"If love is a room,
my life is a series of hallways"
Love is a Room

I used to love California.  Especially L.A.  When I lived in Silverlake, my idea of recreation would be to get really stoned, pop a CD into my portable sound machine, and walk to Hollywood & Highland and back.  I've never understood hiking, and have never seen the point in walking around in the woods to "get closer to nature," or whatever, but I am an avid enthusiast of the Great American Urban Hike.  "To get closer to the city," I suppose.  From Chinatown to Ocean Beach in San Francisco, or 101st & Broadway to Battery Park and back in NYC (taking the train halfway back, from Battery Park to Times Square, admittedly)(and still limping on re-arrival to the Upper West Side), nothing beats an epic hike for absorbing the pulse and flavor of the city.  In fact I walked within a couple blocks of the Twin Towers, just a few months before they were destroyed.  Even a couple blocks away, it felt like they were standing right above you.  But I used to love L.A.  I loved the way the hills of Silverlake, Los Feliz, and the East Side sparkled like diamonds, and the palm trees standing in a line, like a regiment of frozen fireworks.  The streets of L.A. are guarded by petrified fireworks.  Or they were.

Are they still?

I borrowed this CD from some friends in Burbank, and it was the soundtrack to many a weekly trek from Silverlake to Hollywood and back.  I'm not a fan of the band, and while the hipster war between them and Brian Jonestown Massacre always struck me as morbidly self-absorbed, I have to give credit where credit is due.  Though it felt like a guilty pleasure, even at the time, I can swallow my pride long enough to plant my flag on the hill that says "Godless" is a great song.  The rest of the album has its moments, probably, and I wouldn't mention it if it weren't simply true that Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia provided the aural landscape for many psychedelic journeys through the smoggy California jewel box, glittering at my feet.  The smog genie escapes the box of California jewels like a normal genie escapes the bottle, but instead of giving you 3 wishes, the smog genie gives you some heroin, and a bag of purple weed.  I was always grateful for the weed.

But the heroin will kill you.

All of which is to say that "Love is a Room" is a California song at heart.  Lines like "The sun is shinin', but ain't it always?" and "The TV snow is blowin' in a blizzard across the sky" come from a place of great affection for California, especially L.A.  Because, y'know, it's true.  Not only is Southern California sunny to a blissful fault, not only does the smog genie occasionally venture out of the bottle of smoke known as L.A. to hand out drugs and stardom to whomever it pleases, it does so in a blizzard of TV snow, a blowing gale of communicative static that blankets the sky like a hissing cloud of white, narcotic noise.

I started writing "Love is a Room" on one of my urban L.A. hikes, jotting lyrics on the baked and trippy chalkboard hanging inside my skull as I walked, but I finished it one morning at Runyon Canyon Park.  I thought I'd found a peaceful place to write, and laid out my blanket and opened my guitar case, intent on finishing the song.  Within minutes, my peaceful lyric sanctuary was invaded by a Yoga class.  An army of self-righteous, new-age California yuppies marched onto the field with their prayer mats, and sent me unwelcoming vibes through the invisible blizzard of TV snow.  It was clear I was intruding on their space, even though I'd gotten there first.

Welcome to California.

I felt rushed, so I threw the third verse out in response to the Yoga yuppies, which states that "Everywhere I go, it's always 'hey man, what the hellya doin' here?  Can't you see that you're not wanted?'"  So they inspired me, in a way.  The Yoga yuppies and the smog genie alike, the crazy California muse.  Beautiful, yet hostile.  But the song was finished.  The 3rd verse felt tacked-on and reactionary at the time, but it has aged well.  In fact it suits the rest of the song perfectly.  It is perhaps a pretentious metaphor, but the 3rd verse of "Love is a Room" was released like a dove from Noah's Ark over a sea of jeweled garbage, in a desperate attempt to find some solid psychic ground.  It is perhaps a pretentious metaphor, but since it was conceived on urban hikes while listening to songs with titles like "Mohammed," "Nietzsche," and "The Gospel," for crying out loud, the 3rd verse of "Love is a Room" has every thematically-consistent right to compare itself to Noah's dove.  I'm listening to that Dandy Warhols album again now in fact, for the first time in over 20 years, and even though my hair is blown back by the hurricane force of the cringe I am having at my own expense, I have to admit, it's pretty good.

20 years?  20 years.  I finished "Love is a Room" 20 years ago this month, in fact.  Perhaps it is time itself that has been released, like a bird of prey from the bottle of smog, floating like a battleship across an urban ocean of decay.

Hollywood 2003

Whatever the case, I was clearly unwelcome in the limited time I'd been allotted by the smog genie to write music on the Yoga floor.  Since the song was finished anyway, I folded my blanket, put my guitar back in its casket, and left the yuppies to their demon oblations and unsightly sense of self-satisfaction.

It was a beautiful day, as usual, I'm sure.

Thanks for listening.

Love is a Room

The time has come for you to go
and I know that you're the one
the sun is shining,
but ain't it always?
If love is a room,
my life is a series of hallways,
but I don't mind

There ain't nothin' you can throw at me
I haven't heard before
the floor is hard,
and death is certain
my broken heart
is no longer a burden
because I'm free

Everywhere I go,
it's always, "hey man,
what the hellya doin' here?
Can't you see
that you're not wanted?"
If I didn't know better,
I'd say that I was hunted
not like I'd care

Well I'm no friend of love
but I'm in love with like
I'm gonna sail across the ocean
on a motorbike
spike the mic
with LSD
little green monsters
runnin' after me
my hands are dirty
but my heart is pure
if love's a disease,
baby,
I'm the cure
check the mirror
to make sure
my head is still on fire

1-2-3-4-5-6-7
tear out your hair and go to Heaven
5-6-7-8-9-10-12
if I can't have you, then everybody will
so come on everybody,
and stand in line
we're a-gonna have a real good time
don't worry your head
and don't nevermind
I'm so happy I could puke

The TV snow is blowin'
in a blizzard across the sky
don't ask me why
I only live here
go on and cry
yourself a river
if'n ya wants to

Cuz the time has come for you to go
and I know that you're the one
the sun is shining,
but ain't it always?
If love is a room,
my life is a series of hallways,
but I don't mind

You got to blow your brains out
of your nose
stop and smell the dirty clothes
in a sea of frozen stares I stand
show me
your pimple hand
ain't got no time to wait for luck
anybody gotta buck?
I'm so happy,
I get paid to cry
kill me now
before I die
I'm gonna get high,
gonna get high, gonna get high,
gonna get high,
gonna get high, gonna get high,
gonna get high,
gonna get high, gonna get high,
gonna get high

On life

©2004 Nathan Payne