Pretty Girls, or, It Kind Of Sounds Like This Song Is About Herpes?

I really like the song "Pretty Girls", but the references to "mistakes that cannot be undone" are remarkably vague. I used to think that this was a reference to an STD, or maybe even AIDS (in fact, the final track on the album made me think the whole album was a concept album based around a rock star dying as a metaphor for something or other....).

But then I thought that perhaps the song was talking about the life of a musician, always travelling, which I imagine makes it hard to form relationships.

Then I read that Tom Gabel had been going through a divorce (this was mentioned in Magnet, I think, I do not know if it's true or no), and I thought that perhaps it's talking about getting married. I have actually found that, since I got married, people react to you in a strange way. I cannot actually talk to any woman because they automatically presume I am trying to cheat on my wife, and men treat me like I've got some kind of horrible disease or something. Maybe this is the "mistake", referring to a failed marriage as a sort of scarlet letter that makes forming any new relationships well nigh impossible.

Discuss.

I always thought it was an STD too, haha. Tom was married ..I think when he was 19 or 20, but that didn't work out. But yea, that's interesting ..I could see it as marriage too.

i never thought about it that way just huge mistakes in a relationship

Quote :

I want to be healthy,
I don't want this problem.
You wouldn't think something like irresponsibility,
would complicate something like asking for some company

What kind of irresponsibility? Maybe Unprotected Sex with Multiple Partners. I think the song is about being ostracized because of how big his band was getting.

But the line 'I want to be healthy' kinda gives it the idea of being a disease and not about being in a successful band.

'or you wouldn't think
something like irresponsibility
would complicate something like
asking for some company'

I wouldn't consider your band getting big an irresponsibility..

lex wrote:

But the line 'I want to be healthy' kinda gives it the idea of being a disease and not about being in a successful band.

'or you wouldn't think
something like irresponsibility
would complicate something like
asking for some company'

I wouldn't consider your band getting big an irresponsibility..

Nor would I. But the STD theme and the title of "Unprotected Sex with Multiple Partners" are hard to ignore. I'm reading the lyrics to it and I'm starting to think the irresponsiblity refers to getting too involved in the business aspect of making music, or associating with the wrong people.

Yea, that's kind of the meaning that I applied to the song 'Unprotected Sex With Multiple Partners.'

"I want to be healthy" can mean anything. "Health" has many connotative meanings beyond the literal, all of them basically meaning a base state, or an ideal state.

i thought the whole cd was kinda based around the same concept...Miami sets the tone of the culture, with the whole voting scandel in flordia in 2000, then from her lips sets the tone of 05...how low, unprotected sex, pretty girls all kinda the events to lead up to the last song searching for a former clarity, with aids and stuff..also sutff like don't lose touch right before the last song is like if someone has aids there losing touch and know it but can't stop it it's obvious. then joy, everything seems right but unfolds...

idk the exact order or w/e..but it defintly is a compelling story ending with death, via aids.. great album to bad the concept never got mainstream :\

also the album realy has so many interpitations..if you listen to the songs seperatly like Unprotected sex..then you get toms feelings towards the record company same with the roller...but even the titles of the songs tell the story, so it makes scences if you think about it all

It's just too bad the band didn't seem to be into it, I think Tom referred to it as "a bummer" when talking about "New Wave" going in a more up-beat, two and a half minute rock song direction.

Although I loved "The Ocean". I hope Tom does more of whatever drug he was on when he wrote that one.

I hope not Drugs are bad. Sure, they may influence good song writing but the long term effects aren't worth it.

And how come people always refer to is as 'The Ocean', I always thought it was just Ocean.

i dont think it's about drugs at all.
its definatly just Ocean kids.

Alright, cool. I thought I was going crazy and it had been declared THE Ocean somewhere.

Yeah, I think that song is so beautiful and the thought of Tom on some acid trip totally ruins it for me, haha.

yea its The Ocean but on the New Wave cd it just says ocean...just how it says Borne On The FM Waves, but its Borne On the FM Waves of the Heart.

but i prefer new wave and its bsides much more then searching for..

On the back of my copy of New Wave (the CD/DVD edition in the cardboard case) it says "THE OCEAN". Odd.

The song itself isn't about drugs, obviously, but may or may not have been written under the influence of some whacky thing (wasn't he high in Paris and the song just came to him? That's how I heard the story of how he wrote the song, anyways). I don't particularly care either way. Though I can prove that sobriety does make music lame. Please refer to the Bill Hicks routine about drugs and music. He basically says it better than I, and funnier.

But I'm sure it makes your life even lamer.

i have a lot less respect for artists who have no natural talent and only write under the influence and people only listen to it under the influence.

lame ass lame.

i think tom has a whole lot of natural talent...so i'm hoping for the best.

how is it that "you heard it that way." ??

BettyOakes wrote:

i have a lot less respect for artists who have no natural talent and only write under the influence and people only listen to it under the influence.

lame ass lame.

i think tom has a whole lot of natural talent...so i'm hoping for the best.

how is it that "you heard it that way." ??

Natural talent is not created by drugs, merely.....I don't know. Your brain just does B instead of A, but both A and B have to have existed in the first place for you to even get there. If that makes any sense.

Now LISTENING to music under the influence.....well, that's how the Greatful Dead got so popular. And...well....they suck. So yeah.

By "heard it that way" I mean to say that someone, somewhere said that there was an interview in which Gabel says he was high in Paris when he wrote the song. My lack of first hand sources leads me to neither insist that it is either true or untrue, but it's an interesting story. "The Ocean" is kind of a homesick song. Of course, maybe I just think of it as a homesick song.

lex wrote:

But I'm sure it makes your life even lamer.

Well, it depends upon your definition of "lame". I know a lot of straight edge kids who are exceedingly lame. I know a couple of people who do coke in the privacy of their own homes and are perfectly functional, normal members of society.

The general rule is that If you're an asshole sober, you'll be an asshole whilst under the influence of anything. Alchohol, drugs, whatever.

I try to be a Buddhist about such things. Middle path. And so on.

i was saying i respect people with natural talent who dont use drugs to sort of propel them forward.

1. pot is not a drug
2. searching is definitely not about AIDS or Freddie Mercury like everyone thinks it is....its about Tom not wanting to be in the band anymore, how all the relationships in his life now (besides a few) are all "based on a false presumption." In other words, the AandR people. He uses a metaphor of being sick for how he feels about being in the music industry. Furthermore, in the DVD he state that "someone wants to pay me 1 million dollars to make a record...which is just sick" which parallels the "bear witness to mortality in exchange for the ticket price." Basically hes singing about selling out, for lack of a better word, just like the rest of this album is about.

searching for has no right or wrong reason, if you think it, and it fits then it can work for you.. defintly would of been a hit if it was the major label debut instead of new wave..but hey everything happens for a reason

Yeah, according to Tom, he was sitting on a beach in France smoking a joint and playing guitar, and the song just sort of came to him naturally.

As for Pretty Girls, all I know is that even though he sings "You wouldn't think something like irresponsibilty...", the lyric booklet reads "You wouldn't think something like (sexual) irresponsibilty...", so I definitely think it could be about an STD.

To be honest. to all you people who say that drugs make your life lame, I would like to ask have you ever done a drug? and pot isnt a real drug. If you havent you have no experience to make an educated decision about drug use. Thank you.