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Playlist #116 – Three Song Runs

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My brother Clif challenged me to come up with a playlist made of three-song runs by artists/bands, runs of songs that are all killer, no filler. There are limits: no compilations/best of collections, no soundtracks, just three songs in a row from a single album. So here’s four such runs.

Run 1: Carole King, “You’ve Got A Friend,” “Where You Lead,” and “Will you Love Me Tomorrow” (from Tapestry): I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Tapestry is solid from beginning to end. There is not a bad song on that album. I could have pulled any three songs from this album at random and it would’ve been just as good.

Run 2: Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Lookin’ Out My Back Door,” “Run Through the Jungle,” and “Up Around the Bend” (from Cosmo’s Factory): Honestly, I could’ve pulled any three song run from any of CCR’s first five albums (well, maybe not their self-titled) and it would’ve been just a series of bangers. These guys cranked out just amazing songs every time out (we’ll ignore Pendulum and Mardi Gras).

Run 3: The Gaslight Anthem, “The ’59 Sound,” “Old White Lincoln,” and “High Lonesome” (from The ’59 Sound): Again, you could pull any three songs from this album and they’d all rock. These three songs in particular feel like Bruce Springsteen fronting a punk band, a thing I never knew I wanted until just now.

Run 4: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Refugee,” “Here Comes My Girl,” and “Even the Losers” (from Damn the Torpedoes): Damn the Torpedoes plays like a greatest hits album. Seriously. Even the deep cuts from this album are amazing. These three songs open the album, and it only stays this awesome from there.

Playlist #115

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Happy Monday to all the folks who celebrate it out there. And if you do celebrate Mondays, what is wrong with you? Do you just really like new playlist day?

  1. Murder By Death, “No Oath, No Spell”: There’s is something oddly compelling about this guy’s voice. He sounds about two centuries old on their best songs.
  2. Rufus Wainwright, “Harvest (feat. Andrew Bird and Chris Stills)”: Who doesn’t love a Neil Young cover? Who doesn’t love a Neil Young cover that features Andrew Bird prominently? Communists, that’s who.
  3. Van Morrison, “Sweet Jannie”: As weird as the dude’s gotten in recent years (and he’s gotten pretty freakin’ weird), I still love his old stuff. This song is a bop.
  4. Electric Light Orchestra, “Eldorado”: I’ve been thinking about it for a while now (especially since I listened to most of their discography a few weeks ago on a whim), and I think Eldorado might be my favorite ELO album. Sure, as a concept album it falls a little short of the mark Jeff Lynne was aiming for, but the song cycle is still one of the best he ever wrote, and this – the penultimate song on the album – is a good summation of what ELO could do at the height of their powers.
  5. Elk Eyes, “It Goes Dark”: Why am I listening to guys with whiskey-dark voices sing doom and gloom this week? I dunno, I just am.
  6. Family Familiar, “I Don’t Need You”: Did you know I helped write this song, back over 20 years ago? This is my brother’s band performing it. Did you know I get a small cut of the streaming revenue for this specific song? It’s true.
  7. George Harrison, “P2 Vatican Blues (Last Saturday Night)”: I know that what I need a lot of on a Monday morning is some George Harrison slide guitar. I’m sure you’ll agree it almost makes it worth waking up for.
  8. Paul McCartney, “Teddy Boy”: This version of this song is just as ramshackle as its appearance on McCartney would lead you to believe it would be. I kinda love it.
  9. John Prine, “Jesus, the Missing Years”: Was chatting with a friend on Facebook about “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore” this weekend, which got me in a John Prine mood. That’s not a bad mood to be in.
  10. Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, “St. Paul’s Autograph”: I swear to God, this album is just designed to make you wanna curl up on a rainy Sunday afternoon and block out the rest of the world.

Playlist #114

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Happy Monday, and happy birthday to my lovely mother, who is [redacted] years old today!

  1. No Clue, “The Old Die Young”: A former student of mine’s band. They do straight-ahead, old school, hardcore punk. If that’s your jam, you’ll probably dig this song.
  2. M. Ward, “i can’t give everything away (feat. Jim James & Kelly Pratt)”: I dig the smokey, 3 AM at the dinner feel of this song, especially with that saxophone part.
  3. Shocking Blue, “Venus”: I prefer this original version to the Bananarama version from the 1980s. Big surprise, right?
  4. Shawn Colvin, “Sunny Came Home”: A surprisingly sprightly, countryish song that I find I enjoy more with each passing year.
  5. Wilco, “Unlikely Japan”: Companion to the Wilco song “Impossible Germany,” in that the lyrics to both songs reference both countries (“Impossible Germany, unlikely Japan”). Why is Japan unlikely? I dunno. Have you ever seen the sort of things they’ll sell you out of a vending machine? Place is nuts.
  6. The Beatles, “Things We Said Today”: I’m a sucker for mid-period Beatles songs. Anything from ’64 to about ’66 is just the sweet spot for me.
  7. Brian Fallon, “Among Other Foolish Things”: The guy writes some damn catchy songs, I have to give him that.
  8. Eklipse, “Cry Me A River”: This song sounds like some other song that I know, but I’ll be damned if I can remember what it reminds me of.
  9. Echo In The Canyon, “Never My Love (feat. Jakob Dylan & Norah Jones)”: Echo in the Canyon is still a loving mash note of a documentary to an entire style of pop-rock, and songs like this so faithfully maintain the style while deviating just enough to keep things interesting.
  10. Dolly Parton, “Seven Bridges Road”: Just load this right into my veins, I am in need of those harmonies.

