Steal This Song?

We are torn here at the Blasphemy Blog about this excellent song by the Western Australian band End of Fashion.

On the one hand, as others have pointed out, this song has been stolen pretty much straight from the Pixies. As David Spade might have said back in the day, "'Oh Yeah' is a good song, but I liked it better the first time, when it was called 'Where is My Mind?'"

It's not just the chord progression, either. The ragged strumming, the hiccupy lyrics, the repeated riff; they're all taken directly from the Pixies.

On the other hand, though...when this song came on the radio, we loved it here at the Blasphemy Blog. We couldn't wait to hear it again. It's just a fun song, witty and bouncy. "Where is My Mind?" is witty and bouncy, too.

This got us to thinking that maybe the song, stolen though it is, is okay. Musicians always steal from each other. No less a pop luminary than George Harrison was sued because his song "My Sweet Lord" sounds an awful lot like "He's So Fine" by the Chiffons. Maybe there is room in this world for two versions of the same great song.

If Black Francis is the suing type, though, End of Fashion better get ready to go to court. Because even though we at the Blasphemy Blog like both versions of the song, the copyright laws of the United States of America do not.

A Piece of Advice

For all the aspiring muggers out there: if you want leniency from the judge, it's probably best to avoid plying your trade on a wounded soldier from Iraq. You're just making the prosecutor's job too easy there.

Oh It's On

It sounds like Texan feminist Amanda Marcotte would be open to debating Elisabeth Hasselbeck of The View over the merits of the morning after pill. Now that's a debate we at the Blasphemy Blog would like to see: two youngish women discussing this newish pill, a pill whose existence and potential use most closely affects youngish women.

One of the youngish women is a rich quarterback's wife, and the other is a, well, she's got a web site and opinions about women's biologicals and whatnot. So maybe it's not a fair match, in terms of famousness. (Also it is not a fair match in terms of blondeness.) But we'd just like to put this idea out there, to ABC, because, well, we don't watch The View, as we don't have a TV, but it seems like a place for women to discuss important issues. So put them together and let them discuss it, because man did you not get close to discussing it in enough depth on that recent episode of The View.

The Taste of Freedom

We'll all now have to go somewhere else to eat salty, delicious freedom fries.

The Demon Baby Gave Mel the Booze

We at the Blasphemy Blog did see the Mel Gibson Jesus movie in the theater when it came out two years ago. We had heard that it might be anti-Semitic but we had also heard that then again maybe it wasn't. We didn't really think we'd like it (and we were right, as it turned out), but we wanted to see it anyway because we thought it might be interesting.

It was only sort of interesting. It was certainly creative of Mel to include a surprise guest appearance by Satan, but we enjoyed the original, non-Satanic version better. And the demon baby was just weird.

Overall, though, there was nothing in it for us. We are just not the kind of Christians that believe the pain Jesus suffered on the cross is the most important part of the story of Jesus.

The movie actually ended up shaking our belief in Christ here at the Blasphemy Blog. It made us wonder if we were wrong to go around calling ourselves Christians. But we guess we were in the minority, so if the film injured our Christianity but inspired a greater commitment among a larger number others, we guess things worked out in the end as far as the zero-sum of it goes.

We can't all be winners, after all. Someone has to stick around to get eaten by the demons when the Rapture comes.

A Helpful Reminder

From Tbogg: as they say, those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.

Of course, wars are always started and cheerleaded by people who seem to know their history pretty well. So maybe we're doomed either way.