music

Playlist #210

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Tuesdays are the new Mondays, at least when you spend your Monday sitting at home waiting for the HVAC guy to show up. When he finally does, he’s gonna tell you that you need a whole new system, won’t that be a fun and adult experience to have! Anyway, here’s some songs.

  1. Fleetwood Mac, “Everywhere”: Why do I hear this song as interstitial music, like, everywhere? It’s a good song, mind you – not one of their absolute best, but good – I just don’t see why everyone from Target to NPR is using it.
  2. Daughter of Swords, “Hard On”: Yes, it’s about what you think it’s about, but humorously so and from the woman’s perspective, I think? Or maybe the singer is taking on the role of a man? Either way, it’s a good song, Jerry.
  3. Warren Zevon, “Lawyers, Guns and Money”: If you’re gonna send anything, you could do worse than these three things, I guess.
  4. Mark Knopfler, “Don’t Crash the Ambulance”: So, this song came out in 2004. Is the intended target George W. Bush? Because he ran for reelection that year, sure, but it was re-election. I’d think the kind of advice this song offers – such as “don’t push the big red button or you’ll kill us all” – would have been far more useful and effective about four years earlier.
  5. Uncle Tupelo, “No Sense in Lovin'”: Latter-day Uncle Tupelo sounds like more of a set-up for future bands Son Volt and Wilco, and no more so than on this Jeff Tweedy number that wouldn’t have felt amiss on Wilco’s A.M.
  6. The White Stripes, “Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine”: Just tell us she’s anti-vax and move on, Jack.
  7. Albert King, “Born Under a Bad Sign”: Now, I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious. That being said, I’m usually fairly certain I wasn’t born under a bad sign, and wouldn’t really know how to recognize if I was, and I treasure this ignorance. Please, no one tell me what it means, as I might lose some other, more vital, piece of information. I can only keep so many things in my head, and I’d hate to lose something important like my social security number or my wife’s birthday.
  8. Jars of Clay, “Reckless Forgiver”: I probably forgive recklessly. If there’s anything I took from my Christian upbringing (aside from a sense of compassion for those less fortunate and a weird anti-authoritarian theological streak that I cannot get rid of), it’s that forgiveness is vital to a good life. Also, don’t be a dick to other people.
  9. John Prine, “Spanish Pipedream”: I’m not really certain why it’s important that “she was a level-headed dancer,” but I’m sure it must have been important ’cause it’s the first line of the song. You don’t include a detail like that unless it’s vital to understanding the character or plot. Maybe it’s designed to make you think her advice – to “blow up your TV, throw away your paper, move to the country, build you a home, plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches, try to find Jesus on your own” – is more grounded that it sounds at first blush.
  10. Joe Walsh, “Rocky Mountain Way”: I almost learned to play a B chord for this song, but in the end I just cheat and slide my A chord down two frets and only strum three of the six strings. It’s a cheater B, as I call it, but it works for all the longer you actually have to play that chord in the song. Song’s a banger, though.

Playlist #209

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It’s Monday again, somehow. Time continues forward. SOL testing starts this week at my school, so we’re stuck in one class each day for two periods instead of one. I’m thinking the kids are gonna get real sick of my dad jokes before that time ends.

