Music of my youth: Doug and the slugs' Tropical Rainstorm

I didn't have any specific taste in music and so drifted where friends and coaches led. One swim coach, who shared a last name with me but probably wasn't related, was a huge Doug and the Slugs fan and played his music while we swam.
I absorbed it while I swam and only later, when I knew the name of the group realized I'd heard their songs on the radio.
 D & S was the first concert I went to on my own, using a friend's ID to sneak in underage. Although this is not a bar or live favorite, D & S was the best bar band I can think of.



Anyway, this is not a love song but a wreckage-after-love-is-over song.

We're nothing more than friends gone their separate ways, no longer parallel lines.

The song has a bitter edge,

Hearing your master call, you finally turned to home
Back to what you see as real

but is more about the recovery

A bond broken, then repaired.

The imagery fits the song perfectly,

Oh, I heard the small-craft warning long before they came
Ah the gales oo were blowing for days
Clearing the pathway of the branches from the storm
I realized that you had made your place
Swept away by a tropical rainstorm on the lower mainland

Full lyrics here.

Music of my middle age: Cinderella (trying not to scream)

I grew up on Doug and the Slugs (Doug on Wikipedia). Along with a few other bands and songs that will be featured here, one of my swim coaches loved this band and played their cassette tapes repeatedly while we swam.  I am certain to feature more Doug and the Slugs songs here but this one is interesting because it is relatively recent (he died in 2004) and I think only exists on Youtube.

I have discussed this song before, focusing on the interesting choice of detail; the only concrete detail is green walls. A very quick Google search shows the phrase he used describing schools, maternity hospitals and spas.

We further know she lives alone and she has no place to go. The rest are merely evocative language and cliche. Let me pick out a few cliches:

• Down in flames
• Streets paved with gold
• Half-full glass

Elsewhere are everyday icons, used by everyone and nearly cliches themselves:

• Cinderella
• broken mirror
• broken heart
• heart of stone

Bennett puts them together well and makes his own kind of tragic love song from them. I don't know if Bennett made any other kind of love song. One of my favorites that made it onto an album is Tropical Rainstorm.

Some questions: "Shattered dreams like Napoleon Bonaparte". I have listened to the line a few times and wonder if he uses the ending to a joke, "Blownaparte". Bonaparte's dreams were indeed shattered but not in a love song kind of way. I hope there is more to the choice than a rhyme with 'heart'.

Cinderella Trying not to Scream.

When we first met, there was a sound of music and the streets were all paved with gold.

Then fact and fiction began to collide and the love letters all turned cold.

One of us in denial, the other down in flames.

But who got busted, who gets dusted, it's the same old game.

She sits in the window of a haunted house where the walls are all painted green.

Cinderella, trying not to scream.

When you live a love without any glory, its a love you live in vain.

With so many lies and so many stories we live in a spiral of shame.

One of us a broken mirror, the other a broken heart.

Shattered dreams like Napoleon Bonaparte.

She sits in a window of a haunted house where the walls are all painted green.

Cinderella, trying not to scream.

She lives alone with her own expectations and the spaces in between. Cinderella trying not to scream.

All those lonely days and lonely nights that she slowly walks us home.

No one knows  she has nowhere to go and no one to call. No one to call.

When we first met, there was a sound of music and the streets were all paved with gold.

 Then truth and religion began to collide and the love letters all turned cold.

Some say the glass is half empty.  And others say half-full.  But she thinks the glass is pointless. I guess she always will.

She sits in a window of a haunted house where the walls are all painted green.

Cindrella, trying not to scream.

She lives alone with a heart of stone. Its the saddest thing I've ever seen.

Cinderella trying not to scream. X4

How much detail is enough?

I thought I had recently discussed under- and over-explaining but if I did, I cannot easily find it.  A post from two years ago at helpingwritersbecomeauthors looked into the subject and someone (Added later:  That someone is Writer's Edit on Twitter) mentioned it on Twitter recently.

The author of the piece mentions two common reasons for under- or over- explaining; the author knowing too much or too little about the subject and imagining the audience is in a similar position.  I feel she didn't go into a problem I have with style or awkwardness in shoehorning the material in.  I might hold back on detail that I think should be there simply because my characters wouldn't discuss or think about such things. When the author and the character know the subject well and there is no naive individual to explain things to, what can you do?

From last year's Nanowrimo entry:

At breakfast, servings of Dahl-bat on thick ceramic, Kasher met Gore, the secretary.  "Good morning.  How's your breakfast?" he asked.
Rather more reserved out of his superior's eye, Gore was still polite.  "It'll do.  I'd prefer eggs and bacon." - Or perhaps not so polite.

How is Gore possibly being rude?  A partial explanation below.
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not yet.
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Okay.  another excerpt, one that comes before the one above:

"The men were talking about that.  The Sir asked for an appropriate meal tonight to make you comfortable.  What's it like, being Jewish?"
Taken aback, but a lifelong educator, he responded with his own question, "Well, where are you from?  You are, uh, dressed like the Mountain Gorkas" and not much cleaner, really, "but you seems a little pale."
"I grew up in India, in Lucknow but my parents, I am told, were European."
Kasher felt some warning signs and didn't press for details. "Then you have seen the castes.  In many ways, Jews are untouchables.  We might be needed but are seldom welcome.  But many of us are well educated and can be useful."

So, discussing eating bacon with a Jew.  Possibly slightly rude.  Does it matter that the two excerpts are 23 paragraphs apart?  Is Kasher's concern obvious or still obvious?

Am I overly concerned about this? Is my description of Jewish life so far off that you now think I'm anti-Semitic?

More often in my story, I show a character making a decision, then a few paragraphs later offer at least some of the explanation.

I find that Nanowrimo sometimes encourages extra detail and explanation when one is having trouble deciding where to go next.  Word count is word count and unnecessary words still qualify.

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Added later:
This evening I was listening to a few songs on Youtube and two stood out for me.  The first is one of the best known songs in the world, "You're so vain" by Carly Simon.  Wiki details here.

Apropos of this post, why Saratoga?  Why go to Nova Scotia?  These details add to the mystery and continue to this day to fuel a search for the Vain one.  We have since learned that the apricot scarf belonged to Nick Delbanco but others are also described.

Later, I listened to the far less known Cinderella (trying not to scream) by Doug and the Slugs, one of the last recordings they made.  The song starts with what I consider typical couple-broken-up lyrics:

"When we first met, there was the sound of music and the streets were all paved with gold. And fact and fiction began to collide and the love letters all turned cold."

Followed by this very specific detail.:
"She sits in the window of a haunted house where the walls are all painted green."

Why green?  She's trying not to scream which makes me think of she might be in an asylum, are such walls green?  Suddenly, I wonder if there is more import to the gold streets.
My high opinion of Doug Bennett is a minority one and perhaps all the lyrics were used only for the way they fit and not keys to a specific location....

I'm rambling.  both songs seem to have an ideal amount of detail, enough to set you wondering.