Playlist #113

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By the time you see this, I’ll be in Oklahoma for my grandmother’s funeral. It’s going to be rough, but I’m glad I get to be back home for it.

  1. John Mellencamp, “Circling Around The Moon”: I have a soft spot in my heart for the Mellencamp album Mr. Happy Go Lucky. It’s very much of its time, with the drum machines and nods to rap and hip-hop in the music.
  2. M. Ward, “Hi-Fi”: M. Ward always delights and always puts out something clever and ephemeral.
  3. Matchbox 20, “Damn”: I don’t know why I like Matchbox 20 so much. I can’t explain it.
  4. MILCK, “Quiet (Stripped)”: A more subtle, acoustic version of this song that I liked very much when I heard the original version.
  5. Molly Lewis, “Our American Cousin”: Who doesn’t love a song about Abraham Lincoln’s trip to Ford’s Theater?
  6. The Mountain Goats, “Wage Wars Get Rich Die Handsome”: When doesn’t a Mountain Goats song make you want to eat the rich?
  7. The Mystiqueros, “Good”: I learned this song years ago at the Mansion on O Street from the band I used to play with on Sundays. It’s a pretty decent little number.
  8. The Yardbirds, “Smokestack Lightning (Live)”: Who doesn’t love the Yardbirds?
  9. Rhett Miller, “Terrible Vision”: This song is sad and beautiful and I love it.
  10. Pixies, “Debaser”: Why. not round things out with some screaming?

Playlist #112

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Happy Wednesday, folks. I was at the beach on Monday with family, and spent yesterday recovering from the beach, so you get a playlist today and you’ll like it.

  1. Spoon, “Sugar Babies”: These guys manage to stay creative and innovative even a couple of decades into their careers. It’s inspiring and awesome.
  2. X Ambassadors, “Renegade”: I think I’ve been writing songs like this lately. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.
  3. Tom Waits, “Looks Like I’m Up Shit Creek Again”: You an’ me both, Tom.
  4. Kris Orlowski, “Go (featuring Glen Phillips)”: I am just a sucker for any song that features Glen Phillips.
  5. Them, “Gloria”: G. L. O. R. I. A.
  6. Jack Johnson, “If I Had Eyes”: What if a regular ol’ Jack Johnson song, but with an electric guitar instead of an acoustic?
  7. Jake Blount, “Didn’t It Rain”: A modern take on a classic number from ol’ Sister Rosetta Tharpe. The electric guitar in this one makes the song feel much more eerie than the original ever did.
  8. Counting Crows, “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby”: It’s epic in length and bittersweet in scope. It’s like the song was written just for me.
  9. Norah Jones, “Don’t Know Why”: How does Norah Jones crank out these beautiful little nuggets of pop brilliance?
  10. Drive-By Truckers, “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac”: Cadillacs are made out of fiberglass now, so maybe it’s time to give it up.

Playlist #111

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Happy Monday, folks. It’s the last week of school finally, and all the kids (and teachers) are antsy to get the heck outta Dodge. Here’s a new playlist for ya.