  1. Dire Straits, “Your Latest Trick”: It’s one of those classic ’80s songs with saxophone solos in it.
  2. Elvis Presley, “Run On”: I’d only ever heard the Johnny Cash (and, by extension, the Gaslight Anthem) version of this song, which is slower and more menacing. Elvis’s version sounds like a tent revival on speed.
  3. Kenny Rogers & the First Edition, “Just Dropping In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)”: Kentucky-Fried Kenny was apparently a bit…psychedelic back in the day? I somehow never realized he’d done this song, but it’s groovy.
  4. Drive-By Truckers, “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac”: I love story songs, and ones based on reality (Carl Perkins really did win a Cadillac from Sam Phillips) are just always pretty great. And no one really does them better these days than the Drive-By Truckers, who have such an eye (and ear) for detail.
  5. Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins, “Born Secular”: Such a sad, deep song, driven by that drum machine loop and the big chords on the piano. There really isn’t a bad song on that album.
  6. Nanci Griffith, “This Old Town”: Oklahoma is littered with towns like the ones this song is about: small, isolated communities that should have shut down years ago, shoud’ve become ghost towns a dozen times over, but still somehow cling to life and continued existence. Most of them are built around the local public school, actually.
  7. Tom Petty, “Crawling Back to You (Alternate Version)”: The original version of this song remains one of the absolute best on his best album, Wildflowers. This alternate take feels looser and somehow sadder.
  8. Bruce Springsteen, “O Mary Don’t You Weep”: The Seeger Sessions collection is such a strange aberration in Springsteen’s catalog. It’s loose and celebratory and fun, without the dozens of layers of post-production and overdubs and the agonizing over mixing and mastering that usually accompanies a Bruce production.
  9. Van Morrison, “Almost Independence Day”: While the guitar riff sounds almost like “Wish You Were Here,” the song’s other Pink Floyd connection is the length – it’s over ten minutes – if not the thematic content. Van sorta goes on a rambling, stream-of-consciousness sort of thing over the course of the song, but it sounds amazing. The low buzzsaw of that keyboard (or is it a cello or a double bass? I honestly don’t know) that cuts through occasionally gets me every time, and I wish I could figure out how he got that tone out of it and how I could duplicate it.
  10. Collective Soul, “Shine”: So apparently the entire album this song is off of was just the demos the lead singer did on his own, playing all the instruments himself. The little “yeah” before the chorus was sung through a toilet paper roll, which is a hilarious bit of trivia with which to impress your friends.

Playlist #208: Uncle Gert

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It’s Tuesday, but I only just got back from a quick trip to Oklahoma last night. Yes, I said I was going to Ohio last week for Spring Break, but then a difficult and unfortunate thing happened: my Uncle Randy died. So instead of Ohio, I headed to Oklahoma. Anyway, here are ten songs that I think of when I think of my uncle.

  1. The Traveling Wilburys, “Poor House”: Whenever the family gets together, the guitars come out. And whenever the guitars come out, we play this song. Uncle Randy was the lead player of the family, the guy who knew all the parts in each song and can usually come up with something on the spot that perfectly fits the song. He loved playing this one and asked me to sing it every time.
  2. Chicago, “25 or 6 to 4”: Apparently both my dad and my uncle were completely and totally in love with Chicago back in the 70s, and this was always their favorite by them. The Terry Kath guitar solo in this one is a hell of a challenge, but apparently Randy was able to master it in high school.
  3. The Beatles, “Two Of Us”: We loved playing this one in the guitar pickin’ circle. It’s got beautiful vocals from Lennon and McCartney, giving my dad and me a chance to each sing one part. This generally works better when we’re not trying to harmonize, as I tend to follow any other voice I hear in terms of how they’re singing.
  4. Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here”: My uncle did a long-running series of covers called “Family, Friends, and Me.” He did well over 100 covers of rock and roll songs over the years, recently releasing the seventh volume online just a couple of weeks ago. One of the songs for this most recent collection was this Pink Floyd tune, one I’ve loved since I heard it so many years ago.
  5. The Eagles, “Desperado”: A beautiful ballad that Gert’s friend Teresa sang on the seventh volume of “Family, Friends, and Me.” She does it perfect, and I honestly can’t imagine anyone else ever singing it.
  6. The Regular Joes, “Flame On, Fire of Love”: My uncle was in a number of bands over the years, but the one I will always remember was called the Regular Joes. They were a rock and roll band who did a share of covers and originals, and this original was on their last record. It’s one of those rock songs that manages to be wistful and sad and beautiful all at once, and it’s always been one of my favorites of theirs.
  7. Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Who’ll Stop the Rain”: There are good songs on every single CCR album, even the really terrible last couple. But this one stands tall even among their vaunted catalog. We played this one all the time in the pickin’ circles.
  8. Boston, “More Than a Feeling”: The guy behind the band Boston, Tom Scholz, reminds me a lot of Uncle Randy. They were both perfectly at home in the studio and crafted multi-layered, phenomenal songs.
  9. The Cottrell Boys, “Rainin’ on a Thursday”: My dad and Randy recorded a few songs themselves, just for fun, and I usually wrote lyrics for them. This is one of the songs dad and I are most proud of, and they made it sound perfect in my opinion.
  10. Foo Fighters, “My Hero”: There’s a photo of my uncle, from when he was young, sitting there in sunglasses and holding a Strat. For his birthday a few years ago, his son, my cousin Chris, gave him a blown-up version of the photo with the lyrics to this song on the back. It featured in the funeral, even. It’s a song that’s now indelibly linked with my uncle in my mind.

