Currently listening to...

...a flashback to 1980: "Subway" by Urban Verbs.

In many ways, this song from a Washington D.C.-area group really exemplifies the zeitgeist of underground music at that time. It features a vocalist who sing-speaks in a tone that suggests he might lose it at any moment, the drums and bass are a kind of kick-ass/ garage-band/ Manhattan New Wave rhythm section, and the lyrics express a sense of isolation from society, and an embracing of an urban landscape and faceless technology as a replacement for human interaction. It's all so very 1980.

I had their album on cassette.

Every morning I go under the city
Handful of change takes me away from it all
I leave my problems up on the street
And ride the subway where it’s always warm

Subways
We’re all going the same direction
Subways
We’re all going the same speed
Subways
It all gets obscured
Then it begins to make sense

See that man read his morning paper
See that woman fiddle in her purse
Even though I never ever met them
I can assure you, they’re my best friends

On this subway
‘Cause we share an emotion
Subway
You know it’s vaguely enticing
Subway
I’m under confusion
Now I…I can’t relax

Down here I don’t have to say anything
I just sit and look out my window
Miles flashing gray and white past my face
It’s good to get way from these pressures
Down here I have never felt guilty
There’s no sun streaming at my eyes
On this train I’m never ever lonely
People smile from pictures on the wall

Subways
We’re all going the same direction
Subways
We’re all going the same speed
Subways
It all gets obscured
Then it begins to make sense

Subways
The driver's voice is on
Subways
Now I’m back at my stop
Subways
I can’t face what out there
So I’m…I’m not getting off

Currently listening to...

...a little known track entitled "I Live" by Hilary.

Hilary Blake, known professionally only by her first name, was an English singer/songwriter in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. She released a four song EP in 1982 which received airplay on Los Angeles' famous KROQ radio station. "I Live" was one of those four songs.

The instrumentation is pure "1980s synthesizer" but used in a way that, at that point, few had yet tried. The racing, jangly percussion line and anxious buzzing create a tight, manic texture that was ahead of its time. The lyrics seem simple but are actually quite profound: Hilary sings of living in a house of her own making. In Jungian dream analysis, a house is a symbol for ourselves. Hilary is not trapped inside a house but is living her life as it happens. She is controlling her life, her "house." It is a wonderful, deep metaphor with universal implications since we are all living in a house of our own making, sometimes for the better and sometimes not. It is inescapable.

I live in a house with no doors and no windows
I live up in a room with no chairs and no floor
In this box, with cracks in the ceiling
I sleep on these walls
That just means I live

I live in a house
Of my own making

This light filters in through the rips in the rooftop
I feel so confused which is rain and which is teardrop
I scratch at the plaster I fall down exhausted
That just means I live

I live in a house
Of my own making
You say what you want to say
I live
I live in a house
Of my own making

I sleep here in this box with no shades on my windows
I wake up every night thinking past every heartbeat
I live

I live in a house
Of my own making
You say what you want to say
I live
I live in a house
Of my own making
You be what what you want to be
I live
I live in a house
Of my own making

She never released any more material. In 2007, she passed away from unknown causes.