Another sweater song

[violet@slip.net]

Samantha wrote:
>Sorry--I know it's not Kate-related, but I have to ask:  about four or five
>years ago I heard a Laurie Anderson album, at least I think it was her.
> There was a song about a sweater.  Does this ring a bell for anyone--I
>thought the tune was great.  Can anyone direct me to the title, album and
>artist (if not Laurie) this song is on?  Thanks.

Meryn Cadell did a funny piece about a sweater that was quite popular about
four years ago.  It's on her her first album "Angel Food for Thought" from
1992.  It was spoken over a cheesy, sixties-ish canned beat.  I'm going to
post the lyrics here just because they're so priceless, even though it
isn't the one Samantha was looking for.  What girl hasn't lived this, or at
least aspects of it?

The Sweater

Girls, I know you will understand this and feel the intrinsic, incredible
emotion.  You have just pulled over your head the worn, warm sweater
belonging to a boy.  Now, you haven't had a passionate kissing session or
anything, but you got to go on a camping trip with him and eight other
people from school.  And you practically slept together, your sleeping bag
right next to his.  And you woke in the night to watch him as he slept, but
you couldn't see anything 'cause it was dark so you just lay there and
listened to his breathing and wondered if your heart might burst.  The
sweater has that slightly goat-like smell, which all teenage boys possess,
and that smell will lovingly transfer to all your other clothes.  If you
get to keep it for a few days you can sleep with it, but don't let your mom
see, because she'll say, "What is THAT filthy thing and who does it belong
to besides the trashman?"  You have to keep it under the covers with you --
you can kind of lie it beside you or wrap it around your waist or touch it
on your legs or whatever, but that's your business.  Now, if the sweater
has, like, reindeer on it or is a funny kinda, like, yellow...I'm sorry,
you can't get away with a sweater like that.  Look for brown or grey or
blue.  Anything other than that and you know you're dealing with someone
who's different. And different is not what you're looking for.  You're
looking for those teenage, alpine-ski chiseled features and that sort of
blank look which passes for deep thought or at least the notion that
someone's home.  You're looking for the boy of your dreams, who is the same
boy in the dreams of all of your friends.  Now, the sweater isn't going to
fit you, of course, so you have to kind of roll up the sleeves in a jaunty
way that says "this-is-the-sweater-belonging-to-a-boy-and-a-boy-
is-a-gen-yoo-ine-hunka-hunka-burnin'-love" and this is not just some
handmedown from your brother or your father.  Monday...wear the
sweater...to school.  Be calm, look cute.  Don't tell him the dream you had
about the place the two of you would share when you get older.  Just be
yourself.  The best, cutest, quietest version of yourself.  Definitely wear
lip gloss.  He looks at you, and he looks away, and then he walks away and
the smell of the sweater hits you again suddenly like ape-scent glory-ola,
and you get a note passed to you by a girl in history that says, "He needs
his sweater back -- he forgot that you put in on in the tent on Saturday
and he's been looking for it."  And you don't have to die of humiliation.
You are a strong person and this is a learning experience.  You can still
hold your head up high as you run from the classroom, tearing the stinking
sweater from your body.  You look at that sweater -- carefully -- and you
realise that love made you temporarily blind.  You got a secret now, honey,
and though you would never sink as low as him, you could blab it all over
the school if you wanted.  The label in that sweater...... said
"100%  acrylic."


Violet
xoxox

     

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     +    "If Jesus Christ were to come today, people    +
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