We tell stories. We talk about statistics.

And in 1978, we added an element of the show that gave it it’s heartbeat: the long distance dedication.

- Casey Kasem

Ground control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on.

You might remember the song Space Oddity by David Bowie, it was a sort of trippy song that told the story of Tom, a man who was sent on an ill-fated mission into outer space. Best listened to while drawing deep from a nice joint no doubt.

Well someone recently made a picture book based on Space Oddity. The illustrator of the book, Andrew Kolb, explained the project with ‘Have you ever been soo inspired that you simply want to create?’

Here’s a sample of some of the pictures from the book:

Cool huh? You can download the whole book in PDF form from this link if you want to see the rest: http://www.mediafire.com/?j0zczbm666a6lkh

The employees would often sing the Smurf song as a way to rally themselves during a busy lunch rush. The customers? They giggled nervously.

 

What is a hint memoir?

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Feel free to post your own hint memoirs in the comments too if you want I’d love to read em :).
 

 

A long time ago Jennifer and I lived in an apartment complex and had neighbors who’d blast Britney Spears at full volume every afternoon. The worst part is that they would play only one song …over and over. And over.

They had a super nice sound system and would max it out, shaking the whole apartment building until the floors rattled to every little inflection of Britney Spears’ magical voice.

When we couldn’t take any more of it and banged on their door they couldn’t even hear us, or maybe they were just too entranced by listening to that one song again for the 3,000th time to bother with answering the door. We finally had to go to the manager to get things resolved but it wasn’t pretty.

The Britney Spears blasting neighbor girls were pissed and couldn’t understand why anybody would complain about it. If we ever stepped into the hallway at the same time as them they would flip their overly bleached hair to the side and shoot daggers at us on the way down the stairs.

It wasn’t long before they moved out (suffering from Britney withdrawals?) and no doubt went on to terrorize another unsuspecting apartment complex with The One Song.

The thing is, well what the heck is wrong with some people? And who gets a super nice sound system and then only uses it to blast a single Britney Spears song for all of eternity?

This video tells the story of Paul Mawhinney, a man who loves music so intensely that he collected over two million vinyl records and singles…so many that he ended up having to buy a special warehouse just to keep them in.

Now due to health problems he needs to sell his beloved collection. He’s priced it at a very small fraction of the appraised value but no serious buyers have ever come around.

Here is somebody who poured their self and life so much into a single thing that it became indistinguishable from who he is.

He viewed himself as being on a mission and providing a service to the future by archiving this music, but now that the future has become the present no one seems interested the way he thought they would be…

The song Handlebars by the Flobots tells the story of a boy as he evolves into a super powerful world dominating megalomaniac.

I first heard this song as a soundtrack to a homemade bmx video somebody posted on YouTube. When I heard the beginning of the song I had no idea what was going to happen but there was a sense of sinister momentum to the sound and lyrics that foreshadowed what the boy would ultimately become.

The bmx stuff was okay but I loved the song right away and went to go get it as soon as the video was over. Not only did it have great energy but the storytelling was just so freaking engaging I couldn’t believe it. Have a listen, hopefully you have the same reaction I did:

The person who wrote this song (Jamie Laurie) said the lyrics came to him when his mind wandered as he practiced riding his bike with no hands:

The lyrics came to me as I was riding a bike home from work with my hands in the air – I had just learned how to do it – and I felt triumphant, but at the same time, I knew there were people at that moment who were being bombed by our own country. And I thought that was incredibly powerful. We have these little moments of creativity, these bursts of innovation, and every time that happens, that innovation is used to oppress and destroy people. So it struck me as beautiful and tragic at the same time.

I find it interesting how often wandering minds are behind good songs and books (it’s a good excuse to let your mind wander). Anyway, I totally love the strong storytelling in this song I wish there were more like it out there …if you know of any let me know.

The one detail that he didn’t tell the band before the show was that he wasn’t very good at drumming.

 

What is a hint memoir?

More hint memoirs.

Feel free to post your own hint memoirs in the comments too if you want I’d love to read em :).
 

 

We are two mariners
Our ships’ sole survivors
In this belly of a whale

Its ribs our ceiling beams
Its guts our carpeting
I guess we have some time to kill

You may not remember me
I was a child of three
And you, a lad of eighteen

But I remember you
And I will relate to you
How our histories interweave

At the time you were
A rake and a roustabout
Spending all your money
On the whores and hounds
Oh Ohhhhh

You had a charming air
All cheap and debonair
My widowed mother found so sweet

And so she took you in
Her sheets still warm with him
Now filled with filth and foul disease

As time wore on you proved
A debt-ridden drunken mess
Leaving my mother
A poor consumptive wretch
Oh Ohhhhh

And then you disappeared
Your gambling arrears
The only thing you left behind

And then the magistrate
Reclaimed our small estate
And my poor mother lost her mind

Then one day, in spring
My dear sweet mother died
But before she did
I took her hand as she, dying, cried:
Oh Ohhhhh

“Find him, bind him
Tie him to a pole and break
His fingers to splinters
Drag him to a hole until he
Wakes up naked
Clawing at the ceiling
Of his grave
*sigh*”

It took me fifteen years
To swallow all my tears
Among the urchins in the street

Until a priory
Took pity and hired me
To keep their vestry nice and neat

But never once in the employ
Of these holy men
Did I ever, once, turn my mind
From the thought of revenge
Oh Ohhhhh

One night I overheard
The prior exchanging words
With a penitent whaler from the sea

The captain of his ship
Who matched you toe to tip
Was known for a wanton cruelty

The following day
I shipped to sea
With a privateer

And in the whistle
Of the wind
I could almost hear…
Oh Ohhhhh

“Find him, bind him
Tie him to a pole and break
His fingers to splinters
Drag him to a hole until he
Wakes up naked
Clawing at the ceiling
Of his grave

“There is one thing I must say to you
As you sail across the sea
Always, your mother will watch over you
As you avenge this wicked deed”

And then that fateful night
We had you in our sight
After twenty months at sea

Your starboard flank abeam
I was getting my muskets clean
When came this rumbling from beneath

The ocean shook
The sky went black
And the captain quailed

And before us grew
The angry jaws
Of a giant whale

oh ohhhh

Don’t know how I survived
The crew all was chewed alive
I must have slipped between his teeth

But, oh! What providence!
What divine intelligence!
That you should survive
As well as me

It gives my heart
Great joy
To see your eyes fill with fear

So lean in close
And I will whisper
The last words you’ll hear
Ohh Ohhhhh

Way back when I lived in Indonesia as a kid there wasn’t access to American music beyond the few tapes my parents had brought over with them.

We would play those tapes over and over again ’till I knew many of the songs inside and out. But in an interesting insight into my little five/six year old mind there was one song which told a story that would make me bawl my eyes out and would break my heart every time I heard it.

The song is a remake of ‘Tell Laura I Love Her’ by Ritchie Valens and it tells the story of a young guy who didn’t have any money to provide for his sweetheart, above all he needs money to buy a wedding ring to propose to her with.

He sees an ad for a stock car race and decides to enter because it will give him plenty of money…

The man in the car blasted classical music like it was death metal and whipped around the parking lot, until he saw me standing there.

 

What is a hint memoir?

More hint memoirs.

Feel free to post your own hint memoirs in the comments too if you want I’d love to read em :).