Me quitte. Baby please gon' go. Don't believe the hype. Think twice, it's alright. 'If you love them, warn them that you are awful and make everyone around you unhappy.' While there are plenty of egoist songs about how love sucks, or about banishing a wrong'un, songs which rebuff someone out of altruism take a leap of insight beyond most songwriters. (For reality is beyond them.)
1. Autoclave - MoGos
"Maybe it's the heat in here, maybe it's the pressure:
You ought to head for the exits, the sooner the better.
I am this great, unstable mass of blood and foam
And no one in her right mind would make her home my home."
2. Absolutely Cuckoo - Magnetic Fields
"Don't fall in love with me yet / we've only recently met...
I only tell you this because / I'm easy to get rid of
But not if you fall in love...
Know now that I'm on the make / And if you make a mistake
My heart will certainly break / I'll have to jump in a lake
And all my friends will blame you / There's no telling what they'll do
It's only fair to tell you / I'm absolutely cuckoo."
3. Them's the Vagaries - Half Man Half Biscuit
"Now we've kissed I've writ this list, / I think you ought to know:
Well I’ll not sit backwards on the train / I can’t say I’ll always flush the chain
And what I call pleasure you may call pain / I’m talking five-day Tests
Prepare to lose your dignity as I ride to victory
Down the aisle at Tesco wearing nothing much at all..."
4. Humpty Dumpty - Aimee Mann
"So get out while you can / Baby I'm pouring quick sand
And sinking is all I have planned / So better just go.
All the perfect drugs and superheros / Wouldn't be enough to bring me up to zero..."
5. Run (I'm a Natural Disaster) - Gnarls Barkley
when listened to after his Necromancer(!)(!)
"RUN! RUN AWAY! I have got a beast at bay...")
6. Good Girl - Roll Deep*
"Go ahead girl just be with him / I know I broke your heart so many times
But it's never tit-for tat, I could't allow that,
It can't be that / We both stay sacred and creative from the start
But now I've gone and lost my spark, I'm lost..."
7. Lachrymosity - Ed Harcourt
"You're much too good to me,
I'm wrapt in lachrymosity,
I'm a has-been no-good bastard
You're much too good for me...
Shared in the middle class is a penchant for misery,
They've seen that sorrow is not only bigotry..."
8. Old Pervert - Robyn Hitchcock
"They say that I'm weird and disinfectant's the only thing I drink
Ah, but cleanliness of the soul is more important, don't you think?
And I could show you one or two things right there in my sink
I'm an old pervert and I just don't get around much anymore."
**************************************
Two that don't fit, but are good and in the region:
9. Baby it's Cold in Here - Venture Bros
(Marriage as rage in amber - though they make up at the end. I just really like it.)
10. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden - Suicide Machines
"You better look before you leap / still water runs deep
and there won't always be someone there to pull you out / - you know what I'm talkin' about."
"Yeah, I'm crap, but come on a while."
There'll be fitting White Stripes, Arab Strap, Xiu Xiu, Tom Waits entries (not to mention grunge), but I haven't found them yet. (And I suppose 'Creep' also fits but, y'know.) See also please move on when I'm dead songs.
* Yeah so he's hardly sacrificing himself - he's not admitting much. But grime really did stretch hip-hop's emotional palette (where before, with few exceptions, there was only exploitative one-night stands or syrupy possessive monogamy.)
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