I’m not dead, just on extended break.

It’s a snow week here in Northern Virginia, where we were supposed to start back to school on Monday but are still sitting here at home as of today, Wednesday, because we got about 7″ or 8″ of snow. The previous two weeks were because of Winter Break, and sometimes I want to take a week or two off.

1. Fleetwood Mac, “Never Going Back Again”: Too on the nose? I’m sure we’ll return to the school building at some point, but probably not this week.
2. Chris Smithers, “Leave the Light On”: I watched a video of this guy playing this song live the other day, and I swear if I didn’t know how playing the guitar works, I’d think he was just running his hands up and down the neck at random and making some of the most beautiful music I’d ever heard.
3. The Refreshments, “Banditos”: I cannot tell you how long I got these guys and the Replacements mixed up. It was an embarrassingly long time.
4. Cracker, “Low”: Yes, I was hitting the ’90s nostalgia pretty hard over the break, why do you ask?
5. David Rawlings, “Cumberland Gap”: David Rawlings with a full band? It’s more likely than you’d think!
6. Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros, “Johnny Appleseed”: Joe Strummer being very Joe Strummer. The backing band are pretty good, though, and Joe’s not completely off his nut on this one, so I’ll give it a listen.
7. Matthew Sweet, “Girlfriend”: I mentioned how I was hitting the ’90s nostalgia this past few weeks kinda hard, right? Because it was possibly harder than that, even.
8. Better Than Ezra, “Desperately Wanting”: Oh, now we’re just getting down to “Songs Charlie likes to play on the guitar,” aren’t we? It’s actually a pretty good place to be.
9. Melissa Ethridge, “Come To My Window”: At one point, while listening to the playlist that a lot of these songs were originally on (titled “Circa 199X”), my wife turned and asked me, “Is this just a playlist of songs that were popular in 1998?” To which I replied, “I’m pretty sure it isn’t. The Matthew Sweet song was from, like, ’91.” She remained unconvinced.
10. Willie Nelson, “Pretty Paper”: I added a couple of new songs to my Christmas playlist this season. This was one of them, a beautiful song that fills the heart and mind with images of simpler times. Unlike that damn Lumineers cover of the song. That thing can rot in the deepest bowels of hell.