Indie-Yuppies Vs. LA, Part II

Why do the indie-yuppies hate us so? I'd been waffling a bit on whether the Decemberists' 2003 track, "Los Angeles, I'm Yours," really counts as cliched -- mainly because Colin Meloy's language is so flowery, I can barely understand what the hell he's talking about. But a couple people suggested it for this blog, and from what I can tell, he certainly doesn't like us:

There is a city by the sea

A gentle company

I don't suppose you want to

And as it tells its sorry tale

In harrowing detail

Its hollowness will haunt you

Its streets and boulevards

Orphans and oligarchs it hears

A plaintive melody

Truncated symphony

An ocean's garbled vomit on the shore

Los Angeles, I'm yours

Oh ladies, pleasant and demure

Sallow-cheeked and sure

I can see your undies

And all the boys you drag about

An empty fellow found

From Saturdays to Mondays

You hill and valley crowd

Hanging your trousers down at heel

This is the realest thing

As ancient choirs sing

A dozen blushing cherubs wheel above

Los Angeles I love

Oh what a rush of ripe elan

Languor on divans

Dalliant and dainty

But oh, the smell of burnt cocaine

The dolor and decay

It only makes me cranky

Oh great calamity

Ditch of iniquity and tears

How I abhor this place

Its sweet and bitter taste

Has left me wretched, retching on all fours

Los Angeles, I'm yours

Next time tell us how you really feel, Colin. Now there are indeed a few tried-and-true LA stereotypes in here, mainly the cocaine and the hollowness and the iniquity. But most of it just adds up to a general dump of somewhat nonsensical anti-Los Angeles-isms, from the dueling barf references to the affected pronunciation of "Los Ange-LEES" (I'm surprised he doesn't use the hard "g") to the sallow-cheeked underwear-exposing ladies having sex while cherubs sing -- he says that like it's a bad thing. It's all very evocative, but when you get down to it, he's just kind of kvetching without any actual criticism or analysis or even remotely realistic description of our city, let alone evidence that he has any real knowledge of it. And we're the ones who are "hollow"?

Of course, just four years later the Decemberists were welcomed warmly to LA to headline the 17,400-seat Hollywood Bowl, accompanied by the LA Philharmonic. I have to admit I've been called a lot of things in my time, but if someone described me as "an ocean's garbled vomit," I'm not sure I'd be so forgiving.