“All of Me”
All of me
How dare you try to take all of me
Can’t you see
I exist wholly, with unbreached self-esteem, without you
My lips are mine
How can I lose myself in you? I am still myself
My arms are my arms
Romantic love is a conscious expression of philosophy
Your goodbye
Left me with eyes that cry
But then I incorporated my own well-being into my hierarchy of values and acted accordingly
You took the part
That once was my heart
Love is not self-sacrifice, it is inherently selfish and I decline utterly any concept of love that does not take personal pleasure into account
“Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”
They asked me how I knew
My true love was true
I of course replied
Truth is the recognition of reality
Reason is man’s only means of knowledge
Reason is the only standard of truth
They said, some day you’ll find
All who love are blind
When your heart’s on fire
You must realize
Smoke gets in your eyes
This is excellent,
Cigarettes represent man’s mastery over fire
When you smoke, you tame fire
You hold lightning in your hands
Howard Roark smokes cigarettes and so do I
So I chaffed them, and I gaily laughed
To think they would doubt our love
And now today, my love has gone away
I am without my love
Yet what is freedom?
To ask nothing.
To expect nothing.
To depend on nothing.
My love left me,
but he could not take myself from me
I am neither richer nor poorer without him
Contradictions do not exist.
“Someone To Watch Over Me”
There’s a saying old, says that love is blind
in fact, a person’s sexual choice
is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions
Show me the person you sleep with and I will show you your philosophy of life
and your valuation of yourself
So I’m going to go seek a certain lad
I’ve had in mind
He is my equal and I want him to crush me.
Looking everywhere,
haven’t found him yet
He’s the big affair
I cannot forget
Only man I ever think of with regret
I am in love with the concept of integrity
I’d like to add his initial to my monogram
as a free choice only, never as a sign of ownership
There’s a somebody I’m longing to see.
I hope that he turns out to be
someone whose total and abject surrender permits me to celebrate myself
I’m a little lamb who’s lost in the wood
I know I could be always be good
To someone who sees a reflection of his deepest vision of himself in me
Although he may not be the man some girls think of as handsome,
sex is an expression of self-esteem
Won’t you tell him please to put on some speed,
follow my lead,
Oh, how I need
someone who’ll respond to my highest values
“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”
Tonight you’re mine completely
You give your love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
Will you continue pursuing your long-term goals consistently and rationally tomorrow?
Is this a lasting treasure
Or just a moment’s pleasure?
Let us integrate the events of this evening with our actions, goals and values
Into our respective frameworks
If they happen to align
So much the better for us both
Tonight with words unspoken
And you say that I’m the only one
But I am an end in myself
Also, there is no “right” to economic security
I’d like to know that your love
Is love I can be sure of
If not, I will value your honesty
Love can never be demanded, only given
I will not demand promises of tomorrow
It is more important that you remain faithful to yourself
than to me
There’s a somebody I’m longing to see.
I hope that he turns out to be
someone whose total and abject surrender permits me to celebrate myself
New Toast slogan?
kiiiiinky.
Mallory, do you sing? Will you record these versions of the songs? (If not, is there another Toastie who will?)
I don’t know if there’s room in these versions for anyone singing them to actually breathe, which might be problematic.
I feel like only Madeline Kahn as Lilli Von Stupp could do these justice.
I would cut off my left arm and the corresponding breast for this.
I sing and know barbershop versions of the last two, but I would not try to fit these versions into those meters. It hurts my delicate sensibilities. ;_;
Another barbershopper! Hello!!
I’m game, if someone will accompany me on the piano (I am not good enough to accompany myself).
Bits of these almost make me like Ayn Rand, and it disturbs me.
I feel like there should be more torch songs (and portrayals of love in pop culture in general) that incorporate concepts like
“Your goodbye
Left me with eyes that cry
But then I incorporated my own well-being into my hierarchy of values and acted accordingly.”
and also “Will you continue pursuing your long-term goals consistently and rationally tomorrow?”
I know. Mallory has done the impossible and made her sympathetic, if only for a moment.
That is exactly what I came to comment. It feels WEIRD.
Brilliant! BUT…now the refrain from Smoke Gets in Your Eyes in lodged in my brain.
I have a cover by someone (she sounds kind of like the lead singer of the Cardigans in my head) that I know I used to listen to stuck in my brain, and I cannot find it anywhere. Not even a reference to a similar cover. I feel slightly crazy.
I know that section of crazytown so very well.
Finally some love songs I can relate to! I’ve seen Toasties form bands in the comments inspired by great band names several times; I’m now counting on some of you to record these.
I’m saddened by the distinct lack of penises being cursed.
