yes, I would hang out with Madonna for a day

Something in the way you love me won’t let me be.

Not my words: the words of Madonna. Or whoever wrote them for her.

I know these words because I’ve been listening to a Flaming Lips’ cover, of the song Borderline, which I quite like.

I don’t want to be a prisoner so, baby, won’t you set me free.

I actually really like the lyrics. I like them more because Madonna did them first.

I get this sense of naivety which I find oddly earnest and which totally doesn’t fit with the rather epic end to the Flaming Lips’ version.

But it makes so much sense for the Flaming Lips to have covered this. The can’t-help-it-playfulness in the lyrics are there in everything Flaming Lips have done that I’ve heard (in fairness I only have Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. I’ve heard bits of other albums, although I can probably rest my case on that title alone).

I don’t know if they covered Borderline with a sense of irony (“Madonna cover” is inherently pretty lols) but I like to think Wayne Coyne has a total childhood sweetheart love affair going on with those 80s songs.

I also really like Material Girl by Madonna and it has that same sense of playful naivety from Borderline. I don’t know how these songs fit into her career in terms of time or style or anything and I feel like it would be wrong of me to be bothered.

I was also thinking about fashion. I think I really like 70s shirts but I can’t wear them because I’m not willing to fully commit to a 70s look. You can pull off a vaguely 70s tinged shirt or something and it can look damn good, but I’m not that high level on the fashion subtlety scale (which doesn’t exist – so I could never get there).

We had 70s shirts and perms and all that. We had 80s mullets and garish t-shirts and socks with tights and etc. Then we had that 90s minimalist thing which I’m not even sure existed. Now we’re back to that 80s stuff. Like an unimaginative mountain or lazy fashion chasm – one side mirrors the other. Are we about to see a resurgence of delicious 70s shirts? Please, God?

And italo disco is resurfacing, another icon of the 80s, blended into dance punk and house: It’s back, but we do it a little differently.

This could be good news for 70s shirts is what I’m saying.