playlist

Playlist #248

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Happy Tuesday, folks. Here in Northern Virginia, it’s freezing and icy outside, but inside it’s so warm I’m starting to sweat and I blame the Brancos. Here’s a playlist to help you make it through the snow days you’re almost assuredly going through if you live in the United States.

  1. Lucinda Williams, “How Much Did You Get For Your Soul”: Lucinda cuts right to the point with this one, a solid rocker and protest song of the old school.
  2. Khatumu, “matador”: More songs should reference bullfighting.
  3. Cat Power, “Nothing Compares 2 U”: I am a sucker for a Prince cover, or a cover of Sinead O’Connor doing a cover of Prince. I’m not picky.
  4. Drive-By Truckers, “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac”: There need to be more songs about how little bullshit Carl Perkins was willing to listen to.
  5. The Mountain Goats, “Training Montage”: Of course it’s the Mountain Goats coming up with a song that’d sound great under a training montage. And that line at the start of the chorus? “I’m doing this for revenge” is just one of my all-time favorite lines from anything.
  6. Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, “King Of Oklahoma”: It’s been a minute since I listened to this song and I somehow forgot how much I absolutely love it. I heartily recommend digging through your own old playlists and finding some hidden gems among them,.
  7. Van Morrison, “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m In HeavenWhen You Smile)”: This song sounds absolutely nothing like anything else on this album, but I love it and the other songs on that record still. That’s a talent.
  8. David Bowie, “The Next Day”: I someday hope to have even half the chutzpah David Bowie possessed so I can remix the cover to one of my most beloved albums and reuse it for a latter-day masterpiece.
  9. Michigander, “Better”: I always look forward to anything this guy does because his songs are so well-constructed and hit the right spot in my brain every time.
  10. Dan Auerbach, “Shine On Me”: Today is a day that needs sunshine. This song is audio sunshine.

Playlist #247

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Day today, so I’ve been sitting at home becoming increasingly concerned that the world Dr. King imagined will never come to pass. Yeah, I’m a cheerful sort today. Let’s get to the playlist.

  1. Rose Betts, “Doodles”: I learned of this Irish singer/songwriter through Facebook, of all places. There’s a certain type of singer/songwriter and a certain type of song that they write that tickles all the right spots in my brain; this is that songwriter, this is that song.
  2. Florence + the Machine, “Ship To Wreck”: The rhythm section for this song is just absolutely amazing. It slaps. Hard.
  3. Yarn, “Don’t Break My Heart Again”: String band doing string band things. Good times.
  4. Calexico, “Sunken Waltz”: Was talking with my brother about this song the other day, and he pointed out how difficult it is sometimes to understand what, exactly, a given Calexico song is really about. I mean, is this song about a carpenter who throws money randomly over his shoulder or what? Damned if I know. I just know it’s a good song.
  5. The Family Crest, “Beneath The Brine”: Speaking of songs I have no idea what they’re actually about…
  6. Birdy, “Wings”: I love this song and it especially amuses me that a musician who goes by “Birdy” named a song “Wings.”
  7. The National, “Ashamed Of The Story I Told”: One of the best covers I’ve ever heard by a band that just…got it.
  8. Phosphorescent, “Storms”: A nice little Fleetwood Mac cover. One of Stevie Nicks’s best compositions.
  9. David Gray, “Dead In The Water”: This was the song that inspired my novel The Armageddon Seed. Or at least the title, which was based on a misremembered lyric from this song (I remembered “The Armageddon seed” instead of “that Armageddon sky.” Easy mistake).
  10. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, “About To Give Out”: I just love when Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers cut loose and just have fun with a song.

Playlist #246

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Happy Monday, folks. It’s my anniversary this week, so you’ll excuse me if I don’t answer any calls or whatnot tomorrow. Yeah, that’s right, I know when my wedding anniversary is. Take that, Boomer comedians! Anyway, have a playlist.

