My garrulous shift supervisor at the pizza place once claimed that every pop song ever written was about love. She may have been correct, but who cares. She was just attempting to undermine my six-holed Doc-boot angst, so we didn't have to listen to anymore of my nothing records bullshit in the kitchen.

Later that shift I cut my finger open on the tomato slicing thingy and then somehow managed to spill hot pepper juice in the open wound. That, somehow, was probably about love too.

That was 1998, and I don't really like pizza anymore. I also don't really pay attention to a song's lyrics until the music hooks itself into my consciousness. Yes, I realize this not only a) makes me a bad music fan, but b) is also making my soon-to-be English degree sob quietly in the closet.

So, something simple, innoffensive, that doesn't sting and stays with me for days:

Blur - Tender (Cornelius Remix)

There's a simple lyric within, but it sums up love the best: "lord i need to find / someone who can heal my mind"

It's all epileptic. It's the planetarium on mushrooms. It's pins & needles (to the heart, I guess).

The original version is all pomp, almost begging to be Brad & Jen's wedding theme (which it was). This version strips that away; injects it with cartoon physics, adds a certain chaos-in-Candyland perspective, and provides a primordial feel in spite of being mostly electronic.

In 1999 I had a journal which listed my potential wedding songs. I can actually see that journal on my bookshelf as I type. I'm afraid to look, for fear that Brad & Jen stole my idea. And because I don't need to be reminded that I was an 18 year old guy who fantasized about his wedding. May as well been marrying some guy named 'Cory'.

Buy this song on the 'No Distance Left To Run' single... Huh. That song is like Divorce Court, to Tender's Love Connection.

Huh. Chuck Woolery.

-kam