Enigma: Sadness

Sometimes at the SGWB it's time to bring out the big guns. Like this abstruse piece of backbeat ambient perv.

And the song of choice for Stephanie, using it as a complex water torture, bringing to mind as it does her recent breakup with hedge fund broker and abseiling aficionado Adrian. Indeed, she had spent many a weekend having him dangle her down a perilous cliff face while he yelled instructions from above.

But it was in the boudoir where Adrian really went to town: no rough and tumble quickie for him, but elaborately orchestrated marathons of Dionysian dysfunction, which more often than not were soundtracked by this song.

And involved enough props to embark on an amateur production of Phantom Of The Opera...beginning when he appeared naked except for the sort of cape favored by 18th Century Highwaymen, wearing a bird mask, and she was bound and costumed like a kidnapped schoolgirl.

Before getting down to business, he would perform an interpretative dance at the foot of the bed, his signature move was to mime scurrying up a rock, using the imaginary suckers on his fingertips like some kind of sex gecko, before wavering in an imaginary wind like a soft length of licorice.

Next he would gravely intone his own made up Latin commandments in a stentorian voice:

Ipso facto desirato! Embarkadum sensalos headjobudum!

Before inserting a lit candle in her anus, and burning pages torn from a copy of The Da Vinci Code, and using the ashes to finger paint what he thought was 'behold the sun dragon as she writhes in ecstasy' on her back in Japanese calligraphy, but which actually translated as 'orange car very nice diarrhea worm'.

      

Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive

Oddly enough this quintessential encapsulation of female post breakup emancipation is listened to exclusively by male homosexuals.

So a good thing then that when off duty drag queen Daniel (Diamond) wandered into the SGWB he found this on the duke box, and then headed to the bar where he proceeded to get absolutely hammered on vodka tonics.

The cause of his distress? Steve, a married parking inspector he had been hooking up with. He gave Daniel a ticket, and Daniel gave him his heart...plus lashings of clandestine rumpy-pumpy behind various public monuments throughout the city.

And thought things were getting serious when Steve was eventually coerced into having dinner at his  apartment, an event Daniel prepared for lavishly with Duck a l' orange, expensive French wine, and enough candles to illuminate a cathedral. But got so drunk waiting for him to arrive that when he eventually did he threw the duck at him and tried to stab him with the broken neck of a bottle.

But the straw that broke the camel's back was when Steve, faced with the choice of going on holiday with his family to Florida, or flying with Daniel to Sydney to see Danni Minogue, chose the former. Thus ending the greatest love story never told.    

Kim Wilde: You Just Keep Me Hangin' On

Originally a hit for The Supremes in 1966, this cat and mouse tale of tangled yo-yo heartstrings got a big shoulder padded face lift courtesy of Kim Wilde's 80s version.

And so is the go to tune for Elizabeth, every time she breaks up with Brad. This on again off again affair has been going on for the best part of a decade, starting when she was 31, working in the typing pool at Laubermann & Young Real Estate. Brad was, and still is, the branch manager.

She was immediately impressed by his fancy hi-fi system, on which he used to blast So by Peter Gabriel, and less so by his racing car bed linen, but pressed on regardless, and now has many bittersweet memories of their weekends spent at car shows, and home improvement expos, and various introductory sessions pertaining to dubious financial pyramid schemes.

But the fickle nature of his affections has driven her to distraction, with the latest breakup caused by her less than encouraging attitude towards his desire to purchase a canoe.
 
Now a fuller figured woman, she rocks an ill-fitting two piece polyester like nobody's business, and blasts this tune while doing her nodding pigeon dance, all the while quaffing industrial quantities of sparkling burgundy and puffing on menthol cigarettes.
 

Stevie Nicks: I Can't Wait

Let us not forget that it's not all tears and wine coolers at the Sad Girl Wine Bar...but also restitution, and defiant new beginnings. The Valkyries who lead these tequila soaked battle cries of new found freedom include Pat Benatar, Heart, and the sorceress of crystal visions herself: Stevie Nicks.

Scientists have recently discovered a small nodule in the female brain called the leather fringed handbag praxis that is activated solely upon exposure to this song in public places. The first symptom is that, regardless of hairstyle, the sufferer will attempt to turn it into that of a stripper, mainly by raking at it wildly with their hands, whilst also shaking it vigorously.

And it is this state that we find Tarquin, freshly liberated from her entanglement with long haul trucker and anal sex enthusiast Todd 'the moose' McKinnon, and so dressed to spill in knee high boots with her boobs rustled up to rest like two brooding hens above a leopard print bra that is easily spotted through the unbuttoned neck of her red satin blouse with the whole lot doused in enough Shalimar perfume to render an actual moose unconscious at 100 meters.  

Dido: White Flag

Just as Phil Collins' solo albums are like heroin for recently divorced men of a certain age, so too is Dido for their female counterparts. Part of Dido's appeal of course is that she looks like she works behind the counter at Officeworks, making her an easy-to-relate-to every woman figure...a sort of archetype denuded of the mythic, until all that remains is that friend of your sister who you once sort of half fancied when you were a bit pissed.

