Throughout the mythologies of the Abrahamic religions, the story of how some angels chose not to follow the word of God and were banished from Heaven has many variations.  The root cause of the fall, in particular, is not agreed upon.  Did some angels fall in love with the daughters of men, even marrying them and bearing half-angel children?  Did some angels refuse to bow down before man, God’s newest (and to their eyes, inferior) creation?  Or was it simply the endowment of free will that caused them to stray?  The only thing we know for certain is what the angels accomplished after the fall, though it took them many centuries:  They invented rock ‘n roll.

Some called it a daring, visionary move. Others insisted we were about to witness the demise of one of modern music’s greatest bands. A computer-geek friend of mine told me if he were made responsible for devising a way to do this, he would quit. One unforeseen glitch and the album would become an infamous laughingstock, joining the likes of Kid A, Van Halen III, The Very Best of Chris Gaines, and, when it comes out, Chinese Democracy.

Frederick Hidell interviews Halifax rock group, The Stolen Minks

In the journey from being single to being the head of a family, there’s a certain order of events we’re all familiar with.  First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes so-and-so with a baby carriage (with the occasional sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g).  But for the music aficionado, there’s another inevitable step wedged between love and marriage:  the arranging of the perfect courtship mix CD.

Almost all songs, particularly love songs, refer to the existence of a person other than the singer: you, she, him. Most of the time the listener assumes this person is an abstraction, the idea of a person rather than an actual person. One can easily interpret the lyrical reference as the life experience of the songwriter distilled to a single concept, elaborated upon, and then re-personalized. Whether or not The Romantics ever actually learned of any secrets when a lover was “talking in [her] sleep” is irrelevant and goes unquestioned.