Is it just me, or is INXS’s “Never Tear Us Apart” a pretty flocking great song?

When I came upon it this morning, I quickly punched the scan button to stop and listen to it in full. Bluesy, grandiose, sax-solo-y? Is it wrong of me to kind of love it?

I had the “Kick” cassette at some point in high school, and INXS makes me think of the older girls who I thought were so cool, and of my short-lived soccer career (INXS was featured on the get-pumped mix we’d listen to before games), of these other two girls (older, and fellow soccer players) who seemed to have styled their hair after Michael Hutchence’s, and, of course, of poor MH himself.

 After swaying along to the sax solo in my car this morning, I started listening to the lyrics, and entertained myself with the memory of a lame joke that for some reason (um, LAMENESS, perhaps, TGOTS?) I really enjoyed from the flawed but wonderful movie “Elizabethtown.”

Do you know this movie? If you love music, and love people who love music, it is really worth watching. The plot kind of meanders, but there are a few epic scenes, and many lovely little moments. The leads — Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom — are very nearly beside the point. The true gems are Paul Schneider, Judy Greer, Loudon Wainwright III, Paula Deen (yes, that one!), Patty Griffin (love of my life), and Susan Sarandon — who does the saddest tap dance you will ever see. And the “Freebird” scene! Oh!

Okay, I take it back, everyone must see this movie, and put up with its flaws for all the lovely, lovely moments it contains. Cameron Crowe, I love you.

Where was I?

Oh right. I was listening to the lyrics of “Never Tear Us Apart” this morning, and when it got to “two worlds collided / and they could never tear us apart,” I giggled to myself about the mysterious “they,” recalling an exchange in “Elizabethtown” where the Kirsten Dunst character is on the phone with the Orlando Bloom character and they start mocking each other for referencing an unspecified “they” and KD calls this “they” the “inimitable, collective THEM.”

I don’t know, there’s just something about that line that I like. Excessive personal concern with the inimitable, collective THEM, perhaps, TGOTS? Highly possible.

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