"Don't Do Anything" by Sam Phillips

If someone had told me that this was a love song, I admit that I would have been disinclined to like it. Years of accidental exposure to radio waves from the right side of the dial have left my ears perked to shut down at the first note of any warbly melodrama. 

But I love this song. (You can listen to it below.) And no, I am not getting sentimental. This is a long way from Barry Manilow or Coldplay, because, hey, I do have my pop pride, you know. My love of music kicked in with punk. In 1978, I considered "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker" a love song. You don't consider "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker" much of a love song? How about "I Just Wanna Be Your Dog?" No? Well, fuck you. But then punk cleared the way for other music about which I could be passionate and, yes, belligerent. So while I eventually mined Joni Mitchell, Dylan, Randy Newman, Van Morrison and Tom Waits, mellowed a tad and lightened up a little as a snob, it's never been as if my softer side was an open wound. You know that Billy Joel song, "Just the Way You Are?" Its theme is similar to the Sam Phillips song, only it is my opinion that "Just the Way You Are" is a better emetic than it is a song. So there.

Now, "Don't Do Anything"  probably won't be a classic. Desert island discs tend to feel bigger and more declarative. But it doesn't matter. I don't care. This is personal. That's the beauty of a pop song––you don't have to be a musician to feel that you understand the intention of every note, every word and every chord change to say, "Yes, this is what I feel."

It opens with this rumble, a fuzzy chord slowly strummed. It's like My Bloody Valentine on 16 rpm. I like that sound. Sam knew I'd like that sound. She knew I'd stick around after that, too, grabbing me with something I'd recognize, though not quite the way I had heard it before.

Then she lets out the lyrics, sparingly.

I...

She pauses.

I LOVE YOU.

Okay, she may have just sang the three sappiest words on the planet but because of the fuzzy guitar and her careful pacing, you go with her. It's clear that she won't be pining any time soon.

Then come 3 more words.

WHEN YOU DON'T...

Huh?

WHEN YOU DON'T DO ANYTHING.

"I love you when you don't do anything?" Was that sarcasm I detected in there? Is she saying, "I love you despite the fact that, well, sometimes, you sit on your ass and do absolutely nothing?"

WHEN YOU'RE USELESS

I LOVE YOU MORE,

WHEN YOU DON'T DO ANYTHING,

WHEN YOU DON'T MOVE

WHEN YOU DON'T TRY

WHEN YO DON'T SAY ANYTHING

WHEN YOU DON'T MOVE

WHEN YOU DON'T WIN

WHEN YOU DON'T MAKE ANYTHING WORK.

I'm still thinking it's funny––kind of, sort of––though something in the song is telling me not to laugh. I suppose it would be funnier, if that had been her intention. She'd be singing, "I love you when you don't put up the toilet seat,"or something, but that's not where she's going, is it. Sure enough, when she pauses again, a single violin enters to signal something heartfelt and sincere.

WHEN YOU DON'T WANT

WHEN YOU DON'T LIE

WHEN YOU DON'T MAKE ANY SENSE

WHEN YOU DON'T GO

WHEN YOU DON'T HIDE

WHEN YOU DON'T THINK ANYTHING.

She loves this person when he really doesn't do anything? She loves this person because he doesn't lie? Or conceal? She loves this person even when he's silent? Even when he's unclear?

The other day, my wife had fallen asleep in front of the television. She had had a tough day and I knew she wouldn't make it through the program. I watched her sleeping, her head tilted, nearly off the arm of the couch. She wasn't drooling, or anything, but she wasn't posed for a fashion spread either. Yet in that moment, watching her, I couldn't have loved her more. I can't explain why. She couldn't have been doing less.

Then there's this one line refrain that makes it clear that what the narrator is experiencing is new to her.

EVERYTHING I KNOW IS RUNNING BACKWARDS WITH YOU.

She just experienced one of life's rug pulls––everything wasn't really running the way it used to––she wrote a song about it and captured the misdirection. She loves this guy when he doesn't do the things that all the schmucks that came before him did. She thought that there was something to fix, but there was nothing to fix. As a listener, it's nice to know exactly what that's like.

Proof that even the most timeless message merely needs an execution that draws you in and sets it up in such a way that you feel it as if for the first time. And yet how often do we get stuck trying to mirror life as it typically happens, as if for the 2nd or zillionth time. How often do we add the familiar because it is believed it will resonate better with our target? Without something interesting, something unpredictable, something unfamiliar, whether it's a rug pull or an unusual metaphor, the message will never make it past our personal prejudices, never become our own, never hit us with the intensity of an important moment.

Once, when I was in college and playing guitar in the coffee houses, I wrote a love song. This was in my Loudon Wainwright III stage. It was called "Ugly Toes." It was my version of the 'warts and all' idea. At the time, I was probably hoping––who am I kidding? I was definitely hoping that some art major would swoon upon hearing me, instantly charmed by my humor and then reeled in by such magnanimous sensitivity that it would get me laid. It didn't work. It was probably too derivative, too Wainright-ish, whereas "Don't Do Anything would have been more effective. Sam Phillips expressed myself a lot better.