But to her target market a veritable goddess of verite, finding Sandra among her recently converted acolytes, courtesy of her marriage to Geoffrey going south for a perpetual winter. That no woman ever has listened to Dido while still in a relationship is borne out by the fact that she had the CD for a full 13 months before even unwrapping it, and then only doing so when Geoffrey bundled up his last socks and threw them into his gym bag, telling her to 'take it sleasy' as his parting remark, thus also taking his famous quickfire wit with him.

This song is what is known in SGWB terms as the 'tour of duty syndrome', a sort of musical post traumatic stress disorder, wherein the narrator recounts a past event as though it is still in the present...all that's missing are the sound of helicopter blades and a fat Marlon Brando face.        

Sinead O'Connor: Nothing Compares 2 U

When bonkers baldilocks sang this Prince-penned hit, it was heartbreak writ large in a chart-topping form that found individuals blubbing in their cars on the way to work. And epitomizes the SGWB trope known as 'The Tantalus' i.e, to prepare a sumptuous meal of memories which you then push just out of your reach, feeding instead on the stomach-churning waves of resultant regret.

And so the perfect choice for Sophie, who fed gold coins into the jukebox as though she were feeding a hungry goose, all the while sipping on a campari and soda, preparing herself for a self-inflicted deluge. 

The line that kills her is the one about all the trees he planted for her in the backyard...despite the fact that she and Dale lived in a one room apartment in a concrete bunker next to the airport. Other facts also get lost in the forest of her fond...and fictional...recollections, like that he liked to smoke bongs in bed, chewed his toenails, and often announced the start of his day by playing Sepultura's Roots Bloody Roots at full volume.  

   

Lamb: Gorecki

Named after the Polish contemporary classical composer who wrote, among other pieces, the catchy Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs, this is the SGWB equivalent of T.S Eliot's The Wasteland.

Clocking in at over 6 self-torturing minutes, this song incrementally ups the pain ante, and is a good example of the 'alternate universe' school of SGWB music: a Lord Of The Rings style saga heaps with generous spoonfuls of bittersweet lament as it paints a picture of sexual union as the dynamo around which all of the spheres of the cosmos orbit. It is generally only selected by true breakup experts, who have the requisite accumulation of heartbreak required to enter this maudlin marathon and come out the other side unscathed. Too little and it's like being drown in treacle, too much...and she's probably already been found with an empty bottle of pills and a note scrawled on the mirror in lipstick.

So the ideal candidate would be Helen, 36 year old regional manager of a savings and loans society, who's clocked up 5 aborted lovey dovey scenarios in the last 7 years. And forms a sort of pick'n'mix montage in her mind's eye starring the emotionally abusive Kenneth, the chemically dependent Aaron, Steve the workaholic, Thomas the Scientologist, and most recently Benjamin, who ran off a girl he met at the gym. She bears all of these memories with a stoic countenance, appearing sadly handsome like some French actress in an SBS movie, her face like decorative figure on the bow of a ship as it plunges again into dark and stormy waters.      

Tasmin Archer: Sleeping Satellites

Occasionally a balls-to-the-wall chorale of tears is not required, but something a little more poetically abstract. A sort of cosmic meditation on life and loss that touches upon all of the energies of the universe. So that's why Charlotte put down her glass of red and, and after much consideration, selected this number. It relates to the complexities of her relationship with Gerard, whose father she used to go out with. Things have been difficult between her work at the gallery and his archaeological expeditions to Tunisia. She hopes that things work themselves out. If not there's always her yoga teacher.      

Everything But The Girl: Missing

Sometimes the thing to do with a paper cut is pour on a mix of acid and bleach and then cauterize it with a flamethrower. This was Miriam's thinking as she knowingly programmed this into the play list. Safe in the knowledge that when it came on later that she would be catapulted back into agony regarding the whole Douglas wanting to 'take a break' situation. The song was originally written by Tracy Thorn about her absent overbite.    

Olive: You're Not Alone

This song represents a phenomena peculiar to SGWB music: 'the gatekeeper'...meaning that the heroine watches over proceedings with a supernatural omnipotence, like a kind of sighing Goddess, arranging matter around the mouse who has left her. In this case Gwendolynne imagines it's about her and Kinglsley, that unemployed pottery enthusiast with a toenail infection who got back together with his ex. Note that in 'the gatekeeper' songs that the Goddess is never vengeful...more just sad, content to make milk bottles rattle slightly as he passes.

N'Trance: Set Me Free

This emotional stomper is known in SGWB terms as a 'velvet scorpion'...that is to say that while the music is uplifting, the lyric has the potential to backfire, and envelope the jukebox selector in a cardigan of failure. For the freedom spoken of can only be found in the arms of a bloke...so it's sort of like selling empty drink containers in a desert. A point experienced all too pointedly by Briony, 15 bucks fizzes into her celebration of recent singledom. What did Peter mean when he said that her feet reminded him of a dropped plate of spaghetti bolognese?      

Opus iii: It's A Fine Day

More a precursor to the horror later to unfold. Valerie arrives at the wine bar straight from work. It was a late meeting, and she hasn't eaten anything other than a carrot stick and some cottage cheese at 10.30 that morning. It is now 7.45 pm. Also Roger dumped her 2 weeks ago, citing his new found enthusiasm for homosexuality. She is greeted by her friends waving glasses of champagne, and feels a new found freedom wash over her. The night is young and so is she. Also that guy from accounting who smiles at her is there too. Who knows how this night might end? In new love and laughter? Or in projectile vomiting and tears?