show me all the rules, girl. i just want to get ‘em wrong.
Choke is a novel by Chuck Palahniuk. It has also been made into a movie (winner of the Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for work by an ensemble cast).
I haven’t read the book. Nor have I seen the movie. But I bought the soundtrack back in October and it’s excellent.
The playlist:
1. The Rules - Ben Kweller
2. Don’t You Ever - Natural History
3. Navy Nurse - The Fiery Furnaces
4. Reckoner - Radiohead
5. Sin Terror - Alap Mornin
6. Satan Said Dance - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
7. Orgasm Addict - Buzzcocks
8. No Sunlight - Death Cab for Cutie
9. Wicked - Blitzen Trapper
10. If You Feel It - Ms. Tyree “Sugar” Jones
11. Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, Pt. 1 - My Morning Jacket
12. Bicycle - Shout Out Louds
13. There’s Been an Accident - Twilight Singers
14. Crystal Ship - Nicole Atkins
Prior to getting the soundtrack, the only artist on here I was really familiar with was Radiohead. I have a few Nicole Atkins songs, but just odds and sods picked up over time from Frank. I vaguely remembered Death Cab for Cutie from an episode of the O.C. (I confess, I got addicted to the show when I had mono) and the Buzzcocks I’d heard about but never listened to.
One of these days I will learn how to write about music “properly.” But in the meantime…..
There’s a dance-punk buzz to many of these songs but also a melodic smoothness; in the case of “Navy Nurse” you get both in the one song.
What I like best about the soundtrack is that it, alone, tells a story.
“The Rules” sets it up.
“Tell me all the rules, girl. I just want to get ‘em wrong. Tell me all the rules girl. I just want to get along.”
There is a nagging feeling, our hero feels, to change his ways. But it only nags, because getting into the middle of the album the buzz saw appears and there follows an up-and-down for our man as he fights the yearning for a future with the pull of his past.
“It disappeared at the same speed/ as the idealistic things I believed./ The optimist died inside of me.”
So sings Death Cab for Cutie, followed shortly by the sultry Ms. Tyree “Sugar” Jones singing “If You Feel It.” A moment of despair followed by a seduction. The dream for a new future, dead. But that seduction, a seduction that will last a night at the most, feels so good.
With the songs “There’s Been An Accident” and “Crystal Ship” the reckoning foreshadowed by the song of the same name is realized.
Should you wish to listen for yourself you can get the album here.
(BTW: This album is now available DRM-free from iTunes. The one I bought wasn’t. For me to have that luxury I have to pay another $3.00. Thanks Apple.)