Ben Folds Five – Battle of Who Could Care Less | on staires! an adventure in listening

Day 186

Ben Folds Five – Battle of Who Could Care Less

There’s a Harvey Danger song (“Moral Centralia”) that contains a lyric that reminds me of this song, though the situation is reversed: “I’d like to go back ten years / and show you a picture of yourself now / but I’m afraid that it might kill you then”

It wasn’t “Brick” that made me take notice of Ben Folds Five, (thank god), and it wasn’t “Song for the Dumped”, and, well, shit, it wasn’t this one either. It was actually “One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces”, which I could relate to (being a skinny geeky white boy in a school system full of white skaters [with the very tops of their hair bleached, remember that trend? jesus] and mexican wannabe-vatos, I tended to get picked on a lot) strongly and caused me to buy the album and discover this song, which over the years has stuck with me and caused me not to turn into the person described therein.

If anything this song merely perfectly describes the kind of person who never grows up past high school, that person who thinks they’re cool as shit because they haven’t done anything since and spend all their time sleeping all day and listening to music. These people want you to believe that their life makes them happy, that they’re so cool for not caring about anything and that things like jobs and reality are for other people. Unfortunately for them they are actually the antithesis of happy, of cool, and while the lives they lead may be attractive to those who are feeling the weight of the world on their shoulders, most people know that they’re just losers, and that more than likely they were just unpopular losers in high school as well.

Local H’s “Cool Magnet” also reminds me of this song.

Whatever and ever amen.

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Other Things Which May Or May Not Be Related To This One Thing:

http://dr1665.com DR1665

“Sucks bein when you're aloof. … I guess it's cool to be alone.”

This was the first Ben Folds track to which I was exposed. Since this album came out when I lived in Kansas (of all places, see previous comment), the ultra-conservative squares might have played a role in any song which might even loosely be tied to abortion never getting much play. Just as well, neither this track, nor Brick, nor even Song for the Dumped, really do justice for the smart-assed brilliance that is much of Folds' catalogue.

The point of this song comes through clear enough though. Yeah, you're so cool. You don't do shit, don't contribute shit, and you probably still have that ridiculous skater hairstyle from 1991, but you've got ideas and you're gonna tell us all about how great they are. “Whatever and ever amen.”

An aside, Ben Folds makes for incredible road trip music. Between “Rockin the Suburbs” and “The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner,” you've got a great diversion from the seemingly endless expanses of raw, untamed desert on I-10 between Phoenix and Palm Springs.
http://dr1665.com DR1665

“Sucks bein when you're aloof. … I guess it's cool to be alone.”

This was the first Ben Folds track to which I was exposed. Since this album came out when I lived in Kansas (of all places, see previous comment), the ultra-conservative squares might have played a role in any song which might even loosely be tied to abortion never getting much play. Just as well, neither this track, nor Brick, nor even Song for the Dumped, really do the smart-assed brilliance that is much of Folds' catalogue justice.

The point of this song comes through clear enough though. Yeah, you're so cool. You don't do shit, don't contribute shit, and you probably still have that ridiculous skater hairstyle from 1991, but you've got ideas and you're gonna tell us all about how great they are. “Whatever and ever amen.”

An aside, Ben Folds makes for incredible road trip music. Between “Rockin the Suburbs” and “The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner,” you've got a great diversion from the seemingly endless expanses of raw, untamed desert on I-10 between Phoenix and Palm Springs.