Is It Just Me? Read Online Free Page A

and art rock.
    Well, you sound musically cool. I’m not sure we should be fretting about this.
    Ah, no, but you see, I just googled them.
    Googled . . .?
    Oh, yes . . . Umm, it’s like a library on a laptop . . .
    Like a what on a
what
?
    It doesn’t matter; I’ll explain later. You have to admit, you don’t really like Talking Heads, do you?
    I do. I really do.
    No, you don’t. When cool cousin Steve gave it to you, you had to work very, very hard to summon up even the tiniest bit of enthusiasm for this noisy popular music quartet. And you’re rewarding yourself by swaggering round the dormitory loudly saying things like, ‘Yeah, I’m just gonna put some Talking Heads on, OK? What, you don’t know Talking Heads? I’ll just put the Talking Heads on now.’ You’re saying these things in a confident, nay, arrogant fashion, but deep down you’re hobbled by a sense of fraudulence. Crippled with it. Because in your heart, you know that you’re not a music person.
    How dare you? I like LOTS of music. I like T’Pau
* sings * ‘
China in your haaand . . .’
    Please, don’t . . .
    And, and, I like . . .
    Kylie and Jason? I can’t help but notice there’s a Jason Donovan poster on your wall.
    He’s gorge.
    You might briefly think he’s gorgeous, but he’s not musically cutting edge. Admit it, Little Miranda, you know absolutely nothing about music. It’s official: you lack the muso gene.
    You are totally rude. And wrong. So stop bugging me.
    Well, let’s look at the record (PUN. MDRC, pun. Just saying – at ease). You recently participated in what a newspaper report would describe as a ‘horrifically botched sing-along’.
    I don’t know what you’re talking about.
    Oh, I think you do. A merry band of sixth-formers were on the bus to a lacrosse match (rock and roll). You were all singing ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’. After a chorus or two, the others became distracted and piped down. You, unaware of this, ploughed on through the chorus, revealing to the assembled crowd that you’d been singing the lyrics as ‘feed the birds’ instead of ‘feed the world’.
    Yeah, maybe. That might have happened.
    It did happen. And it happened, I think, because you’d got the song muddled up with ‘Feed the Birds’ from
Mary Poppins.
I mean, think about it: why on earth would Bob Geldof have been getting so het-up about feeding the
birds
? What birds would he have been talking about? He’s staging a massive campaign, Band Aid, for starving birds? What birds? You should be ashamed of yourself.
    All right, fine. Why are you reminding me of all this?
    It’s for your own good. I want you to know and accept a certain fact about yourself, Little Miranda. You will never, ever, be a music person. You will forge a strong attachment to three songs by Billy Joel, four or five hit Broadway musicals, one song by Dolly Parton (‘9 to 5’, obviously), one album by ABBA and a sort of jolly thing, which may or may not be by Stevie Wonder. And that’s it. You’ll spend the next two decades listening to those same songs on a loop, and you’ll waste barrels of your time and energy feeling vaguely guilty about this.
    No. Negativo. This I will not accept. My whole life is going to be like this moment, this Talking Heads moment at school. I’ll forge a niche as a curator of edgy, interesting music, discovering new bands, perhaps trawling obscure gig venues scouting for talent. I’ll be a John Peel figure. A cowboy. A well-informed musical cowboy with the legs of a goddess.
    Oh, bless you. No, that won’t happen. Your musical tastes will fossilise, and your record collection will forever be that of a Berkshire schoolgirl in 1991. Sorry.
    But won’t I meet bands at gigs?
    You won’t go to gigs.
    What? Everyone goes to gigs.
    Not you, I’m afraid. Actually, I tell a lie. You will attend the
Smash Hits
Poll Winners Party at the age of twenty-six.
    Twenty-six. But that’s untrendy now. At eighteen.
    I know, I