A Thousand Things To Do, Busy Doing Nothing

Sometimes Love Is All you need, especially is you're thinking about the Swedish indie pop noiseniks that were a burst of energy in the 2000s but seem to have ceased activity following third album Two Thousand And Ten Injuries in 2010.

If you've been following the Bagging Area blog (and if not, today's as good as any to start), then you'll be familiar with the Oblique Saturdays series that's been running for a while.  Inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas), this Saturday's Oblique Strategy was "Do nothing for as long as possible"

My immediate reaction is often the most obvious and I thought of 4’33" by John Cage as the most extreme and literal expression of ‘do nothing’. 

I recalled that Orbital took a similar tack in 1994 with Are We Here? (Criminal Justice Bill?), a reaction to the Tory government's attempts to crack down on dance culture by targeting repetitive beats, taken to it's most ridiculous and reductive conclusion.

Richard Norris’ Music For Healing series is a also a strong contender, a long-running monthly series of 20-minute ambient pieces that provide a great encouragement to relax and do nothing. I posited that the (currently 130+) tracks could be edited into one long sequence of several days… (I've just checked, it's currently just under two days' worth) as long as skipping food, sleep and ablutions for the duration wasn't a concern.

In 2006, Love Is All released the single Busy Doing Nothing which, picking up on their fascination with numbers lists a bunch of things that they could be doing. Instead... well, the title kind of gives it away.

Musically, it's a 215-second burst of energy and a good indication of what Love Is All is generally about, if you enjoy this song.

I actually came into their music via a slightly different route, their 2008 album Love Is All Mixed Up, nine radical reworks of singles and tracks from their debut album Nine Times The Same Song (a line from Busy Doing Nothing).

The list of artists was enough to make me buy the album without having heard a single note by Love Is All up to that point: Hot Chip, Metronomy, Studio, Chicken Lips, Fryars, The Bees and Maps.

Busy Doing Nothing gets two remixes, one from Tapedeck aka Alexander Shields and another - worth the price of purchase alone - "An Optimo (Espacio) Mix" by Keith McIvor/JD Twitch and Dave Clark.

Five movie marathons

Nine times that same song

I'll have to get back to you

I've got a thousand things to do

Ten hours in the bed

Four hours on the phone

What have I got to eat?

One hour in the shower

Two hours trying shoes on

I ain't got time to talk

I'm heading for a walk

Five movie marathons

Nine times that same song

I'll have to get back to you

I've got a thousand things to do

I write my name a hundred times

I'm thinking of words that will rhyme

Yeah, I write my name a hundred times

I'm thinking of words that will rhyme

I'm staring out the window

Oh, where to does the wind blow?

Ten hours in the bed

Four hours on the phone

And I forgot to eat

One hour in the shower

Two hours trying shoes on

I ain't got time to talk

Five-movies marathon

Oh, nine times the same song

I'll have to get back to you

 

I write your name a hundred times

I'm thinking of words that will rhyme

I'm staring out the window

Oh, where to does the wind blow?

(Five movie marathons)

I'm always busy doing nothing

Busy, busy doing nothing

I'll have to get back to you

I've got a thousand things to do

I'm always busy doing nothing

Nothing, nothing

(I've got a thousand things to do)