I was looking for a story from “This American Life” which understood and delineated exactly how I feel about local TV news – it’s all panicky and yell-y about every last little thing (DID YOU KNOW ONE DROP COULD KILL YOU??).
I was looking, but I didn’t bother finding it because I found a link on the TAL website to Sarah Vowell’s stint on KCRW’s program,”The Guest DJ Project.”
I love hearing Vowell talk about music; that and her talking about Gettysburg are the two geekiest things I think I’ve ever heard – and therefore why I harbor a major crush.
As part of the guest DJ project, Vowell picked five songs she loved and talked about what impact they’ve had on her. She starts with Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill” – which Kerry’s just discovered and fallen in love with, too. It’s an easy song to fall in love with; you get the feeling that it’s the needed and cathartic response to “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.”
More importantly, she picks out my favorite Randy Newman song (not appearing on his “Sail Away” record): “The World isn’t Fair,” which is all about Karl Marx and how his dream dissolved and how that’s really probably okay to most of the world because we’re all vapid skanks in love with Southern California MILFs.
Only it’s funnier than I made it sound.
I really do like Randy Newman a lot. It probably has to do with his pre-Disney past as a talented satirist. (Don’t believe me? Listen to “Political Science.”) But, that said, the satire is such that I sympathize with Vowell when she says, “It seems like whenever the country’s at a low point, I’m always in the mood for Randy Newman.”
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