Playlist #207: Wilco Albums, Ranked

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Happy Monday, folks! I’m off in Ohio on Spring Break this week, but the internet is a greedy sonuvagun and demands content! And as it just so happens, I spent all last week doing a deep dive into the catalog of the band Wilco, so I thought I’d just rank their albums and judge all of them accordingly.

13. Cruel Country: It’s not a bad album, per se, nor is it a return to the alt-country of their earliest days. It’s a latter-day Wilco album, with all that entails: excellent instrumentation played by consummate professionals, while Jeff Tweedy mumbles and croons over it all. It’s good, just not as good as some of their other stuff.

12. AM: Their first album, which really just feels like Uncle Tupelo 2.0. The sound is rough and ragged and the songs aren’t nearly as finished as you’d like them to be. There’s some bright spots here and there – “Passenger Side” remains a personal favorite – but it’s not anything like what the band became.

11. Star Wars: Even though it combines three of my favorite things (the cat on the cover, the title, and the band Wilco), I’m not a huge fan of this album. My biggest complaint about it is that it feels too tossed off and too self-serious at the same time. It’s like Wilco trying to reclaim their art-rock credentials, but also it sounds like they were just freeform jamming in the studio.

10. Cousins: It’s another latter-day Wilco album that I just…don’t really remember after I’ve listened to it. It’s good, it’s pleasant and all, but I don’t remember a single song off this one.

9. Schmilco: Wilco still trying to recapture that art-rock cred, but at least this time their sense of humor is intact and the songs feel more fleshed out than on Star Wars.

8. Ode To Joy: Here we go. From here forward, we start getting into the solid albums, the ones really worth listening to. Ode To Joy finds the band balancing their artier pretensions with good, solid songcraft. They use weirdness in service to the songs. Tunes like “Quiet Amplifier” and “Everyone Hides” are damn good. If I was going to pick a latter-day Wilco album to start with, this would be it.

7. Being There: Yeah, it’s probably blasphemy to put this one in the middle of the list, and the double album is where Wilco starts to coalesce into a band rather than a jumble of musicians banging away on their instruments, but there’s a lot of filler on these two discs. They could’ve had a stone-cold classic if they’d edited it down to just a single LP. That being said, “Misunderstood,” “Outtasite (Outta Mind),” “Red-Eyed And Blue,” “Say You Miss Me,” “Sunken Treasure,” and “Dreamer In My Dreams” are all outstanding songs that showcase what Tweedy and the band could do.

6. Wilco (the album): When you kick off your self-titled album with a self-titled track, the oroboros that you have become is finally complete. There are some bangers on here, though, such as “One Wing” and “You Never Know,” and “Sonny Feeling” is a great travelogue song.

5. The Whole Love: The title track alone makes this album worth the price of entry. The fact that you also get great songs like “I Might” and “Capitol City,” or “Dawned On Me” and “Open Mind,” or the trippy opener “Art of Almost” (with a great freakout coda at the end) is just icing on the delicious cake.

