It doesn't hurt when it begins.

Lady & Bird "Suicide is Painless" (M*A*S*H theme song)
It never occurrred to me this song had lyrics until I was between the 7th and 8th grades. I was in some lame summer choral class at a local grammar school. (Can you say nerd?) One of the other singing classes (Or were they kids from a different school? I've no idea.) showed up at the big concert and belted this out with the raw emotion of kids pissed off that their parents wouldn't let them sit home all summer playing Atari. I remember being mildly miffed at the time that they got to sing something deep while my class was dancing around like idiots to "Consider Yourself," "The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company C" and "I Just Called to Say I Love You."

The next time I heard a version with lyrics, I was probably already in college and I flashed back to middle school and realized, "Hey! That's a pretty depressed fucked-up song to let a group of pre-teens sing at a showcase for parents." I swear, the '80s were an awesome, tubular, tripendicular time. Parents were too busy thinking about watching Miami Vice, buying new Izod shirts, snorting cocaine and drinking wine coolers to give a fuck what their kids were being taught. There were boobs in every movie and no one cared. We pop culture-obsessed geeks were free to wear O-ring jelly bracelets without fear of expulsion. The glory days, I call 'em. Just like the Boss. I was dancin' in the dark and born in the U.S.A. and my mom didn't pay any attention to anything I did. Kids today have no idea!

Now for the part where I actually sort of talk about this track: Even if this duo's version weren't soft and pretty and folky and soaking in lilting foreign accents I love so, I'd still have posted it because I love this desccription from the band's website, which I translated from the original French using my rusty romance-language skills: "LADY AND BIRD are two creatures whose origin is lost in the mists of time and who chose to be reincarnated in adult bodies in order to benefit from terrestrial pleasures." How could one not be intrigued? The rest of their self-titled album is equally charming. Fans of the Velvet Underground and Belle and Sebastian and the like should definitely check it out.