Playlist #173 – Back to School Edition!

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Happy Monday, folks! Once more, a new school year has rolled around, and once more I woke up having not won the lottery, so I’m back in the classroom for my twentieth year of teaching. Which is more than a little horrifying. How can I be old enough to have done anything for twenty years? Except make playlists, of course. I’ve been doing that since I was born, essentially.

  1. The Call, “Let the Day Begin”: As I said last year when I featured this song on my start of the year playlist, this song always played on the classic rock station we listened to in my hometown first thing in the morning, usually around the time I was on my way to school. So I kind of associate it with the school day staring.
  2. Matchbox 20, “Stop”: Are these guys the most middle-of-the-road pop rock from the last twenty-some years? I think they might be.
  3. John Bonamasa, “Driving Towards the Daylight”: I had certain preconceived notions about what a John Bonamasa song would sound like and who he was as an artist, and boy was I wrong. It’s pretty good stuff.
  4. Billy Idol, “Bitter Taste”: Speaking of songs from artists I didn’t expect, this latter-day Billy Idol song is actually pretty damn good.
  5. Post Malone, “Have the Heart (feat. Dolly Parton)”: I didn’t have “Post Malone releases an actual country album” on my 2024 bingo card, let alone a duet with Dolly Parton that features the classic country like “I didn’t have the heart to break yours,” but here we are.
  6. Rufus Wainwright, “Going to a Town”: Melancholy and downbeat, but a lovely and beautiful song.
  7. Bruce Springsteen, “Stolen Car”: Speaking of downbeat, this is probably the most subtle song Springsteen has ever recorded, and I’m including Nebraska in that tally. I’m sure it was totally by accident.
  8. Young Dubliners, “Last House on the Street”: A simple love song, but the best love songs are simple.
  9. Van Morrison, “Into the Mystic”: “It’s too late to stop now.”
  10. Bob Dylan, “Born in Time”: Every so often, latter-day Dylan pops up with an absolute gem that he, for reasons I can’t explain, he relegates to the Bootleg Series rather than releasing on an album proper. This is one of ’em.

Playlist #172

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Happy Monday! We’re back in the school this morning, doing teacher in-service this week and we’ll have students next Monday. This will be my twentieth year of teaching. No, I’m not sure how I’ve been in it this long. Here’s some music.

  1. Jay-Z, “Public Service Announcement”: Didn’t expect me to put a Jay-Z song on here, did you? Hmm? Well, I did, so there! The fact that it features heavily in a commercial I’ve seen a few dozen times in the past two weeks has very little to do with it, honest.
  2. Langhorne Slim, “House of My Soul (You Light the Rooms)”: It’s just a damn fun sing-along song, y’know?
  3. Spoon, “New York Kiss”: They just released a deluxe version of this album with lots of demos, so you know I’m down for that.
  4. Paul McCartney/Wings, “Junior’s Farm”: From the One Hand Clapping collection that was recently released. Pretty good.
  5. Hank Williams, “Move It On Over”: I first heard this song back in the ’80s with the George Thorogood cover. This version is…much better.
  6. The Offspring, “Self Esteem”: La la, la la la, la la, la la.
  7. Old Crow Medicine Show, “Alabama High Test”: I could use a little of this this morning, whether it’s alcohol or meth. Either way, it’d make the faculty meetings more fun.
  8. Old 97s, “Streets of Where I’m From”: “I’ve been down, I’ve been down too far to care/I keep getting in my car, but I’m not going anywhere” is a great bit, and it does the thing where they say the name of the album in the song.
  9. Owen Danoff, “Never Been Kissed”: I just threw this one in here because I needed ten songs, not nine. It’s good, I just don’t have anything to say about it.
  10. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, “Shake Your Money Maker”: I need some Chicago blues today. We all do, I think. So here’s some.

