I Know What I Know, if You Know What I Mean

Album: Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars, 1988

Best Track: "Little Miss S Beat the Time [behind] The Wheel [so] She [could] Keep Coming Back [to] Nothing [in the] Air of December [but not] Love Like We Do [or know] What I Am"

Lasting Memory: From a whsiper so faint that it's not even really there to a roar so loud that the person in the car beside me at the red light would swear I spent all my money on auto audio, I have had the lyrics "I'm not aware of too many things/ I know what I know, if you know what I mean" running through my head continuously since some time in the fall of 1988. And the worst part of that has been that after 20 years, I still have no fucking idea what Edie Brickell meant. ARRRRRRGH!

That is a slight exaggeration, in the same way as saying that Bill Clinton regularly took counsel from space aliens is stretching the truth a bit. But damn if the pop folk triffles that make up Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars don't stick in one's head. I suspect that it was partly a self-preservation instinct that blocked me from listening to this tape for more than a week.

Now that I've overcome that aversion, I'm neither traumatized nor healed. The songs are stuck in my craw, but the loop playing in my head is pleasant enough for now. I just need that loop to stop this weekend.

All the songs pretty much sound the same. Refresh your own memory of this at your own risk by checking out "Circle" or "Love Like We Do". The similarity of the album tracks has two benefits. First, it makes Shooting Rubberbands a suite in all but name, which is sweet. Second, the phenomenon gave me an excuse to write another of my many stunt sentences instead of ruling on the relative merits of each song.

On the negative side, hearing pretty much the same song 11 times in a row is both kind of boring and totally brainwashing. Shooting Rubberbands went double platinum. We should probably be thankful that "Beat the Time" wasn't some kind of subliminal message for the college students in the noon of America to take up arms against the Bush I regime. Though there is still time on the clock for Bush II. If The Manchurian Candidate taught us nothing, it showed that all it takes is a queen of hearts to trigger our programming. So no solitaire until after January 20, 2009.

Up Next: Melissa Etheridge, Melissa Etheridge, 1988 (feat. Melissa Etheridge and with an Introduction by Melissa Etheridge)

Old Bohemians