Say what you will about Ayn Rand, she couldn’t rhyme for shit.
“Why do birds
Suddenly appear
Every time
Trains are near?
Just like me
They want to be
Close to
Trains”
I’m going to sing this every time I’m on Amtrak from now until forever. In my head, because I sit in the quiet car, the best of all places.
I have the Cranberries cover of this song and I will always think of this now. Well done.
“Tonight you’re mine completely
You give your love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
Will you continue pursuing your long-term goals consistently and rationally tomorrow?”
Yes yes yes. I think I have made a rational decision, based on my personal wants and needs, to fall in love with Ayn Rand. Together we will ride trains and discuss philosophy.
Just don’t talk to her about sex. Her kinks are THE ONLY RATIONAL WAY TO HAVE SEX. Any and all other sex things people do are WRONG.
And if you disagree she’ll curse your genitals
“How can I lose myself in you? I am still myself” makes me wonder how Ayn Rand might rewrite Lose Yourself.
This lines up almost perfectly with the way in which I’ve recently decided to conduct my love life and I do not know how to feel about it AT ALL.
Actually, no, I do. I am willing to align here with good ol’ Ayn because (a) fiction and (b) “I decline utterly any concept of love that does not take personal pleasure into account” is an objectively (see what I did there?!) awesome and I will not hear otherwise.
Right? Like, the main thing I object to here is all the cigarette love, which I kind of forgive her for because at the time she was writing her books the link between tobacco use and cancer wasn’t as widely known. The only other minor objection I have is to the fact that Ayn Rand doesn’t acknowledge that it’s possible to have sex with someone whose personal values you don’t 100% endorse and still enjoy it… but that’s a quibble.
… I just realized that I have only had sex with people whose personal values I agreed with. Maybe not 100%, but … yeah.
I’m learning all kinds of stuff about myself today.
I haven’t, entirely. I’ve been with people who I’d mistakenly thought had personal values aligned with mine, and later have felt utterly devastated when I discovered things about them that I didn’t endorse/respect. It’s been a challenge to stop thinking badly about this and start just enjoying the good memories. I realized that the reason I felt so bad was because I’d internalized the gross-patriarchy idea that women are defined by who we fuck, therefore if I fucked people who weren’t the greatest, then that meant I was “tainted.” When I verbalized this to myself, I realized that it denied my ability to enjoy sex, and that that was silly.
But yeah, a lot of my sexual attraction to people stems from shared personal values.
Yep. Yepyepyep. Also the whole concept of “don’t reward that guy with your body!” Why in the hell is it a reward (I mean, my body is awesome, but “reward” is a gross way of framing it)? Why is the reward one-sided? If I’m fucking someone, I’m making damn sure I’m getting something out of it too.
But I still find it difficult to be attracted to conservatives, no matter how sexy they are.
YES. This exactly. I had subconsciously internalized that I’d “rewarded” undeserving people with sex and that I was therefore doing Bad Things for the world by reinforcing the idea that their ideologies/worldviews/actions were correct. But that the dudes I was doing weren’t endorsing my ideology or even thinking about anything except the sex that was being had. And that obviously all was copacetic with the women I was with because of course.
Yeah… “Why is the reward one-sided” puts it really succinctly.
Right: I don’t yet have “no libertarians” tattooed on my inner thighs, but am seriously thinking about it. Because: ew. I don’t think that shit is sexually transmitted, but I don’t want to risk it.
But I’ve absolutely fucked jerks, because they were hot, and I regret nothing.
I was going to suggest adding ‘no douche bags’ but, that would be redundant. A+ inspired tattoo concept.
FYI, she kept right on going after the link was established and would not concede to stop telling her devotees how awesome cigarettes are.
Then again I quit smoking today and want to blow things up, so maybe I have a tiny point of congruence with Ayn. Just one.
Awesome about quitting!
I did not know that about her… I read a few of her books in high school and was pretty disturbed by all the smoking, and then discovered that people legit didn’t know that smoking was bad for you until more recently than I’d thought. It doesn’t surprise me that Rand didn’t reverse her stance on this… as she got older it seems she just got nuttier.
“Show me the person you sleep with and I will show you your philosophy of life
and your valuation of yourself”
Problematic concept here, or sure, but that kind of smacked me in the face after recently ending a torrid affair with an alcoholic republican I met on tinder…
When I got to that line I stopped and briefly felt bad about choices Past Me has made.
(Present Me is doing much better though.)
I am 100% here for this article, and even more here for more torch songs rewritten by Ayn Rand. When you get to “Surabaya-Johnny”, I will set off fireworks in celebration.