  1. Matt Berninger, “Blue Monday”: Is this the most obvious cover of all time? Possibly. Is it still a pretty great cover? Most definitely.
  2. Peter Gabriel, “Been Undone”: New Peter Gabriel, and we’re gonna keep getting new Peter Gabriel twice a month all year? I’m here for it. i/o was excellent, and o/i already seems like it might be just as good.
  3. The Faim, “Ease My Mind”: Poppier than what I usually listen to, but still a fun little number.
  4. Bob Weir, “Only A River”: Bob Weir passed last week, meaning the remaining Grateful Dead are now one fewer. While I never really cared much for the Dead or their jam band-y meanderings, I recognize their influence and lasting importance. Weir was a good songwriter and guitarist, and this track off of a solo album he released a few years ago remains very affecting.
  5. The Magnetic Fields, “Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing”: My song with The Wife. We have a poster with the lyrics on it hanging up in the living room that she bought for me last year. She is excellent at coming up with thoughtful gifts.
  6. Mon Rovia, “Bloodline”: I dig the short, simple songs these guys create. There’s a sincerity and honesty to the music that comes through in their arrangements and excellent vocal harmonies. I want more.
  7. David Bowie, “Five Years”: Is Ziggy Stardust an album about a weird singer, or is it a prophetic warning about the end of the world? Por que no los dos?
  8. Mark Knopfler, “Cannibals”: Cannibals and dinosaurs and hurricanes, oh my!
  9. Billy Bragg & Wilco, “Remember The Mountain Bed”: Just one of the sweetest – and somehow saddest – songs I can remember hearing in the past twenty-five years or so. Absolutely perfect, no notes.
  10. Cat Power, “The Greatest”: A song about a boxer, maybe, or maybe just a song about striving. It’s great either way.

Playlist #245

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Good morning and happy first Monday of the new year. Yes, the government took some extrajudicial actions down in Venezuela over the weekend, and we’re all scrambling figuring out how to deal with that, but in the meantime I’ve got some songs for you.

  1. The Cranberries, “Salvation”: A blistering blast of punky energy and the occasional horn? Yes, please.
  2. Lyle Lovett, “Lungs”: An old Townes Van Zandt song that, according to Lovett, Van Zandt said ought to be “shouted rather than sung.” Lovett sings it here anyway. It’s good, as Van Zandt songs tend to be.
  3. Rufus Wainwright, “Chelsea Hotel No. 2”: There’s just a…sadness to this song that I’ve always felt an affinity for. Maybe it’s the line, “You told me again you preferred handsome men/But for me you would make an exception.”
  4. George Harrison, “Marwa Blues”: Just a beautiful instrumental number off Brainwashed with some absolutely perfect slide guitar from George.
  5. Tom Waits, “(Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night”: I think of this one as the flipside to a Bruce Springsteen song from about the same era: there’s a yearning there, like in Bruce songs, but a bitter sadness as well, not just a sense that there is no escape from this life but that even trying to escape from this life isn’t worth the effort.
  6. Better Than Ezra, “Desperately Wanting”: Drugs are bad, m’kay?
  7. Counting Crows, “Up All Night (Frankie Miller Goes to Hollywood)”: A lot of the songs on this particular list deal with longing and loss, I think. Did I do that on purpose? Man, who even knows anymore.
  8. Billy Bragg & Wilco, “When The Roses Bloom Again”: Going off to war always sucks. Always. And there are always unintended consequences.
  9. Brian Fallon, “Forget Me Not”: Brian Fallon remains one of my favorite songwriters of the past twenty or so years. There’s some Bruce in there, some doo-wop, and a lot of joy at just making music. And I will always dig that.
  10. Richard Thompson, “Beeswing”: Again, drugs are bad. The “white horse in her hip pocket” is a less-than-subtle reference to heroin, after all.

Playlist #244: End of Year Wrap-Up

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Happy last Monday of 2025, folks! It’s been a helluva year, I think we can all agree, and I’ll be glad to see the back of it. But there were a lot of songs I listened to pretty much on repeat this year, such as the following:

  1. The Wallflowers, “It’s a Dream”: I love the rhythm of this song and the interior rhymes Jakob Dylan throws into it. And that’s a great chorus, too.
  2. Lord Huron, “Meet Me In The Woods”: I apparently have listened to this song about 50 times this year, and I only first hear the album in…August? September? Geez.
  3. Langhorne Slim, “House Of My Soul (You Light The Rooms)”: This song lights to rooms in the house of my soul.
  4. Matt Berninger, “Little By Little”: I loved this album and I love this song. It just has such great momentum and a catchy melody that I can’t stop humming to myself.
  5. Bob Dylan, “Red River Shore”: Why does this song feel more like a relic of a past century than something Dylan penned in 1997? And yes, I realize 1997 was last century, but you know what I mean. This feels like a song that has always existed, not one Dylan conjured from the aether while working on Time Out of Mind.
  6. Mon Rovia, “Heavy Foot”: It’s a simple political song masquerading as a stomp-clap-hey song.
  7. Chris Smither, “Origin Of Species”: Satirical look at the ascent of man through a warm, folky groove.
  8. Glen Phillips, “Go”: Just one of the most affecting songs I’ve heard in recent years. It’s beautiful and haunting and moving.
  9. Bob Dylan, “Boots Of Spanish Leather”: One of the saddest early Dylan songs, if you ask me. There’s no bitterness in it; the bitterness came later, I think. There’s just a resigned sadness in it.
  10. Hurray For The Riff Raff, “Snake Plant (The Past Is Alive)”: It’s amazing what you can do with just two chords.

Playlist #243: Holiday Playlist

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s the week of Christmas, so here’s a playlist full of some of my favorite Christmas songs.

  1. Darlene Love, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”: Just the absolute best Christmas song ever. You can keep your Wham! and your Mariah Carey, just leave me Darlene Love.
  2. She & Him, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”: This song seems like it was tailor-made for this band. Zoey Deschanel just has a lovely voice made for this kind of song.
  3. The Eagles, “Please Come Home For Christmas”: The guitar work in this song always gets to me. It’s very well-done and Don Henley sounds particularly impassioned.
  4. The Royal Guardsmen, “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron”: Is it technically a Christmas song? Not really. Is Christmas the only time I listen to it because it was on a tape of Christmas songs we listened to constantly when I was a kid? Yes.
  5. Elvis Presley, “Blue Christmas”: I’m not much of an Elvis fan, but I really dig this song. It’s just fun.
  6. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Christmas All Over Again”: Speaking of fun Christmas songs, of course Tom Petty turns in one for the books. It’s just a good time from start to finish.
  7. Neko Case, “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis”: “Charlie, I’m pregnant,” the song begins, and just gets worse and sadder from there. Neko doesn’t even try to sing it like Tom Waits, instead making it all her own and turning this into one of the absolute saddest Christmas songs I’ve ever heard.
  8. My Morning Jacket, “X-Mas Curtain”: Just what, exactly, is a Christmas Curtain? I imagine something involving snowmen and giant snowflakes and maybe a Santa Claus, but I honestly don’t know, and I’m not sure this song makes it any clearer.
  9. Andrew Bird, “So Much Wine, Merry Christmas”: I love playing this one on guitar, and have even halfway managed to play the solo for it. It’s lovely.
  10. The Pogues, “Fairytale of New York”: It’s a dreary picture of a dreary town in a dreary decade, but it feels hopeful despite all that. Kinda reminds me in a small way of the Mountain Goats’ “This Year,” with its defiant tone and resistance to the turning of the world.

Playlist #242: Top 10 Albums of 2025

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Happy Monday, folks! We’ve reached that point in the year when bands stop releasing new music and the music critic turns his weary, bleary eyes toward compiling top lists. Top 10 albums! Top 25 albums! Top 100 albums of the year! In all the genres and styles one can imagine. I’m just gonna do a top ten. It’s not that I couldn’t find enough for a longer list, but I already do ten-song playlists, so why not stick with that? In no particular order, my top ten for the year are:

