(no subject)
Feb. 1st, 2008 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
heiligekuhSo, I think about this song every single day.
It makes you blind, it does you in
It makes you think you're pretty tough
It makes you prone to crime and sin
It makes you say things off the cuff
It's very small and made of glass
and grossly over-advertised
It turns a genius into an ass
and makes a fool think he is wise
It could make you regret your birth
or turn cartwheels in your best suit
It costs a lot more than it's worth
and yet there is no substitute
They keep it on a higher shelf
the older and more pure it grows
It has no color in itself
but it can make you see rainbows
You can find it on the Bowery
or you can find it at Elaine's
It makes your words more flowery
It makes the sun shine, makes it rain
You just get out what they put in
and they never put in enough
Love is like a bottle of gin
but a bottle of gin is not like love
Out of the entire Merritt cannon, this may be my favourite set of lyrics. The one-way/two-way analogy is great on it's own, but they way Merritt's delivery works through it is sublime. The genius to an ass or Bowery/Elaine lines all come off wry and flip - I'm drunk and it's funny - but by the end, "makes the sun shine, makes it rain" you can hear his voice sputter out, the point where the bottle of gin stops being like love.
It's also another one of the growing catalog of love songs that I sing to the baby that will never be romantic love songs again. Merritt songs don't make this switch as easily as most others (U2 are trivially easy), mainly because Merritt's so specifc with his narrative details. This one makes it just through sheer repetition.
It makes you blind, it does you in
It makes you think you're pretty tough
It makes you prone to crime and sin
It makes you say things off the cuff
It's very small and made of glass
and grossly over-advertised
It turns a genius into an ass
and makes a fool think he is wise
It could make you regret your birth
or turn cartwheels in your best suit
It costs a lot more than it's worth
and yet there is no substitute
They keep it on a higher shelf
the older and more pure it grows
It has no color in itself
but it can make you see rainbows
You can find it on the Bowery
or you can find it at Elaine's
It makes your words more flowery
It makes the sun shine, makes it rain
You just get out what they put in
and they never put in enough
Love is like a bottle of gin
but a bottle of gin is not like love
Out of the entire Merritt cannon, this may be my favourite set of lyrics. The one-way/two-way analogy is great on it's own, but they way Merritt's delivery works through it is sublime. The genius to an ass or Bowery/Elaine lines all come off wry and flip - I'm drunk and it's funny - but by the end, "makes the sun shine, makes it rain" you can hear his voice sputter out, the point where the bottle of gin stops being like love.
It's also another one of the growing catalog of love songs that I sing to the baby that will never be romantic love songs again. Merritt songs don't make this switch as easily as most others (U2 are trivially easy), mainly because Merritt's so specifc with his narrative details. This one makes it just through sheer repetition.
