College Times

Issue date: 5/8/08 Section: Daily Buzz

Media Credit: Photos.com

I noticed a lot of Arizona imagery in some of the songs I've been listening to lately. It seems clear that to everyone who doesn't live here, it will always be the place to run away, the opposite of the upscale, too-saturated California lifestyle, a mysterious empty place to explore what's inside your mind. Maybe that's not far from the truth.

So here are a few of the songs:

MGMT "Weekend Wars"
Try to break my heart I'll drive to Arizona.
It might take 100 years to grow an arm
I'll sit and listen to the sound of sand and cold
Twisted diamond heart, I'm the weekend warrior

Grand Archives "Swan Song"
We flew over fences.
We dodged all the moving cars,
and the dry Arizona faces,
the dry Arizona faces.

Kings of Leon "Arizona"
Her lamp
Slippers in her bedroom
She must feel it's awkward
Oh I said it's Arizona

And this song is from 2004 but the lyrics still rule:

Pedro the Lion, "Arizona"
Arizona curled up with California, then she tried to hide the whole thing from New Mexico, who knew before he saw them making out in Yuma that she had been loving someone new.

But California, not California.
How could you?

The bully loved her cactus, the underdog her pine.
But she would only love one at a time.

New Mexico has always hated California,
and though he knew that Arizona wore the pants,
he got loaded and he started throwing punches …

This song is even older, but it's so epic:

Jamie O'Neal "There is No Arizona"
There is no Arizona
No Painted Desert, no Sedona
If there was a Grand Canyon
She could fill it up with the lies he's told her
But they don't exist, those dreams he sold her
She'll wake up and find
There is no Arizona

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