- Say Anything's "Alive with the Glory of Love"
I was watching an episode of Scrubs recently (season 6 finale) and the tune closing out the episode--which I had never heard before--caught my ear. I looked it up (thanks, Internet!) and it is indeed the aforementioned strange love song. Wanting to hear the song again, I dropped the title into the google ethers and was sent to the youtube video.
Here's the (semi-)interesting part: I'm mindlessly listening to the song again, and again not paying attention to the lyrics like when I saw it on tv. I scroll through the youtube comments and I see some holocaust references. Strange indeed. But Wikipedia confirms the song is an "[i]ntense and oddly uplifting rocker about a relationship torn by the Holocaust."
For a long while I wasn't sure what to do with this information. Did it make me like the song more or did it make me dislike the song entirely? It didn't seem as if there could be any middle ground for me. It's taken a while, but I think my take is this: writing a love song set during nazi occupation ("Treblinka, alive, with the glory of love, yeah!") is something I wouldn't have thought could be pulled off in a serious and earnest manner, and yet Say Anything has proven me incorrect.
Of course, the lyrics:
When I watch you, I wanna do you right where you're standing (yeah)
Right on the foyer, on this dark day, right in plain view (oh yeah)
Of the whole ghetto. The boot-stomped meadows, but we ignore that (yeah)
You're lovely, baby. This war is crazy. I won't let you down (Oh no no)
No, I won't let them take you, won't let them take you
Hell no no, oh no, I won't let them take you, won't let them take you
Hell no no.
No, oh no no no!
And when our city, vast and shitty, falls to the axis (yeah)
They'll search the buildings, collect gold fillings, wallets and rings (oh yeah)
But Ms. Black Eyeliner, you'd look finer with each day in hiding (oh yeah)
Beneath the wormwood, oooh, love me so good.
They won't hear us screw away the day. I'll make you say:
(Alive! Alive!
Alive with love, alive with love tonight)
No, I won't let them take you, won't let them take you
Hell no no, oh no, I won't let them take you, won't let them take you
Hell no no.
Our Treblinka is alive with the glory of love!
Treblinka, alive, with the glory of love, yeah!
Should they catch us and dispatch us to those separate work camps,
I'll dream about you. I will not doubt you with the passing of time (oh yeah)
Should they kill me, your love will fill me, as warm as the bullets (yeah)
I'll know my purpose. This war was worth this. I won't let you down.
No, I won't
No, I won't
No, I won't
(Alive! Alive!)
(Alive with love, alive with love tonight)
Hell no no, oh no (Alive! Alive!)
I won't let them take you, won't let them take you (Alive with love, alive with love tonight)
Hell no, no
No, no
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