you are so new that you do not even have a blog, since I would have loved to have replied to you directly, rather than through the means of a reply on my own pages.
Ok, then. I must tell you, 'stranger,' that you have made a remarkable impression on me. You made me come back to a page that I had not visited for more than a year. Perhaps it was the fact that you used an unnecessary question mark (you've concluded that I am a meschugger, then why is a your conclusion a question?) that drove my long, pedantic fingers incapable of turning my nose and not responding. Or maybe it was your alleging that I am a few maracas short of a mariachi band; that always seems to attract me.
Dear 'stranger,' who, within one day's activity, seemed to find the ancient works of a completely random individual, with ease; you would not know to what extent I agree with you when you say that I need 'HELP!' Clearly, '[I'm] not half right,' in the words of the late and beloved Elliott Smith. I should see someone to map out my head. Perhaps Jungian psychoanalysis; now that would be amusing. I'm like Woody Allen, only loyal, effeminate, and removed from the world (not out of choice.) The only problem with your kind suggestion that I be analysed is that, hell, you don't know the start of the skeletons encased in my brain. It would take years upon years. I'm too busy living as a professional eccentric to be able to afford such 'treatment.' And in a way, despite my utter self-loathing, I, I confess it, I am somewhat proud that I retain an encylopædia of disfunctions and neuroses, despite nearly everyone trying to cut me and them down.
I read your blog, and have come to the conclusion that you are insane? Why
> are you so worked up over this? In the great scheme, what does it matter?
> You should consider therapy. Sometimes folks just listen to music because
> it sounds good, and helps them relax. This is what Sarah McLachlen's work
> does for me. There are other artists I do not like, or who I feel sing
> stupid lyrics. I choose not to listen to them, not blow a gasket! Really
> - you need HELP!
To be honest, cariño/a (you're either someone I know, or some stranger from North Central California, so I will hedge my bets,) the shrewish little outburst above is relatively minor compared to other stuff. Indeed, it could be seen as the zenith of my sanity. I mean, I lost this Canadian girl who was my soulmate, I've tried to kill myself, and I mean really try, as in deliberately crashing cars without a seatbelt, or necking a whole medicine cabinet; not just 'oh hell, let's slit my foot, take the blood, and put it on a plaster and put that over my wrists!' on three seperate occasions; and I've always, always been torn apart by the birth-designated bollocks that I'm meant to fit into. The above, pff, nothing! I mean, it was tame: when people get overrated, I get acerbic. I was writing with considerable bitterness because so many real poets get nowhere, and people can write generic trash and get to the top. Does it not concern you that if Bob Dylan, or even Shakespeare, would probably be living in Crewe on the dole (or in Flint, Michigan, on social security, if you're looking for an American equivalent.)?
Also, I was suffering, as I still do, from the loss of someone who, for three years, was my closest confidante; someone about whom I cared, and still care, enormously; someone unusual, intelligent, whimsical; someone who, if it were not for them, those years would have been much bleaker. And, as the other two pages of what was originally a 10,000 words + essay, it was this music that she listened to and overrated, when she started moving away from me and towards her cabal of false, masturbatory friends who just agreed with her on every aspect. I disagreed with her sometimes, but only because I did not want to see her be hurt. And they all witch-hunted me, because, like that old Finnish proverb, 'whosoever tells the truth will not get shelter for the night.' They felt threatened, and I ended up on my own again, the usual verdict. So, I suppose that there is a negative mental connection with Sarah McLoughlan. But I'd still find her empty even if it were not for this.
So, there you have it, 'stranger.' I have put myself in the oven and cut off a little part of myself for you, for your savouring. I warmly and sincerely invite you to take more, the legs are pretty good.
- A.