  1. Matt Berninger, Get Sunk: Solo album from the National’s singer. As I commented back when I first featured a song off this album on a playlist, it seems to feature all the momentum and forward motion that’s been missing from the past couple of National albums. Virtually a no-skip album.
  2. Mavis Staples, Sad and Beautiful World: She’s been trending more toward minimalism in her work the past couple of albums, and I kinda like it. Puts her amazing voice front and center. Her song selection skills remain top-notch, too.
  3. Snocaps, Snocaps: Feels very off the cuff and done for fun, which I’m always a big fan of. I like it when it sounds like the musicians had fun recording the music. And the two sisters at the heart of this group know how to write some killer songs.
  4. Jeff Tweedy, Twilight Override: We get it Jeff, you’ve got lots of songs in you. A triple album, though? That just screams “I’m gonna one-up Ryan Adams at something not gross.” But the songs are pretty uniformly good, even if a few of them feel more like song sketches and ideas rather than full-fledged complete songs.
  5. Jason Isbell, Foxes in the Snow: I’m not gonna call it his divorce album or his Blood on the Tracks, but there is something stark and sharp and beautiful in this voice and acoustic only set that really sucker punches you in the best way.
  6. Neko Case, Neon Gray Midnight Green: Any new Neko Case music is a cause for celebration, and this particular album sticks with you long after it’s finished playing. Nothing as immediate or obviously gripped as “Hold On, Hold On” here, but it’s still a strong album filled with the sort of gorgeous vocals and left field approaches Case has come to be known for.
  7. The Mountain Goats, Through the Fire Across From Peter Balkan: Trippy, dreamy titles aside, John Darnielle has described this one as the closest he’s ever come to writing a musical, and it still isn’t a concept album telling a coherent story as far as I can tell, but the songs are beautiful and obtuse and demand that you sit with the record and really listen.
  8. Lord Huron, The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1: Atmospheric and folky, like Tom Petty mixing spaghetti westerns with ’50s pulp sci-fi.
  9. Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska ’82: As archival releases go, this one is pretty great. Getting a look at what could have been with Nebraska, one of my favorite Bruce albums, is a fascinating exercise. Hearing the so-called Electric Versions was pretty cool and does ultimately support the myth that the original solo demos were the superior versions and ought to just be released as-is. The more recent live recordings of all the songs seemed a little superfluous to me, but more Bruce is never really a bad thing.
  10. Bob Dylan, Through the Open Window (The Bootleg Series, Volume 18): Speaking of archival releases, the latest in the long-running Bootleg Series digs into the absolute earliest Dylan recordings we’ve ever heard, and while you can definitely hear who he would become in the voice and the guitar playing, it’s very protean. Primordial, you might say. But the man found his footing in Greenwich Village quite quickly, and hearing some alternate takes on some of his earliest compositions and covers was a fun diversion. Someday, I’ll have to dive into the complete version of this collection, as the only version available on Apple Music was the two-disc Highlights selections.

Playlist #240: Covers!

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Happy Monday, folks! I’m probably somewhere between Northern Virginia and Orlando, Florida, as you read this. The Wife is presenting at an education conference, and I’m joining her for moral and logistical support (and for the opportunity to not work for a week). Here’s a list of covers that I’ve enjoyed recently.

  1. Aimee Mann, “Rainy Days and Mondays”: A Carpenters cover? In this economy? It actually works pretty damn well, I think. She updates it in a few subtle ways, but mostly sticks to the original for her version.
  2. Mavis Staples, “Everybody Needs Love”: I loved this song when I heard the Drive-By Truckers original, and I love Mavis Staples’s version almost as much. Her voice carries the right tone and quality for the tune, and belies the age the woman actually is. I love it.
  3. Marc Sibilia, “Bittersweet Symphony”: His cover utilizes the same symphonic sample as the Verve Pipe’s original, but everything built around that seems more subdued, more subtle. It’s good stuff.
  4. The Presidents of the United States of America, “Kick Out the Jams”: Gotta love a band gutsy enough to take on an MC5 song, especially this one, but they manage to pull it off with some nervy energy and chutzpah.
  5. Phoebe Bridgers, “It’ll All Work Out”: I didn’t think it would be possible to slow down this Tom Petty number, but she does. I do miss the mandolin from the original, though.
  6. Iron & Wine and Ben Bridwell, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”: A mellower, folkier version of the U2 classic.
  7. Margaret Glaspy, “Have You Ever Seen the Rain”: I needed a slow, beautiful cover of CCR today, didn’t you?
  8. Willie Nelson, “Don’t Give Up (feat. Sinead O’Connor)”: Willie’s voice has just become this weathered, worn thing that just keeps getting better for the songs he sings. Fits perfectly, and Sinead O’Connor is a great duet partner for him.
  9. Bob Seager, “New Coat of Paint”: Seager turns Tom Waits’s raucous, bluesy number into…well, it’s not ’80s blooze-rock, not quite, but it does take some of the subtlety and nuance out of things. It’s still a fun cover, though.
  10. Robert Plant & Allison Krauss, “Quattro (World Drifts In)”: Speaking of nuance and subtlety, Plant and Krauss manage to inject a little bit more into this Calexico number. I dig it almost as much as I love the original, and I really love the original.

