Why are pink fluffy hearts romantic, anyway? Surely that would be a sign of some really horrible heart condition?

So once again it's February 14th, the day originally named forone or more early Christians whose only known action was to die horribly at the hands of the Romans. It's not clear exactly why this has anything to do with sending someone a card with a huge pink fluffy heart and/or teddy bear on it, although Wikipedia (that fount of all knowledge) suggests that the celebration of love was one of the festivals of the early Britons, built on by the Church. If that's the case, then the Church has done a singularly bad job at putting any kind of Christian message into the occasion. When Clinton's Cards are more enthusiastic about a Saint's Day than the Church is, you know something's gone wrong.

In so far as it's possible to call something a tradition when you've only done it twice, it's traditional on this day for me to post a song that is thought to be about love, but which may well have some rather hidden depths. Although I may be mellowing a little in terms of the depth of cynicism I have for Valentine's Day, let's go right ahead with it anyway. This is the very popular "Bohemian Like You" by the Dandy Warhols.



"Nothing wrong with that," you might say. "After all, doesn't he say that he likes this girl? Repeatedly? Throughout the entire chorus?" And yes, he does.

But now have a look at the end of the bridge.

...oh, you broke up? That's too bad,
I guess it's fair, if he always pays the rent,
And he doesn't get bent about sleeping on the couch when I'm there...

Hold up a second. So this other guy has now broken up with his girlfriend, but they were living together at the time and he hasn't moved out yet? Fair enough, I suppose — it's a believable scenario — but he only has to sleep on the couch when the singing guy with the questionable haircut is staying over? So he's still sleeping in the same bed as his ex at all other times? What kind of relationship is this?

It gets worse when we hit the second bridge, just before the last chorus.

It's you that I want, so please,
Just a casual, casual, easy thing,
It isn't? It is for me!

Good grief, dude. You've told this girl over and over that you like her (eight times by this point), and now you're surprised when she thinks you're in it for the long haul? If you were actually just coming on to her because you thought she was cute and you wanted a one-night stand (and if you did, this song is already way outside the boundaries of any kind of relationship that anyone should be involved with), then why on earth didn't you tell her that?

OK, enough of the extremely skeezy Rolling Stones rip-offs. If we're going to have Valentine's Day at all, we may as well go for the good parts. So here's the reverse, a song that seems to be about heartbreak and pain, but which reveals a love beneath the surface that meant a whole lot more. This is "Dirty Girl" by Eels.



Happy Valentine's Day.
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