  1. Jenny Lewis, “Joy’All”: Nothing Jenny Lewis has done since Rabbit Fur Coat has really grabbed me like that one album did. This song, off the album of the same title (pronounced “Joy y’all”) is good, but it feels too…by the numbers? It’s a retread of stuff she’s done better in the past.
  2. Foo Fighters, “Hearing Voices”: There was so much new music I was interested in released last week that I still haven’t listened to it all (I’m partway through this Foo Fighters album, for instance, and haven’t even started on Janelle Monae’s new one yet!). That said, this song – and, to some extent, the entire album – are all about the Foos dealing with the loss of longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins.
  3. Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, “King Of Oklahoma”: I was probably predisposed to liking this song just given its title (and the fact that it’s a Jason Isbell song), but the fact that it rings true probably also helps.
  4. Hawksley Workman, “Ilfracombe”: Heard this in a store? Or on a TV show I was watching? I don’t recall, exactly, but it grabbed my attention at the time, and I kinda dig it. No, wait, it was on NPR. That’s it.
  5. Bob Dylan, “What Was It You Wanted”: Dylan recently released Shadow Kingdom, a sort of live-in-the-studio-reimagining of some of his classic songs featuring a backing band of several guitars, a bass, and an accordion. As an interpreter of other people’s songs and, of course, of his own, Dylan remains a fascinating study. These tracks are all stripped down and rebuilt from the ground up, using different melodies and rhythms that make them feel familiar and completely unfamiliar all at once. And they’re all mercifully short: no 40-verse versions of anything here.
  6. Rufus Wainwright, “Harvest (featuring Andrew Bird and Chris Stills)”: A beautiful rendition of a Neil Young classic. Wainwright lets his collaborators take the lead and offers some beautiful vocals of his own.
  7. 40 Watt Sun, “Behind My Eyes”: A song for when you want to slow everything way down and maybe take a nap.
  8. Wilco, “Whole Love”: I’ve started developing a taste for latter-day Wilco, which apparently includes this album that came out 12 years ago now somehow.
  9. Fun., “We Are Young (featuring Janelle Monae)”: See, I haven’t listened to her new album yet, but I still found a way to slip her onto the playlist this week anyway.
  10. Hank Williams, “You Win Again”: Hank knew how to write a tear-jerker, woe-is-me song.

Playlist #110: Graduation

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Good morning, everyone. My grandmother’s condition has stabilized, enough so that I felt comfortable returning home this past weekend and back to work today. This week, my school will do graduation, as will many of the other high schools across Fairfax County. With that in mind, here’s a graduation-themed playlist for your entertainment.

  1. Simon & Garfunkel, “Mrs. Robinson”: From the movie soundtrack for The Graduate. Seemed appropriate.
  2. Third Eye Blind, “Graduate”: Who doesn’t want to get out from underneath all the bastards who’ve kept you down for years and years?
  3. Heroes Garden, “Graduation Day”: A friend’s sister plays cello with this band. They’re pretty good, in a Ra Ra Riot sort of way.
  4. The Verve Pipe, “The Freshmen”: Oh, Verve Pipe, Freshmen don’t graduate! C’mon, guys.
  5. Baz Luhrmann, “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)”: This was tremendously popular around the time I graduated from high school back in the late ’90s. And the advice the “song” offers (I hesitate to really call it a song; more like a spoken-word essay set to music) remains relevant even today: wear some damn sunscreen, folks.
  6. Billy Joel, “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)”: A big part of graduating is the chance to move on to bigger, (hopefully) better things out there in the world.
  7. John Fullbright, “Moving”: I mean, I already covered this in the previous song. Moving on is a big part of graduation.
  8. Queen, “Leaving Home Ain’t Easy”: Queen gets that it’s not always an easy transition, though. Home is hard to give up.
  9. Pearl Jam, “Leavin’ Here”: Pearl Jam, on the other hand, are all about getting the hell out while the getting is good.
  10. Madonna, “This Used To Be My Playground”: This was the song played at my 8th grade graduation, which we thought at the time was super deep and really meaningful and now I realize is so corny it should’ve come on the cob.

Playlist #109

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It’s a rather gloomy Tuesday here in Northern Virginia, or maybe that’s just my interpretation of things. I’ll admit I’m currently looking at the world through shit-colored glasses, but that has less to do with the weather than it does some family stuff that’s going on. That being said, I’m headed to Oklahoma this afternoon, and it’s not a fun or pleasant trip that I’m embarking on.

  1. boygenius, “True Blue”: “When you don’t know who you are/You fuck around and find out,” is one of my favorite couplets this year.
  2. Adeem the Artist, “ICU”: Another in a string of thoughtful, heartfelt country songs from Adeem the Artist. I love their work. Songs like this always come around right when I need them.
  3. Bjork, “Army of Me”: “And if you complain once more/You’ll meet an army of me” sounds no less menacing given Bjork’s adorable accent. She really sounds like she could fuck you up if she wanted to.
  4. The Offspring, “Come Out And Play (Keep ‘Em Separated)”: Yeah, it’s a little left-field, given the general tenor and tone of the songs on this playlist so far, but I like to change things up from time to time.
  5. Peter Gabriel, “Love To Be Loved”: Whenever there’s a rough situation, I turn to Peter Gabriel, not so much because he speaks to the human condition (thought he does), but because he speaks so elliptically about things that are universal and deeply, deeply personal.
  6. Ray LaMontagne, “Trouble”: I dig this guy’s stuff, though I think I dug it more before I found out what a tremendous asshole he apparently is. How are all the sensitive singer-songwriter types just absolute jerks?
  7. Steve Earle, “Hard-Core Troubadour”: It’d be hard to imagine 2023 Steve Earle, with his almost-bald head and the long, long fringe of hair that hangs around that shiny peak, being considered a sex symbol and an iconoclastic rebel, but 1996 Steve Earle could get it.
  8. Taylor Swift, “Style”: She’s sold more records than I’ve had hot lunches. She could release an album that’s just her making fart noises with her armpits and it’d probably go platinum at least. The woman knows what she’s about.
  9. Toad the Wet Sprocket, “Last To Fall”: Latter-day Toad is kinda hit-and-miss, I think, but when it hits, it hits good and hard.
  10. Tom Waits, “Ice Cream Man”: With summer just around the corner, the ice cream guy has started coming around again. We’ve heard his truck playing “Turkey in the Hay” two or three times just over this past weekend. So I asked if our ice cream man was maybe Tom Waits, and my sister-in-law just gave me a weird look. She does that a lot.

