Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

11 Jul 2003, 12:07 p.m.

"says the man next to me / Out of nowhere"

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2003 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

Via Circadian Shift, an obscene and funny memo. This led me to discover that most people on the net remember the line "this ain't no disco" from some Talking Heads song I've never heard, while it reminds me of the Sheryl Crow hit "All I Wanna Do." During the period in the nineties when you could not turn on a rock/alternative radio station without hearing that song, I learned that not even NPR was safe, as I listened to some news show and heard a story about Wyn Cooper, the poet whose poem "Fun" became "All I Wanna Do." (Lesson: never use radio.) Have you ever read the full text of "Fun"? Ms. Crow omits the genetic engineering lab and the implied drunk driving, and exaggerates the prurient behavior of the barkeep.

Also, my sister's good friend Crystina derogated the song as "Hawaiian pop rap folk disco," which is possibly why I still like it.