The Awesomatastic Blog of Patrick Fahey

MUSIC

Matt Skiba

- While You’re Waiting

- My Friend Peter

- Patent Pending

- Good Fucking Bye

- This Addiction

- Dethbed

Alkaline Trio guitarist Matt Skiba’s style of writing is akin to elegiacal poetry - taking a dark theme such as death or addiction, and creating a mood that the writer wants you to feel, such as happiness or contentment. Songs like “This Addiction” and “While You’re Waiting” take the beautiful feelings and emotions related to love and spins a dark twist on them: addiction to heroin and suicide, respectively. Songs like “Patent Pending” and “My Friend Peter” have dark sometimes bitter elements to them, and you still feel differently than the lyrics would have you think. In the case of the latter, the bitterness of a breakup leads to getting over it with alcohol, transposed to a poppy demeanor, leaving one more inspired than resentful.

Brandon Flowers

- Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town

- Romeo and Juliet

- Under The Gun

- Mr. Brightside

Brandon Flowers of The Killers’ style is very romantic and poetic. He works stories seamlessly through a classic-formula pop/rock song. In “Ruby…” and “Under The Gun”, he tells the stories of people he couldn’t possibly be - a paraplegic older man and a heartbroken, widowed young man - and makes them all his own. In “Romeo and Juliet” he simplifies and modernizes the original story to a soothing tune.

John Rezenik

- Iris

- Stay With You

- Slide

- Before It’s Too Late

John Rezenik from The Goo Goo Dolls writes awesome love songs. While they’re heart-wrenching and poignant, they have captivating hooks that keep you in through all the ardor and emotion that love is - conveyed through flawed situations and terrifying odds. Idealistic and dedicated, Rezenik’s style is very charismatic.

Mark Hoppus

- The Party Song

- Lemmings

- Roller Coaster

- Dammit

Mark Hoppus, bassist of blink-182 has had a boyish and innocent tone throughout most of the band’s early career. That particular style usually comes across as immature, and while Mark definitely IS immature, the songs have an endearing quality to them. His excellent use of words, bending them into each other and back over themselves show in many of his songs. Lines like: “Make me promise/ That I will never tell a lie/ Remember’s the way you bedroom smelled” (Roller Coaster) and those of “The Party Song” show how his intricate way of lacing words and lines together make for an interesting and catchy pace. And of course, he did write my favourite song of all time, “Dammit.” Oddly enough, the song was written in a very short period of time about a breakup that never happened.

Tom DeLonge

- Reckless Abandon

- Dick Lips

- Asthenia

- Secret Crowds

- The Adventure

Tom DeLonge, currently of both blink-182 and Angels & Airwaves, has had a lot of growth to his songwriting style. In blink-182, up until the Untitled album, wrote with a very adolescent mindset. Songs like “Anthem,” “Dick Lips” and “Reckless Abandon” are written about getting drunk in high school and going to parties, having your parents get angry at you - teen issues. When his style started to mature, so did the subject matter of his songs. “Asthenia” is about the breakdown of life in space, the feeling of emptiness before giving up on hope altogether. In Angels & Airwaves, Tom writes about love, hope and inspiration. “The Adventure” is all about believing in yourself and resting your life on love and the support of the people you wish to take on the metaphorical adventure of your life.

Jim Adkins

- Bleed American

- Chase This Light

- Let It Happen

Jimmy Eat World’s founding member, Jim Adkins, paints mental landscapes and aural pictures like no other person making music today. His wordsmithery can take you from the comfort of your mind, and drop you somewhere completely unfamiliar - yet make you feel right at home within the emotion. The pictures are almost so vivid that you could become immersed into the situation without even realizing it. “Bleed American” starts off immediately with the grim reality of human dependancy on technology and pacifistic or suppressive medicine - and continues to describe the degradation of modern society through our ostensible advancements. Contrastively,  ”Chase This Light” paints a more hopeful picture; depicting the same modern futility, with a turn for the better brought upon by hope and optimism.

“Feeling This”, “Pathetic”, “Waggy”, “Emo” - blink-182

“Love Love, Kiss Kiss”, “Mercy Me”, “Don’t Say You Won’t” - Alkaline Trio

“Firefight”, “The World You Love” - Jimmy Eat World

“Take Me Home Tonight” - Eddie Money

“Wait For The Blackout” - (covered by both Alkaline Trio and The Goo Goo Dolls)

“True Hate”, “Gardens” - Heavens

“Do Better” - Say Anything

“We Are Cosmonaut” - Farewell Continental

“Ageless Beauty” - Stars

“2 15/16” - USS

“Weatherman” - +44

“Be Yourself” - Audioslave

LITERATURE

Shakespeare

- Hamlet

- Macbeth

- All’s Well That Ends Well

- Coriolanus

- The Tempest

I love Shakespeare’s writing. Not much else to explain here.

Douglas Adams

- Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Series

- Dirk Gently Series

Douglas Adams comedic style is perfect. It’s the written equivalent to Monty Python, in all aspects. Adams actually wrote for Monty Python, and acted with the cast in certain sketches and other projects. Comedy never fit so perfectly into words.

Yasumi Matsuno

- Final Fantasy Tactics

While its not literature in its basic form, Final Fantasy Tactics for the Playstation is super inspiring to me. The characters feel so real, and you can’t help but love or hate them. As well as having depth to begin with (unlike many video games) they grow and change with the story, lending themselves to a sense of interest throughout a 60 hour long game. The story is very compelling, and as one plays through it they become immersed in the world created for them.

Art and Photography

Legit Indian living root bridges. Ficus elastica, If you wanted to know.

Those are just a few pictures I really like. I might just do a blog post of all rad pictures later.

At any rate, this is what Inspires me. Can’t wait to see yours, Louisa!