4. Sky Blue Sky: When this album first came out, three years after A Ghost Is Born, I felt…let down. It wasn’t nearly as inventive or experimental or exciting as the previous album. It was just…dad rock. Sure, the songs were pleasant and well-constructed, and the band were in fine form, but it just didn’t click with me. I’m happy to say it clicks now, and tracks like “You Are My Face” or “Hate It Here” could’ve fit alongside anything from Ghost and been perfectly acceptable. There isn’t a bad song on here, and the penultimate song, “What Light,” might be one of the best, sweetest songs Tweedy’s ever written.

3. A Ghost Is Born: While it’s probably my personal favorite Wilco album, I’m not crazy enough to believe that it’s their best. There are too many weird detours – “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” is just too damn long, and “Less Than You Think” just drones on for what feels like an eternity – but the songs that hit really hit. Opener “At Least That’s What You Said” starts out quiet and moody, then breaks out into a Neil Young and Crazy Horse exercise. There’s a string of songs in the middle of the album – “Muzzle of Bees,” “Hummingbird,” and “Handshake Drugs” – that feels so absolutely perfect that I cannot imagine any other sequence of songs ever being that right again. Then there’s the one-two punch of “Theologians” and “The Late Greats” on either side of “Less Than You Think.” They’re uptempo and bouncy and just fun. This is a Serious BandTM, but they know how to have fun and cut loose.

2. Summerteeth: Everyone goes through a Beach Boys phase, right? Except most of us don’t turn that phase into one of the best albums of the ’90s. This is one of those all-killer, no-filler albums (well, except for maybe “Pieholden Suite” and “Via Chicago,” but I’m entitled to my opinions and you’re entitled to yours) that you can just put on and listen to all the way through, and when it reaches the end, you just flip the album over and start it again from the top. This is the band realizing its potential, and everything comes up aces.

1. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot: If Summerteeth is the band realizing their potential, YHF is Wilco surpassing every expectation. It’s the perfect distillation of Americana and alt-country or whatever else you want to call it. It’s the American experience, grappling with life in a post-9/11 world, searching for meaning and reason in a world without either. It’s a perfect album.

Playlist #206

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Happy dreary, rainy Monday, folks. Next week is Spring Break! And then we don’t get another break until Memorial Day, so we better make it count.

  1. Wilco, “You Never Know”: Did you know Jeff Tweedy and Co. wrote the best song George Harrison and Jeff Lynne never recorded? It’s true! It’s this song.
  2. Linda Ronstadt, “Tumblin’ Dice”: Brother Clyde’s distaste for this Rolling Stones classic notwithstanding, Ronstadt’s cover blows it out of the water, hands down.
  3. The New Pornographers, “Ballad Of The Last Payphone”: There are stranger things to write an ode to, but few as heartbreaking as an outdated, outmoded piece of technology.
  4. Alison Krauss & Union Station, “Richmond On The James”: It’s a song about Richmond, VA. It’s off their first album in well over a decade, and it’s just as good as anything else they’ve ever released.
  5. Jeremy Messersmith, “Billionaires”: As I sit here, watching my retirement savings disappear because someone decided they wanted to start a trade war with the entire rest of the world (including some islands that don’t have any human inhabitants), I listen to this song and I think…maybe the French had the right idea during the Reign of Terror.
  6. Sting, “All This Time”: One of my favorite songs of all time, featuring one of my favorite lines of all time: “Men go crazy in congregations/They only get better one by one.”
  7. The Black Crowes, “Hard To Handle”: I love me an old R&B cover. I remember that my dad had this album on cassette when we were kids; it was the last new music I think he’s bought.
  8. Townes Van Zandt, “Pancho And Lefty”: If there’s a better version of this song out there, I haven’t heard it.
  9. The Hollies, “The Air That I Breathe”: Just such a simple, beautiful love song. Gotta give it to the Hollies.
  10. Jim James, “Long, Long, Long”: And we close with another cover, this one of the George Harrison classic “Long, Long, Long” from the White Album. It’s slow and languid and sad, and I could listen to it all day long (long, long).

