British indie wavemakers The Editors probably don’t know their way around a newsroom; hence a few talking points to help get them started:
1 Dan Baird, “I Love You Period” (Songs for the Hearing Impaired, 1991) In which the ex-Georgia Satellite’s’ frontman/punctuation enthusiast very literally continues, “Do you love me question mark/Please please exclamation point/I wanna hold you in parenthesis.”
2 Blue Oyster Cult, “Deadline” (Cultosaurus Erectus, 1980) In this Cult, knives and fires and terrible photos are the consequence if you’re running late, text or otherwise.
3 Nelly, “Country Grammar (Hot Shit)” (Country Grammar, 2000) It’s not so much the grammar, but at least four of the following slang terms wouldn’t normally make it into print: “From St. Louis to Memphis/From Texas back up to Indiana, Chi-Town/K.C. Motown to Alabama/LA, New York Yankee niggaz to Hotlanta.”
4 Sage Francis, “Civil Obedience” (Human the Death Dance, 2007) The literary-minded alt-hopper conveys his disdain for the everyday 9-to-5 with a metaphor concerning a favorite sentence-altering tool: “Bored until you’re marked with a blood-red pen.”
5 Daniel Johnston, “Unpack Your Adjectives” (Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks, 1996) Though Moby’s “Verb: That’s What’s Happening,” Buffalo Tom’s “Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here” and Better Than Ezra’s “Conjunction Junction” could have made the cut from the same compilation, this cover offers the clearest advice for aspiring ink-slingers, “You can do it with adjectives/Tell them ’bout it with adjectives/You can shout it with adjectives.”
6 Morrissey, “Dial-a-Cliché” (Viva Hate, 1988) As Moz notes on his first solo album, such overused phrases as “Do as I do,” “Be a man” and “The safe way is the only way” are a dime a dozen.
7 Enchant, “Rough Draft” (Juggling 9 or Dropping 10, 2000) Both in the writing process and in real life, “Today’s a draft of your epitaph … If I ask myself every day, ‘Is today the day?’/Then one day, it will be my final draft.”
8 Moxy Früvous, “I Love My Boss” (The ‘b’ Album, 1996) The Canadian folk-poppers give the ultimate editorial shout-out: “Clark Kent reached the highest height/With the help of Perry White.” –Julie Seabaugh
With Hot Hot Heat and Louis XIV. February 14, 6 p.m., $18. House of Blues, 632-7600.