A Brief Commentary on the State of Cliches and Time Travel in Modern Folk Rock

Here is an example of how the future can influence past events. It's kind of like in Back to the Future II, when 2015 Biff steals the Sports Almanac from 1985 Marty and gives it 1955 Biff so that 1985 Hill Valley turns into a toned down version of 2007 Baghdad. But not really.

Anyway, here's what happens. The song is called "Two Points," and it's by a young lady named Deb Talan who'll sing a nice song if you hand her a guitar and a microphone and say please. In the second verse of this song, she sings this fine example of a cliche:

"Why's it get so complicated
When two people make love?"

I remember I cringed a little the first time I heard it. I'd liked the song so much up to then, and she went and threw that little gem in. Seriously, we've all heard it before. Sex complicates relationships. Do you really need to write another song about it? No, you don't. But you did anyway. Crud. But I digress...

The thing is, for people who consider themselves writers, cliches are like fingernails on a blackboard. Case in point: writing that previous line made me shudder like a wet kitten - except I didn't look nearly as cute. I think it has something to do with a deep fear of having someone in a tweed jacket point a finger at us and call us "unoriginal." I don't know where this fear comes from. Maybe it would go away if we just got rid of tweed jackets, but that's another story for another time. But I digress. Again.

Anyway, after that cliche I'd just about written off the song by that point. But imagine my surprise when these lines popped up:

"I wish I were a bird, she said.
So you could fly away? No.
So we could be together,
with no thoughts of yesterday."

And this is why I was surprised. With that first line, she sets you up for yet another cliche. And you should be expecting it at that point, because of what came earlier. Hell, with the 2nd line she actually feeds you the cliche that you should think she's going to say.

" 'I wish I were a bird,' she said."
Then you say, "So you could fly away. Yeah, I get it. Let's all move on."

But instead of sticking with that, she twists it on its head and turns the expected cliche into something quite unexpected.

"No, jerkface: so we could be together with no thoughts of yesterday. God, I'm not that shallow."

See? Unexpected. And even - dare I say? - poignant. It's a nice trick if you can pull it off, and it made me like the song more than if the first cliche hadn't existed at all.

So what does any of this have to do with wayback machines and whatnot? Well, Sherman, let me explain:

1. You hear the first cliche ("...make love...") and you have a particular reaction to it ("Aw, jeez. Really?")
2. You hear the second, twisted non-cliche ("...no thoughts of yesterday...") and you have a contrapuntal reaction to it ("Oh. Huh. Wow. That was nice.")
3. You're forced to re-evaluate your initial reaction to the initial cliche ("Wait a minute. Maybe...")
4. Therefore, events from the future have directly influenced, and changed, events in the past. You just inadvertently traveled in time. QED.

Unless, of course, the 2nd lyric about the birds is just a cliche that I'm not aware of. In that case, I just spent an hour writing this up so I could sound like an idiot. Well, it wouldn't be the first time.