Massive Attack's Teardrop is Traffic's Dear Mr. Fantasy...

Happy Monday, happy House day! Previously, I posted on my discovery that the House theme is the song "Teardrop" by Massive Attack. (Upon further investigation, I discovered that was already known.) Now I have a deeper insight into the House theme.

A couple weekends ago, a friend from work who knows good old rock was playing his iPod over our stereo in the Step-Down unit when a song came on and I thought "hey, that's House... er, I mean, Teardrop...". I asked him the name of the song, and his answer confused me, so I let it go. Then this weekend, he was playing the same playlist, so I asked him again and after coming home and browsing around a bit I understand my confusion: musician Steve Winwood had a band named Traffic, which also produced an album named Traffic, and their song "Dear Mr. Fantasy" is from the album Mr. Fantasy. Too many of the same name!

Anyhow, it turns out that "Dear Mr. Fantasy" is incredibly close to "Teardrop." In fact, so close that I find it hard to believe that Massive Attack wasn't making some sort of allusion to Traffic. If you don't believe me, listen to "Teardrop" (after the lyrics start) and then "Dear Mr. Fantasy" for yourself...


With this in mind, we can use the power of formal logic to make the following conclusion.

House is Massive Attack's Teardrop;
Massive Attack's Teardrop is Traffic's Dear Mr. Fantasy;
Ergo, House is Traffic's Dear Mr. Fantasy.

This actually makes a lot more sense. I could never quite figure out how the lyrics of "Teardrop" applied to House, but the lyrics of "Dear Mr. Fantasy" are a no-brainer:

Dear Mister Fantasy play us a tune
Something to make us all happy
Do anything take us out of this gloom
Sing a song, play guitar
Make it snappy
You are the one who can make us all laugh
But doing that you break out in tears
Please don't be sad if it was a straight mind you had
We wouldn't have known you all these years.

The lyrics describe relationships between both the character of House and the other characters on the show as well as the relationship between the show and viewers (yeah, you know it). It fits with House's guitar-playing, as featured in multiple episodes. The funky musical style of the lyrical portions of "Dear Mr. Fantasy" fits with the music often used on House (in fact, was it featured on an episode?). And the psychedelic theme fits with the drug usage.

So, what do I think happened? I think somebody connected with the creation of the House show knew music, knew Traffic and Massive Attack, thought Dear Mr. Fantasy fit with House but that it wouldn't fly as a TV theme and substituted the beginning of "Teardrop."