The Dope Show

Delicate Boy recently had a post musing, as the academic year commences, on annual theme songs. I'm not sure I can go for the whole year under the aegis of just one chanson, given my mercurial tastes and moods. Captain and Tenille one moment, the Carpenters the next. (Another reason why iTunes shuffle is so me) In any event, talk about an embarrassment of riches! Should I go for cynical, bitchy, Super Faggy, or inspirational? After some pondering, and perusing of my music collection and YouTube, I finally figured on The Dope Show, by Marilyn Manson, as my theme song of the semester. Not only is it a lyrically fantastic song (my favourite line has always been "The drugs, they say, are made in California"), but the video is stunning, a little bit David Bowie, and a lot of Todd Haynes' creepy Safe thrown in for good measure.

As a parable for teaching and la vie academique, I guess I went for the cynical angle— with a title like The Dope Show, full of deliciously malicious double entendres, how could it be anything but? Nevertheless, what academic, I ask you, could resist this line:

They love you when you're on all the covers
When you're not, then they love another

Certainly a cautionary tale for academics and starlets alike.

What's your current theme song?