Playlist #171

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Happy Tuesday, folks! I’m back from Florida, and just in time if the weather is anything to go by. We had a lot of fun at Disney World, and I built me a lightsaber. Yes, I am a giant geek. Anyway, here’s a list of songs.

  1. Bikini Kill, “Rebel Girl”: I want to be in a band that plays this song live. It’s just so much fun.
  2. The National, “I Need My Girl”: I just love the guitar riff in this song. The whole song is just gorgeous and moody and perfect.
  3. Blondie, “Dreaming”: I always forget that Blondie were capable of this driving, powerful sort of song, not that disco-glammy “Heart of Glass” stuff all the time.
  4. Jack Johnson, “Flake”: When you leave the beach, but the beach don’t leave you.
  5. Extreme, “Hole Hearted”: The story is that the guitarist just got a 12-string acoustic and took it with him to the bathroom. When he came out, he’d written the chord structure for this song, and they did a quick demo of it that turned out better than any actual recording attempt they tried at a later date, so the version you hear on the album is that demo version. Wild.
  6. Soundgarden, “Burden in my Hand”: I heard this song about a half dozen times on Sirius XM over the course of a few weeks, so it’s stuck in my head. I dig it.
  7. Waxahatchee, “War”: I love how simple yet complex her songs are.
  8. U2, “Atomic City”: The chorus sounds almost note-for-note like “Call Me.” It’s weird.
  9. Echosmith, “Cool Kids”: I was not one of the cool kids in school. Ever. No one ever thought I was cool. My wife makes the argument that she thinks I’m cool now, but I know I’m even lamer now than I was back then. See previous statement about building a lightsaber at Disney World.
  10. Electric Light Orchestra, “So Serious”: Sure, by this point in the band’s history, they were really just ELO, there were no strings (except for the guitars, natch), and it’s mostly just Jeff Lynne accompanied by Jeff Lynne and Jeff Lynne, but the dude could write damn catchy songs.

The George Harrison Double Playlist

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Happy Monday, folks! As you read this, I am probably standing in line to ride a rollercoaster at Walt Disney World down in Florida. This week, I thought I’d make up for not doing a playlist last week and take care of this week’s playlist by offering a double playlist of my top twenty George Harrison songs!

Honorable Mentions: There are too many George Harrison songs (or Harrisongs, as I like to think of ’em) on a couple of his albums to list every single great tune. I mean, I could’ve easily just done a top ten of my favorite songs off of All Things Must Pass. That being said, here are some of the songs that don’t make the playlist proper, but are still damn good: “My Sweet Lord,” “Beware of Darkness,” “Apple Scruffs,” “Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)”, “Crackerbox Palace” (it’s a weird one, trust me), “Dark Horse,” “The Devil’s Radio,” “I Got My Mind Set On You.” Also, please note there are no songs here from Wonderwall Music, because I’m not that much of a sadist. Okay, everyone good? Right, let’s go.

