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Saturday 15 May 2010

Sometime Around Midnight



I can't resist posting this song by The Airborne Toxic Event (terrible name for a band), as some of you may not know it, and some of you may like it as much as I do.

It's incidentally a demonstration of scene setting, conveying emotion, and how to do backstory with the lightest possible touch, that all writers can learn from. You can read the lyrics here.

7 comments:

  1. I love the lyrics!! And such a simple story too - and one that we've all experienced - broken hearts and unrequited love!

    I've never heard of these band until now - thanks for this!

    I've got the song in my head now..

    Take care
    x

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  2. I've never heard of them either, but I love their sound, and the lyrics.

    BTW I think the name is great, but then I am a sucker for whacky band names. I think my all time favourite oddity is Half Man, Half Biscuit.

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  3. Glad you both like it too.

    Botanist, I like wacky band names, as long as they are memorable, which I don't think The Airborne Toxic Event is. How could anyone forget Half Man, Half Biscuit?

    The band in my novel Heart of Rock is called The Voices In My Head - Q: What's that you're listening to?
    A: The Voices In My Head...

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  4. That is a great song, but I hate the name - sounds like a 10 year old boy's joke. Hard to reconcile that with the sensitivity of the lyrics.
    K

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  5. K, to quote the fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia:

    The band takes its name from the postmodern novel White Noise, by Don DeLillo, which won the National Book Award in 1985. In the book, a chemical spill from a railcar releases a poisonous cloud, dubbed by the military as an "airborne toxic event". This serves as a metaphorical device for the novel's themes of mortality and media consumption, as the protagonist Jack Gladney is forced to confront the prospect of his own death.

    So not a juvenile joke, just a bit outré and pretentious.

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  6. I didn't know the origin of the name but guessed it was a military euphemism for poisonous cloud. I wondered if it was a self-deprecating statement about their music as some form of airborne pollution.

    Regardless, I am happy to concede the point about memorability, Lexi.

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  7. Aha, a conceded point. Haven't had many of those lately...

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