With “Positivism“, I’m attempting a musical-theatre number, with lyrics in the Cole Porter vein (minus the cleverness). In my maudlin imaginary musical, the romantic lead, a drunk and sad-sack loser, is trying to come to grips with whether he’ll ever know anything for sure. The song’s title comes from the philosophy of logical positivism, which is defined on m-w.com as the theory “that all meaningful statements are conclusively verifiable”.
But positivism doesn’t make sense to our hero. It’s about three quarters through the play, and he’s just fallen in love. He doesn’t know what hit him… he just got struck by Cupid’s arrow, pure and simple. And if his new status of the heart isn’t “conclusively verifiable”, then what else might not be? The next time he sends back a bottle of wine at a restaurant, is the wine really bad, or is he just guessing? Do cops always act like cops? Do dentists always act like dentists? The world is suddenly shrouded in mystery… all on account of a dame!
I took a couple of personal liberties here. First, I chose guitar as the lead instrument, even though it is “conclusively verifiable” that I can hardly play the thing. To make it even more interesting, I recorded the lead vocal at the same time, which meant I couldn’t really sing into the mic because I was always looking down at my hands. So the effect (I hope) is kind of Neil-Young-circa-”Tonight’s-the-Night”, in which the wildly varying level of the lead vocal lends the proceedings a certain “verité”.
And finally, the song opens with a rewrite of an opening line from a Dire Straits song called “Heavy Fuel”, off of their rancid 1991 comeback album, “On Every Street”. My dad and I used to listen to it together. “Last time I was sober / man I felt bad / Worst hangover that I ever had.” That lyric is so corny that it just always stayed with me, and starting off with a version of it here gave me license to roam. So thanks Dad!
