College Songs

"Hipsville (Where the Frisbees Fly Forever)" (Robert Pollard)
"Untitled" (P.S. Eliot)

Oh, college! We had (and continue to have) such a trying and ambiguously defined relationship! I hated almost every moment of you -- at least, all of the social "college-y" moments -- and yet I graduated only to get a job working at a college! And have recent applied to graduate school! What is wrong with me?!

So, college songs -- as in, "songs about college," not, "songs I listened to a lot during college" (which would be a completely different list, dominated by a weird mix of saccharine pop and blisteringly depressing dirges).

Robert Pollard's "Hippsville (Where the Frisbees Fly Forever") is the view outside my dorm window -- shirtless, well-muscled fraternity brothers roaming rolling green hills with bags of frisbees for their "Frisbee Golf" and "Ultimate Frisbee" teams. (I have never used the word 'frisbee' so many times in such quick succession -- it doesn't even seem like a real word.) Not that I have anything against athleticism (or frisbees), but the idea of frisbee season (which was, loosely, March/April through October/November) always got me to gritting my teeth. As Pollard mindlessly repeats: "Don't you just like college/Don't you just like college," I am reminded of myself, headphones on, scowling for four years straight. I never learned how to throw a frisbee quite right.

P.S. Eliot's "Untitled" from their Bike Wreck!!! demo is the quintessential spring break song. Opening with a somewhat ill-performed rendition of "Amazing Grace" on the recorder and segueing into the girls chanting "Skinny bitches! Spring Break! College! Beers! Hotlanta!" over and over -- it is every post spring break conversation I've ever heard distilled into a chorus of cheap beers and mindless exclamations, concentrating all that ever was and ever will be MTV's spring break coverage into its true glory: I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see.

"Hipsville (Where the Frisbees Fly Forever)" (Robert Pollard)
"Untitled" (P.S. Eliot)