Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand (by Primitive Radio Gods).
To begin with, the title. WHAT THE HELL!?!? That title is amazing. I love it.
But, in truth, the song itself is what get’s me, because I only learned the title when I went to write this post.
The song, quietly, insistently, pushes itself into your pocket, and every time you pull out your subway pass, or the crumpled cash for that pack of smokes you smoked back then, the song comes tumbling out.
In some ways this is an 80s song, though I think it came out in the 90s. It has a Pet Shop Boys feel, but I think it surpasses anything they ever did, including West End Girls. And the 80s were mostly high school years for me, so the 90s, college, fledgling adulthood, kind of went by in a blur.
And the 90s bands I was into:
Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, Sound Garden, Tori Amos, Jane’s Addiction, Pearl Jam… that was a lot of angst right there. And what about Live, and their album Throwing Copper? You remember “Pain Lies on the Riverside?” Damn 90s!
So yeah, and then this song.
I don’t think I ever knew who sang it or its title until today, but every time I accidentally heard it then, and still to this day, I’m like, Just don’t stop. Keep it going. Loop it. Throw the other records away man.
Can you dig it?
