The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #267

#267: "Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken" (2006) - Camera Obscura

This answer song--twenty-two years after-the-fact--begins with a dour, somber, church organ, and then it kicks into gear, roaming the warm Glasgow countryside of life, looking at the world through partially rose-colored glasses. Back in 1984, the Glasgow, Scotland group Lloyd Cole & the Commotions released their debut album (a very good one, too), and it ended with the song "Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?" That song --reeking of cynicism--berated someone (a lover, possibly) for being too optimistic. Twenty-two years later, C.O.'s lead singer Tracyanne Cambell's responds to Cole's cynicism, with a insanely catchy and beautiful melody, sounding like an updated, more soulful, breezier version of the Cardigans.

Here, Cambell states that she's ready to be heartbroken--to brave the world, ready for it to crush her if that happens to be the case, but ready nonetheless. She's got Kenny McKeeve doing a mean Johnny Marr guitar impersonator standing by her side, and some lush strings (borrowed from Dusty Springfield's old producer) and lush harmonies (w/Carey Lander, who crossed the ocean and went to Alabama where she stole the old organ from the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios) to brace her from any hit she'll take. She can't see the long road right now, but that's okay, 'cause the future's bright right in front of her, and she'll walk down that road while she can. Optimism in the face of crushing cynicism--Lloyd, honey, that's what rock and roll's about (well, one of the things it's about. It's what this song's about anyway). It's not, "Don't Worry, Be Happy;" it's "Be Happy; Worry When I Need To." She's not going to let life shut her down. Like fellow Glasgow band Simple Minds once shouted, Cambell and company are alive and kicking.