Happy Tuesday! We’ve eased into June and the last couple of weeks of the school year here in Northern Virginia. We’re down to just half days now, and you can tell the students are really ready to just be done with it all. I also have a new closet! It should be able to sustain the weighty heft of all of our clothes, unlike the previous, crappy closet. Here’s some songs.

1. Matt Berninger, “Times of Difficulty”: It seems that all the forward momentum the National albums used to have was saved up for the lead singer’s new solo album, Get Sunk. The songs on it are catchy and remind me of when the National weren’t just a drone-y, sad-sack band with lots of keyboards and a drum machine, but a drone-y, sad-sack band with lots of guitars. I like guitars.
2. The Minus 5, “Blow In My Bag”: I’m reasonably certain the title refers to someone trying not to hyperventilate, not the contents of Scott McCaughey’s luggage. Reasonably certain.
3. Earth, Wind, and Fire, “Boogie Wonderland (feat. The Emotions)”: One of the quintessential disco songs. It’s got a beat and you can dance to it.
4. The Faces, “Three Button Hand Me Down”: I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write a song that rocks as hard as this song Rod Stewart wrote about a hand-me-down jacket.
5. The Animals, “Gonna Send You Back To Walker”: It’s one of those songs about a girl who saw the bright lights of the city and decided to never, ever stop partying. Honestly, I get it.
6. Linda Ronstadt, “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me”: The way she just rips through this song like a woman on fire never fails to entertain and delight me.
7. John Mellencamp, “Right Behind Me”: At some point in the past fifteen, twenty years, John Mellencamp stopped trying to be relevant and just started writing strange little songs about whatever the hell he wanted to. And I’ll admit, I love it. He did a whole album like it was straight out of the 1950s, with improvised recording set-ups and carefully-placed single microphones to pick up all the instruments (and voices!) all at the same time. It sounds fantastic, and this song is a stellar example of it all.
8. Rufus Wainwright, “Going To A Town”: As with Rufus, I am also tired of you, America.
9. Josh Ritter, “Golden Age of Radio”: I dig me some Josh Ritter, even if his most recent couple of albums have sounded rather bland and uninteresting to me. This song reveals that the man knew what he was doing from the very start, and I really kinda wish he’d get back to this looser, more country sound.
10. Drive-By Truckers, “Decoration Day”: Sure, Decoration Day was technically last week (we call it Memorial Day now), but there’s never a bad time to listen to this song.