Playlist #239

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s Thanksgiving this Thursday, or “Thursday” as most of the world calls it. Americans call it an excuse to stuff ourselves silly with turkey and more pies than is advisable under any circumstances. America: We may be obese, but at least we also have shitty health care.

  1. Todd Snider, “Alcohol and Pills”: Only just now discovering this guy’s music is like learning about a great novelist who wrote all these books that you know you’ll love but simultaneously discovering that he’s also dead and there won’t be anymore new stuff from him. Except he plays guitar.
  2. Fastball, “You’re an Ocean”: From the album after their big breakout. It’s a solid song. Does it do anything new or exciting? No. But it’s charming and fun and bouncy and features a nice guitar lick, so it gets a pass.
  3. Marc Scibilia, “More to This”: Dude finally released a whole album, and it’s pretty good indie singer-songwriter stuff, but this is still the best song on the thing.
  4. Florence + the Machine, “Everybody Scream”: I feel like Florence Welch has the right idea here, folks.
  5. Jimmy Cliff, “Many Rivers to Cross”: This man just passed, and I’m listening to his version of this song off of “Later with Joles Holland,” and damn could he sing.
  6. Big Red Machine, “Mimi”: I just like the rhythm to this one, I guess.
  7. Ra Ra Riot, “Ghost Under Rocks”: When was the last time I listened to this band? I need to go back and give them a listen again, I think.
  8. Glen Phillips, “Thankful”: It is Thanksgiving week, after all, and I do have a lot to be thankful for. I’ve got a job and a wife and a car and a place to live, I have all the things I need to do so comfortably, and I own more guitars than a saner woman would let me own. Someday, I may even be able to retire and live out the rest of my days as a curmudgeonly old man who yells at clouds.
  9. The Rolling Stones, “Mother’s Little Helper”: If at least five people reading this don’t feel the need to reach for a bottle of mother’s little helper this week, I don’t know my audience.
  10. Josh Ritter, “Wait for Love (You Know You Will)”: It’s a sweet love song. Sort of.

Playlist #238

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Happy Monday, folks! The air is becoming crisper, it’s a little colder in the morning, and all the leaves have fallen off the trees and are now piled up everywhere. It’s actually feeling like fall! I’m here for it.

  1. Mavis Staples, “Anthem”: Mavis Staples’s latest album includes three straight-up amazing covers at the end, including this one. It takes some guts to cover Leonard Cohen, and to choose a Cohen cover that isn’t “Hallelujah.” Her vocals have the gravity to pull it off.
  2. Lord Huron, “Meet Me In The Woods”: Obsessed with this album still, and especially with this song. I probably listen to it at least three or four times a week.
  3. Dan Auerbach, “Trouble Weighs A Ton”: There’s something about a song that’s just a voice and an acoustic guitar that speaks to something primal in me.
  4. Fiona Apple, “Fast As You Can”: This woman and her music are criminally underrated (see what I did there? Because her best-known song is still probably “Criminal”).
  5. The Police, “Masoko Tanga”: A lyric-less song off their debut that features Sting hootin’ and hollerin’ and carryin’ on with yelps and mumbles and all sorts of vocalizations.
  6. Mark Knopfler, “Speedway At Nazareth”: Just the way this song builds and builds to its climactic coda, it’s just…*chef’s kiss*
  7. Fastball, “You’re An Ocean”: Less well-known than their first couple of hits, but still bouncy and fun and a good listen.
  8. The Like, “I Can See It In Your Eyes”: They do the girl group style up right for the 2000s.
  9. She & Him, “I Should Have Known Better”: If I ever do a Beatles cover, I hope I do it half as well as they did.
  10. Ben Harper & The Blind Boys Of Alabama, “Satisfied Mind”: The Blind Boy’s actual hoots in the verses just send me every time. Love it.