With My Mind On My Money And My Money On My Mind

The Financial Crisis Edition: Rock, Stocks and Two Smoking Barrels

The Dears - "The Money Babies"

(There Goes, There Goes, There Goes My Profit)

Next time you're out with friends somewhere, pay attention closely to the one who looks like they're bearing the weight of the world on their shoulders. He/she will look forward with a daisy-glaze as if plagued by something, all the while their "filing cabinet strapped to their back" look welcomes a conversation, initiated by a statement with something like: our dollar doesn't look so good these days, hey? You'll notice their eyes open wide like an electric shock charge, sorta like when you take a sip of Coke and it makes your eyes water the surge is so strong. Chances are this person has watched their stock portfolio turn worthless or has heard their parents say that their 70 per cent pension is wrapped up in equity and now lost/dead or maybe they're just worried that the current state of the world economy signals something to the equivalent to the end of days. Call me an eternal optimist, but I'm kind of looking forward to the romantic notion of something like a glass of alcohol only costing $1, but a loaf of bread costing $50. Both made from the same ingredients, however while one is used for sustenance, the other is used to pollute the senses into thinking that, 'hey life ain't so bad after all.' As hard as it is to avoid the financial crisis that has been taken the whole world by storm in a month that will be known as the Hunt for Red October - named for it's negative gains driving everything from the price of oil, stocks and liquidity into the 'red' - there is still a life to be had by all... While the ignorant continue to buy their $6 lattes, SUVs and expensive spa treatments, financial advisers and economists have been clutching their thesauruses, searching for alternatives to words like "volatile," "panic," "fear" and "recession." So the timing couldn't be better for Murray Lightburn and the miserablists in The Dears whose latest single, "The Money Babies" from their 4th LP, Missiles depicts a drastic outlook on what tomorrow might bring if Depression 2.0 decides to take severe turns for the worst. "Our money is elastic" sings Lightburn in the same comforting tone that led us through loser culture on the previously released, Gang of Losers disc. But instead of leading us astray all pied-piper like down the path to victory, Lightburn is confident to regain the holocaustic soup-line atmosphere created on the No Cities Left album with brief glimpses into the past and present with lines like, "Do you remember that time/We thought we were going die/Baby nothing much has changed/And we haven't been the same since - at all." Although The Dears are always the band who you'd vote least likely to keep it together (Lightburn changes the Dears roster as frequently as contestants on What Not To Wear change their wardrobes), but despite being an Anton Necombe in Canadian form, you can always count on Murray Lightburn and his Dears to provide comfort in trying times. And if not, you can always listen to your friend whine continuously about something we'll never be able to control.


The Dears - "The Money Babies" (YouTube)


Bonus B-side (supplied by the Dow Jones index) includes:

Rufus Wainwright - "The Money Song"

(In The Days When You Were Hopelessly Poor - I Just Liked You More)

A 20-something East-coaster Canadian singing like it's the 1930s all over again. Wainwright's selfish cabaret performance reads like a Things-To-Do checklist: 1.) become famous 2.) become a wealthy diva 3.) move to NYC.. but like most 3 wishes, everything comes with consequences and there's nothing quite like dealing with all of them with a crack-cocaine habit. Hauntingly beautiful, Wainwright is able to capture his future for all to hear and does it so with compassion and cleverness like the greedy line of: "If your heart was made of gold/Would I pluck it out and melt it down and be an American and wear a crown." It all comes together in the final verse where self-revelations are all summarized with, "don't underestimate money."


Rufus Wainwright - "The Money Song" (YouTube)