Playlist #205

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Happy Monday, folks, and Eid Mubarak! Karaoke was fun over the weekend, and we did all of the songs as a big group sing-along. Also, in case you missed it, my new album came out on Friday, available on the streaming service of your choice. Go listen to that! Then come back and look at this list of songs:

  1. Queen, “Bohemian Rhapsody”: Yeah, this is how we kicked off the karaoke. Bold move, I know, but we’re a bold bunch.
  2. A-Ha, “Take On Me”: If you’re not trying (and failing) to hit that high note at the end of the chorus, what even are you doing at karaoke?
  3. Fine Young Cannibals, “Good Thing”: Turns out, “She Drives Me Crazy” would’ve been a better choice, since we all actually know that one.
  4. Cake: “The Distance”: If you want a bunch of Millennials and Gen-Xers to sing along as loud as humanly possible, you could do worse than this.
  5. Violent Femmes, “Blister In The Sun”: Yeah, we all knew all the words to this one without the karaoke version flashing them up on the screen.
  6. Gin Blossoms, “Hey Jealousy”: I think we eventually found our sweet spot in ’90s alternative.
  7. Wham!, “Careless Whisper”: The song where Wham! earned that exclamation mark.
  8. The Beatles, “I Saw Her Standing There”: Can we, for a just a moment, stop and cringe at the first line of this song and then move on? Yes, he’s singing about a 17 year old girl. Yes, it’s creepy and skeevy and gross. This song is still a banger, though.
  9. The Police, “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”: Did we sing this one? I can’t remember. We should have, if we didn’t.
  10. Backstreet Boys, “I Want It That Way”: Look, there were a lot of people at this thing, and everyone has different ideas of what makes a good karaoke song. Also, that Brooklyn 99 cold open that features this song is brilliant.

Beard Situation Now Available!

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Happy Friday! My new album, Beard Situation, is out now wherever you may stream your music. Or, at the very least, it’s available on AppleMusic and Spotify, and I can’t imagine any of y’all are using some other streaming source at this point. I’m proud of these songs, and I hope you like them. Physical CDs will be forthcoming!

Playlist #204 – Birthday Edition!

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s my birthday this Thursday, if’n you didn’t know, and I’ll be turning 45. I do not feel like a 45 year old except when I stand up too fast or sit on the floor for too long. We’re gonna go sing karaoke this weekend to celebrate, so here’s my go-to songs for karaoke:

  1. B-52s, “Love Shack”: I’ll sing all the parts by myself, given half a chance.
  2. Tom Petty, “Won’t Back Down”: Really, any Tom Petty song works for me, but this one is fun if you can get everyone else to sing along on the chorus.
  3. The Darkness, “I Believe In A Thing Called Love”: The really fast part in the chorus? The absolute best.
  4. Barenaked Ladies, “One Week”: The whole damn thing is too fast for most folks, but I spent my college years perfecting it rather than going on dates.
  5. Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Who’ll Stop The Rain”: Really, any CCR song would work.
  6. Hank Williams, “Why Don’t You Love Me”: A country crier? A sob-story to pedal steel and fiddle? Sign me up!
  7. George Thorogood & the Destroyers, “Move It On Over”: Yeah, it’s technically also a Hank Williams song, but the George Thorogood version is probably more fun to sing. You gotta throw that growl in there.
  8. Phil Collins, “In The Air Tonight”: If you don’t air drum at that spot (you know what spot), you are dead inside.
  9. The Animals, “House Of The Rising Sun”: Is it easy to hit those high parts? Of course not. Does that actually matter when you are karaokeing? Not in the least.
  10. Louis Armstrong, “Mack The Knife”: Everyone needs a pop standard in their back pocket, and this is mine. I think I do it some justice.

Coming Soon…

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Y’all probably know this by now, but not only do I enjoy writing about music, I also enjoy creating music! And lo! these past few months, Brother Clyde has been hard at work mixing and mastering my latest musical offerings, and the process is nearly complete!

Yeah, that’s right, it’s time for your annual Charlie Cottrell album release! Here’s the cover, followed by the track listing and some more rambling from me:

Behold! My face in all its bearded glory! And also some white text that says "Charlie Cottrell" and "Beard Situation."

Anyway, the new album is called Beard Situation. Most of the songs on it are brand-spankin’ new!

  1. Love in an Age of Disconnect
  2. Somebody Talked
  3. Bluffing
  4. Dreams in Stereo
  5. Boston Isn’t Ready for Me
  6. Quicksand Hands
  7. Sacre-Coeur
  8. Sarifice
  9. False Dmitry
  10. When You’re Around
  11. Turquoise Cuff
  12. The Revengineers
  13. The Ballad of Yes
  14. Hidden Track – Weird Little Songs

I’m very excited about this album. It does include a few old tunes: “Dreams in Stereo” is the first song I ever wrote completely by myself, and I’ve been trying to get “Revengineers” onto an album for about a decade and a half. It also features two songs co-written with other people: Brother Clyde wrote the chorus for “Quicksand Hands,” while my friend Cristobel Opp wrote the lyrics for “Ballad of Yes.” The album also features an official Hidden Track, which is helpfully labeled as such because such things amuse me to no end.

So, when will it be available? Soonish! I have, like, two things to do on two songs, then Brother Clyde will finish mixing and begin the arduous mastering process (where he will listen to the songs more than any other person on earth, including me, trying to get the acoustic guitar to not drown out every other instrument). When that’s done, the album’s done, and we can send it out to all the streaming services. I’ll eventually get around to producing a physical version, too, for the three of you who still buy CDs.

Playlist #203: The Wearin’ o’ the Green

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Wear some green, run some snakes outta your island, and listen to this Irish-themed playlist all while doing so!

  1. Van Morrison, “(Straight To Your Heart) Like a Cannonball”: Is there any more Irish singer than Van? The guy oozes Irishness. Or maybe just surliness. He’s a pretty surly dude.
  2. U2, “Hawkmoon 269”: This song is always fun to sing and play on the guitar. I also apparently made up a whole outro thing that the backing vocalists are in no way actually singing in the song, but that fits with the song and that I love and that I may have to actually end up putting in a song of my own someday.
  3. Sinead O’Connor, “Nothing Compares 2 U”: Yes, it’s cliche and the obvious choice, but it’s the obvious choice for a reason: it’s a damn good song.
  4. The Cranberries, “Zombie”: Again, an obvious choice, but it was this or “Linger,” and I prefer this song.
  5. Hozier, “Take Me To Church”: Okay, yeah, I know, take me task for going the easy route on so many of these. But there are songs that we like to think of as standards, and they are the standard for a reason: their approach to the song or to the concept is so perfect that it’s hard to imagine topping it, and those songs become rather iconic.
  6. Christy Moore, “Beeswing”: A Richard Thompson cover. I do love me Richard Thompson covers and wish there were more of them out there. Christy Moore is also apparently one of the most beloved singers in all of Ireland? I dunno, but I dig him.
  7. Thin Lizzy, “The Boys Are Back in Town”: I wasn’t really aware these guys were Irish, but they do kick a considerable amount of ass for a ’70s rock band.
  8. The Dubliners, “Raglan Road”: We ate at an Irish restaurant in Disney Village this summer called Raglan Road. That’s how famous this song (and, I guess, the actual road) are. It’s a beautiful song, to be sure.
  9. The Chieftains, “The Long Black Veil”: I’m more familiar with the Johnny Cash version of this song, but this version (with Mick Jagger providing vocals) is suitably gloomy and dark.
  10. Dropkick Murphys, “I’m Shipping Up to Boston”: Is it Irish? About as much so as the green river in Chicago. Does it still feel Irish? Hell, yes.