Playlist #108

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What, it’s Tuesday? I accidentally forgot to post a playlist yesterday because I took the day off from work and forgot that the rest of the world keeps spinning while I sit and play Persona 5? Inconceivable!

  1. Sting, “We Work The Black Seam”: I’ve been working on notes and slideshows for next year, when I’ll be team-teaching a World History II class (my favorite class content!). This week, it’s the Industrial Revolution, so terrible conditions and black lung for everyone! Hurray!
  2. Taylor Swift, “Betty”: Am I including it because it’s a sweet song possibly about a same-sex crush she had as a teenager, or because my grandmother’s name is Betty? Who knows! And I’m not willing to examine that question any further.
  3. Pink Floyd, “Lost For Words”: Included for no other reason than to hear David Gilmour sing, “And they tell me to please go fuck myself/You know, you just can’t win.”
  4. Glen Phillips, “The Next Day”: Love this song, though I frequently got it confused with a David Bowie song of the same name.
  5. David Bowie, “The Next Day”: Love this song, though I frequently got it confused with a Glen Phillips song of the same name.
  6. Wilco, “The Late Greats”: “The best life never leaves your lungs.” Damn, ain’t that true. Or is it? I dunno. It’s a great line, though.
  7. Jars Of Clay, “Much Afraid”: Could this be a theme song for our time? It feels like it could be. It feels like there’s so much out there to be afraid of.
  8. Billy Bragg, “A New England”: I’ve loved this song since I first heard it many years ago. Grad school, maybe? There’s a simple charm to it, a searching quality that’s tricky to pull of and not sound like an asshole. Bragg manages it.
  9. Bob Dylan, “Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)”: The way this song builds and builds until it finally explodes in that blistering, cathartic guitar solo at the end? *chef’s kiss*
  10. Rodney Crowell, “Oh Miss Claudia”: I’ve only started listening to this guy last week, but I already like his style and his songwriting. It’s just superb. I could have picked any song off the recent The Chicago Sessions and it would’ve been a good example of what he does, but I like the shuffley tempo and slightly off-kilter tone of this one.

Playlist #107

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It’s yet another Monday, yet another playlist. A rather lowkey playlist for the week, given how lowkey I’m feeling this week.

  1. The National, “Start A War”: NPR sometimes uses a short snippet from this song as a bumper sometimes. They did it this morning, so now this song is stuck in my head. This is not a bad thing.
  2. Neko Case, “Maybe Sparrow”: At some point, I’m pretty sure I’ll have included every song from Fox Confessor Brings The Flood on a playlist. This just puts us one step closer to that eventuality.
  3. The New Pornographers, “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk”: Two Neko-sung songs, back to back? Surely I didn’t do that on purpose.
  4. Wilco, “I Might”: Been giving later-career Wilco a chance lately, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the quality of the musicianship.
  5. The Wallflowers, “Up From Under”: Breach is still probably the best Wallflowers album.
  6. Michael Stipe & Big Red Machine, “No Time For Love Like Now”: The song title reminds me of something from 30 Rock, which makes me giggle uncontrollably.
  7. Fastball, “Out Of My Head”: It’s everyone’s second-favorite song by a band named after a porno!
  8. Fleetwood Mac, “Everywhere”: Christine McVie was an underrated songwriter, I feel, and never got enough credit for her songs in Fleetwood Mac. This one’s a perfect latter-day example of her craft.
  9. Gillian Welch & David Rawlins, “Jackson”: I sometimes wish Gillian Welch would loosen up and sound like she’s actually having fun playing music. Playing is so much fun, I think. But I guess when you’re in the vanguard of gatekeeping a traditional music structure/style, you feel like you can’t ever let your guard down.
  10. Greg Brown, “Someday When We’re Both Alone”: This dude’s voice just gets me every time.