Matthew Sweet – "Girlfriend" (1991)

Honey, believe me

I'd sure love to call you my girlfriend

In Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen spoke of "that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself."  

Jane would have agreed that Friday is the best day of the week.  Why?  Because the anticipation of a pleasurable weekend away from the office is nearly always more enjoyable than the weekend itself.

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How many of you remembered that today marks the four-year anniversary of 2 or 3 lines?  Can you believe it?  (I can't.)

Who'd a-thunk it back on November 1, 2009 (when 2 or 3 lines debuted with a post about The Last's "She Don't Know Why I'm Here") that four years later we'd be looking at 598 posts and (as of 12:01 am today) 408,135 page views.

(As the old saying goes, "Tall oaks from little acorns grow."  Or in the case of 2 or 3 lines,  "Big piles of bullish*t from little blogposts grow.")

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I write about popular music – at least that's what I write about when I'm not really writing about myself.  (Which is rarely).

I think that if you had to reduce the essence of pop music to a single word, that word would be "girlfriend."  

Why do I say that?

I want a lifetime subscription

Although there have been many talented female pop musicians, the vast majority of what I consider to be the best pop songs of my lifetime were written and performed by men.  And what are men interested in above all else?  Women, of course.

And what is the best thing in the world for a woman to be?  

A wife?  HA!  (I'm not being anti-wife here, but remember what I said at the beginning of this post: anticipation is usually more pleasurable than realization.)  

A girlfriend?  Bingo! – as Strother Martin's character in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid said when he successfully spit tobacco juice without fouling his beard in the process.

A girlfriend is the greatest thing a guy can have.  When you have a girlfriend, either you are young or you feel young – which is almost as good.

(Not really – who am I kidding?  But humor me, please.)

Please note – I said "girlfriend," not "overly attached girlfriend."  An "overly attached girlfriend" – see examples below – is mos' definitely not the greatest thing a guy can have.

Avoid the overly attached girlfriend

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A girlfriend is all about the future.  A girlfriend has a high upside and very little downside.  A girlfriend is anticipated happiness – the "sanguine expectation of happiness," in jane Austen's words.  

She's like a delicious meal after the first couple of bites – you know it's delicious, and you have so much of the meal left to enjoy that you're not worrying about how depressing it will be when you take that last bite!  

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There's nothing wrong with happy memories, of course.  As the novelist Julian Barnes has written, "Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory."

That's assuming that you have happy memories.  If you don't, it sucks to be you.

But even if your life sucks today, it's relatively easy to persuade yourself that the future is somehow going to be better.

It's a lot harder to persuade yourself that your miserable past didn't suck because it's already over and you know good and well that it did suck.  

The last time I checked, Best Buy wasn't selling time machines.

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Please note: I did not say "girl friend."  A "girl friend" is a very different thing than a "girlfriend."  

Although, of course, a "girl friend" may always turn into a "girlfriend" at some point in the future.  And we were speaking earlier about the anticipation of future pleasure – correct?

Yes, we are.  But in most cases, a "girl friend" turning into a "girlfriend" is a fantasy that will never be realized.  

Matthew Sweet didn't title this song (or the 1991 album of the same name that it appeared on) "Girl Friend," after all – he titled it "Girlfriend."  That's why guys write catchy little pop songs, after all – so they can get girlfriends.  (Surely you don't think my friends and I started the Rogues when we were in 8th grade out of our love for music?)

Matthew Sweet has a "girl friend" who would make an absolutely spectacular "girlfriend": Susanna Hoffs.    

Susanna Hoffs was a member of the great all-girl group from the 1980s, the Bangles.  She is cute with a capital "C" – and let's throw in capital "U," "T," and "E" as well.

And while we're at it, we might as well italicize those letters and put them in bold font and add "super" and some exclamation points:  Susanna Hoffs is SUPER CUTE!!! (And she's a ROCK STAR, for cryin' out loud!  How cool is THAT?)

Here she is singing "Hazy Shade of Winter" in a little black dress at SXSW in 2011:

OMG, she is cute, CUTER, CUTEST!  Am I right, or am I right?  

Unfortunately for Matthew, Susanna is married – and married to the guy who directed the Austin Powers movies as well as Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, 50 First Dates, and Borat.  

I know, those are all pretty lame movies – but they made a boatload of money, and that goes a long way with some people.  (As my grandmother used to say, "It's just as easy to love a rich girl as a poor girl.")

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Hoffs and Sweet teamed up to record the three Under the Covers albums, which feature covers of great songs from the sixties, seventies, and eighties, respectively.  (I am always on the lookout for opportunities to use "respectively" in this fashion.)  

Sweet is a very talented musician, and Hoffs probably couldn't have found a better collaborator.  But he's got about as much shot as making her his girlfriend as I do.

Here's "Girlfriend."  Happy birthday to 2 or 3 lines!

Click below if you'd like to buy "Girlfriend" from Amazon: