Paul Kelly: Dumb Things
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At heart, I live in constant fear that everybody knows I'm faking it all, making stupid choices, doing dumb things one after another. I've been told such inner doubt is essential to the human condition, and I guess I have to believe it just to go on. But there are days when I suspect they all say those things just to make me feel better about being an oaf, a laughingstock, and a nigh perfect fool.
Which is why I'm so grateful to aussie singer-songwriter Paul Kelly for making the facts of history which make my own angst palpable both universal and perfectly danceable, if a little desperate. If nothing else, it's nice to know my litany of stupidities has a decent rhythm, not to mention a wailing harmonica accompaniment.
Bonus points to Kelly for releasing Dumb Things in 1988, during the height of my adolescence. That it hit #16 on the Billboard Modern Rock charts was a powerful validation that others felt the same way.
