"Waterfalls"



Don't go chasing waterfalls
Please stick to the rivers
And the lakes that you're used to


Chuck Klosterman does my work for me in his recent book Eating the Dinosaur:

"At the time [1999], TLC was advising me not to hang around with scrubs. This was kind of like their advice from 1994 about not chasing waterfalls. I never got that. Why not chase waterfalls? They're so easy to chase. It would have been far more sensible if deceased arsonist Lisa Left Eye had told me not to chase something dangerous, like wildebeests. 'Don't go chasing wildebeests.'"


"Don't go chasing wildebeests" scans nicely, but I'd be tempted to add "especially not into unfamiliar lakes and rivers they cross in large numbers, as you might get eaten by hungry crocodiles" before "Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to."

"Before He Cheats"



I dug my key into the side

Of his pretty little souped-up 4 wheel drive

Carved my name into his leather seat

I took a Louisville slugger to both head lights

Slashed a hole in all 4 tires

And maybe next time he'll think before he cheats


I'm still hoping for a sequel to this song, sung from the boyfriend's point of view, in which he tells of her month or two in prison ("Right now, she's probably carving shivs from her jailhouse toothbrush"), warning her that maybe next time she'll think before she destroys another person's property. Or maybe even from her point of view, twenty years later when she's a lonely, bitter cat-lady, wondering why she can't ever seem to hold on to a man. Maybe next time she'll think before she goes berserk after letting her imagination run wild.

As far as we know, based on her own testimony, she destroys her (ex-) boyfriend's truck after merely *imagining* her guy flirting with some gal in some bar. Her behavior might indicate that she's an unreliable witness at best. She don't know that this is happening at all. It makes me want to shout "You go girl… to a psychiatrist!"

But the silver lining of the song is that she might have saved a little trouble for the next guy, who'll now know to steer clear of her craziness.