Death Songs for Hipsters (on the Occasion of Williamsburg Ebola)

 On the historic day that ebola was reported in the nearby hip New York City neighborhood of Williamsburg (October 23, 2014), I tweeted ten suggested grim hipster songs for the occasion:

1. “Your Ex Lover Is Dead” by Stars

2. “Monster Hospital” by Metric

3. “Heads Will Roll” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

4. “Afterlife” by Arcade Fire

5. “Calamity Song” by the Decemberists

6. “In the Aeroplane over the Sea” by Neutral Milk Hotel

7. “Needle in the Hay” by Elliott Smith

8. “I Will Follow You into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie

9. “Sweetest Kill” by Broken Social Scene

10. “No Children” by Mountain Goats

But I have broader tastes than that, of course. Indeed, why not make this the entry containing (by my rough count) my fiftieth online reference to the prog/New Wave band the Fixx, since I just discovered the aptly-titled “I’ve Been Here Before,” the B-side to their song “Lost Planes,” so old that they hadn’t yet acquired the second “x” in their name when they released it. If you count the more blatantly Devo-inspired couple of songs they did as the Portraits, like “Hazards in the Home,” they technically have even earlier stuff, for good or ill.

Of course, serious prog fans would probably care more about things like this song, which turned thirty this year, from the Alan Parsons Project, “Don’t Answer Me,” or the more authentically prog -- robotic yet funky -- “I Wouldn’t Want to Be Like You” from back in 1977, the video for which may please Daft Punk fans, I suppose. I think the robots will like it, and they will need something to watch if they are the only survivors of the ebola crisis. (But you don’t see me, like, moving or anything.)