Music in the key of me

Have I mentioned here that I finally bought an mp3 player a few months ago? I'm having great fun loading it up, both with new stuff and with favorites so old I'd forgotten they were favorites.

Case in point: Queen's Greatest Hits (Remastered). I bought that LP back in the eighties, whenever it was that it originally came out, and I downloaded the album again last night. Damn, it was great to hear those old favorites like "Bohemian Rhapsody" again after all these years. In my decidedly non-humble opinion, they hold up just as well today as when they first came out. And imagine my surprise when I discovered that the mp3 version of the album comes with a bunch of songs that weren't on my old LP - and that almost all of those new additions have a decidedly queer bent. Check out, for instance, Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy. There's no way I would ever have been exposed to anything like that back in the seventies or eighties, much less have been able to appreciate it. But hearing it now, for the very first time, I'm in love with Freddie and the gang all over again.

But this entry isn't really about Queen's queeniest lyrics. It's about another favorite Queen song, and a much newer favorite Green Day song, both of which really speak to who I was and who I've become.

Since I'm already on the subject of Queen, let's start with their "Fat Bottomed Girls." Now, I'm not sure if my bottom is really fat enough to have satisfied Freddie Mercury or Brian May, but my rump is more than plump enough to let me appreciate their appreciation of zaftig women:

Are you gonna take me home tonight
Ah down beside that red firelight
Are you gonna let it all hang out
Fat bottomed girls
You make the rockin' world go round
Hey
I was just a skinny lad
Never knew no good from bad
But I knew love before I left my nursery, huh
Left alone with big fat fanny
She was such a naughty nanny
Heap big woman you made a bad boy out of me
Hey hey!

I've been singing with my band
Across the wire across the land
I seen every blue eyed floozy on the way, hey
But their beauty and their style
Went kind of smooth after a while
Take me to them dirty ladies every time
C'mon

Oh wont you take me home tonight?
Oh down beside that red firelight
Oh and you give it all you got
Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go round
Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go round

Hey listen here
I've got mortgages and homes
I got stiffness in my bones
Ain't no beauty queens in this locality (I tell you)
Oh but I still get my pleasure
Still got my greatest treasure
Hey big woman you gonna make a big man of me
Now get this

Oh (I know) you gonna take me home tonight (please)
Oh down beside that red firelight
Oh you gonna let it all hang out
Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go round
Yeah
Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go round
Get on your bikes and ride

Oooh yeah, alright, them fat bottomed girls
Fat bottomed girls
Yeah yeah yeah alright, hey, c'mon
Fat bottomed girls
Yes yes


And now on to Green Day. I've had "She" on CD for ages, but it wasn't until I listened to it on my crystal-clear Zune that I was able to appreciate how much the lyrics related to my life:

She...
She screams in silence
A sullen riot penetrating through her mind
Waiting for a sign
To smash the silence with the brick of self-control

Are you locked up in a world
That's been planned out for you?
Are you feeling like a social tool without a use?
Scream at me until my ears bleed
I'm taking heed just for you

She...
She's figured out
All her doubts were someone else's point of view
Waking up this time
To smash the silence with the brick of self-control