The Ida Retsin Family ”Tales of Brave Ida”
The Ida Retsin Family: Volume One, 1998 • Download

It’s hard to write a self-referential lyric if you’re not a rapper. More generic pop stars — like, say, Britney Spears — don’t really understand the subtlety of it, so their version of the technique generally devolves into something like, “It’s Britney, bitch.” So literal! Kelis did it one notch better by asserting that she was “the first girl to scream on a track” in the middle of a song about vintage drum machines, and I’ll give her much credit because it took me a second to realize what the hell she was talking about. Prince, however, gets no points for “My Name is Prince,” because the first lyric to that song is, “My name is Prince and I am funky,” and 1992 is way too late in the game to write a line like that.

But “Tales of Brave Ida” has been my favorite self-referential song ever since I first heard it twelve years ago — mostly because it manages to be both complex and endearing. When Daniel Littleton gets to the part where he sings, “Sometimes people try to get a date / Someone asks me for a Hated tape / That was years ago, my brain gets slow / And I need a drink,” you kind of want to hook the guy up. It’s a bit sullen.

Photo: Jouf