My friend Alejandra O'Leary was in this great band in college, The Tourettes, and this Paste encomium to the group is pretty dead-on, plus it's got a link to a downloadable version of the band's eminently loveable album, Life is Pretty. The track "(I Just Wanna) Party (With You)," essentially defines how I feel about social gatherings, because I am secretly kind of awkward and shy. The lyrics go:
I don't want to go to your party
I don't want to drink from your bottle of wine
I don't want to go to your party
I feel fine
I don't want to play spin-the-bottle
Because I don't want to kiss your friends
They're dumb
I don't want to go to your party
You're no fun
I just want to party with you
'Cause I love you.
Alejandra went on to other bands in college, and now she's recording as a solo artist. She's a really, really astonishing lyricist; an acoustic recording of this song she wrote while we were in school, "The World At Large," may be one of my favorite tracks of all time because of how good the words are. I mean, it's hard to get more succinct and devastating than to say:
My love for you was rooted not in anything you do
But in your great potential
To be something special
To the world at large.
Anyway, The Tourettes were great, but they're gone. Alejandra is even better, and she's still around. I realize I'm not remotely objective on this subject, but you should really check her out, and consider buying her latest album, Nothing Out Loud, from CDBaby or iTunes.