First up, it's a damn shame the Deluxe Edition of Rated R isn't as awesome as the ten year anniversary deluxe edition of The Downward Spiral which was remastered beautifully and even mixed into 5.1. This is just the album, mastered a little differently but not sounding any better for it, with a disc of bonus stuff. Nothing special. But, with that out of the way.

Truly great albums change with you over time as you listen to them. Early on when you first listen to it, you think: "Wow! These couple of songs are so rad, totally feel like me right now, but these other songs, I kind of don't get them but they're pretty good too I guess." In the iPod age this means you listen to an album a lot, rate the songs you like, and forget about the others. Luckily Rated R came around pre-iPod era for me, but that doesn't change this effect much.

Then you age and you start looking at the world differently, however differently, happier, sadder, optimistic, or jaded, and different songs come at you and hit you in the chest, and you think: "Wow! I can't believe I didn't used to like these parts of the album, but now they totally feel like me right now!" Well, "Auto Pilot" is one of those songs for me.

Nick Oliveri writing about drug use is not much of a surprise, especially considering pretty much all of Rated R is about drugs, and sex, and sex on drugs, but it's the emotion of this song that really floors me. It's like waking up in a car drunk and not knowing where you are and before you realize where you are you realize first that you miss her (or him) and your head lolls and then you're suddenly back in your life and there's wind in your hair and you briefly contemplate drinking more but there's nothing in the car and people are talking to you but you can't hear them because you just don't care to and when you get home you lie down on the floor for a bit but you think that's melodramatic so you crawl into bed with your pants half off and when you wake up in the morning it's like it never happened but you still make sad eyes at yourself in the mirror but that's just how it's been for at least a couple days now.

That's what this song is like.

This song goes out to my ex-girlfriend, who attempted to ruin my life (note the dramatic emphasis) by reading about my intention to go see The Builders and the Butchers last Friday night and decided that instead of just letting me to go the show by myself, she would show up with one of her dude friends unexpectedly and thus completely ruin my mood and make a reclusive slightly-awkward music lover like myself unable to enjoy the show in the least. So I left. Yes, my ex-girlfriend chased me out of a concert. How much of it is my fault for losing my cool and leaving? 60%, but damn if I can't blame the bitch stalking me for the other 40%.

So, if you were waiting for me to say something about how awesome it was to see The Builders and the Butchers, let me tell you: They were pretty cool when they opened for Amanda Palmer, but as to what their new material is like, I don't know, and what they're new album is like, I don't know yet either. All in all my ex-girlfriend managed to completely sour my stance on a lot of things by shoving strangers in my face in what was once a comfortable setting for me to listen to music.

If the song isn't enough: Fuck you. Stay out of my goddamn life, you crazy bitch.

Hugs and kisses!

Since I should say at least something about Queens of the Stone Age, I will say this: Josh Homme is obsessed with The Kinks. If you ever sit down and listen to a bunch of The Kinks in one go (just, like, "the greatest hits") and then sit down and listen to a bunch of Queens of the Stone Age, it will hit you like a ton of bricks. (Especially if you listen to all their Kinks covers, hah.) I stopped listening to Queens at Era Vulgaris (just couldn't get into it) and they don't factor much into my musical diet, but some of their songs are incredibly fine.