  1. “Isn’t It a Pity (Version 1)”: It’s the “na na”s in the background in the song’s coda that really get to me, ’cause is George just messing with McCartney and “Hey Jude” for shits and giggles? I wouldn’t put it past him. But such a beautiful song.
  2. “If Not For You”: Hey, it’s a Bob Dylan song! If you had that on your bingo card, you can go ahead and mark that square.
  3. “Art of Dying”: So I recently downloaded the super deluxe version of the 50th Anniversary Remaster of All Things Must Pass (it has 70 tracks. Seventy! I can listen to it for like a week straight without repeating any songs), and this particular remaster (more so than the one from twenty-some years back) really clears up the sound quality on the album and makes things a lot clearer. I dig it. This song just rips.
  4. “All Things Must Pass”: If there is a single song that sums up George Harrison as an individual and as a songwriter, I would put in a word for this one. It’s stately, but also down to earth, treats with eastern philosophy while not being too preachy, and has that sense of bittersweet honesty that I always sorta associate with George. It’s a great song.
  5. “Bangala Desh”: A great song for a great cause, and let’s not dock points for the fact that it inspired the whole charity single, “We Are the World” nonsense in the 80s, okay?
  6. “You”: It’s a simple song, almost lazy in its lyrics. George had that weakness sometimes. His songs are either clever satire, deep metaphysical meditations, or slapped together at the absolute last second because he needed a peppy single on the next record.
  7. “Any Road”: Brainwashed is my third-favorite George album (after All Things Must Pass and Cloud 9, naturally), and it’s got some of his best-written songs on it. This one is simple in its formation and endless clever in execution.
  8. “Stuck Inside a Cloud”: George, towards the end, had it pretty damn rough. Cancer is not a thing I would wish on my worst enemy (well, maybe on my worst enemy). He knew he was dying. And he still managed to write and record such a beautiful song.
  9. “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”: This song is just such a goof. George loved the ukulele, and it’s front and center on this track.
  10. “Cloud 9”: From the comeback album(TM) in the late ’80s, when everything Jeff Lynne produced turned to solid gold (seriously, he did Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever, the Heartbreakers’ Into the Great Wide Open, this one, and Roy Orbison’s Mystery Girl, all in the space of like three or four years. And helped produce the first Traveling Wilburys record. Dude was on fire). It’s a slow burn, slide guitar seduction that would get me to drop my pants if someone tried using it on me.
  11. “When We Was Fab”: Ah, youth. The video for this particular song is great and just chock-full of Beatles Easter Eggs.
  12. “Wreck of the Hesperus”: George was funny as hell. If he wasn’t picking apart the foibles of modern society in songs like “P2 Vatican Blues (Last Saturday Night)” or “Sue Me, Sue You Blues” or “Try Some Buy Some” (see further down this list for those last two), he was cracking jokes. The line “But I can still rock as good as Gibraltar” will never not be funny to me.
  13. “Not Guilty”: That little guitar riff he does in this song? Love it.
  14. “Cheer Down”: Speaking of cracking jokes, the title of this particular song remains funny to me. It’s a great pun, and the lyrics themselves are witty. This song was featured on the Lethal Weapon 2 soundtrack!
  15. “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)”: Was George a little hippie-dippie? Oh, yeah. But he honestly meant it when he said stuff like this, I think.
  16. “Sue Me, Sue You Blues”: He also meant stuff like this. The modern world was too capitalistic and crass for George. We didn’t deserve him.
  17. “Don’t Make Me Wait Too Long”: George knows how to write a damn good love song (see “Something” for that), and this one ain’t half bad.
  18. “Living in the Material World”: Of all of the Beatles, George was the one most fascinated with eastern philosophy and metaphysics, as we can see in this song. He also like racecar driving. Folks contain multitudes, y’know?
  19. “Try Some Buy Some”: Consumerism is bad!
  20. “All Those Years Ago”: The song George wrote about John Lennon after Lennon was shot. It features the other two Beatles on it as well, so that’s cool.

Playlist #168

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Happy Tuesday, folks! We’re back from the beach, and for once I did not get sunburned! Don’t forget that the new Eddie Hazzard book is now available on the ‘Zon.

  1. Foo Fighters, “Best Of You”: “I’ve got a confession to make”: I didn’t realize this song was over 20 years old. It somehow seems older? And yet somehow also timeless. David Grohl is a pretty good songwriter.
  2. Sonic Youth, “Teen Age Riot”: Never really got into noise rock when I was young and malleable, so it’s kind of strange that I started listening to them this week and didn’t hate it. Still don’t fully understand the genre, but that’s on me, not them.
  3. Bob Dylan, “Love Minus Zero/No Limit”: Dylan rarely writes straightforward love songs, and calling this one is maybe a bit of a stretch. It’s easier to decode than many of his other songs: “She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful/Yet she’s true like ice, like fire,” is a damn good line.
  4. Fleetwood Mac, “Silver Springs”: Man, the 1997 live version of this song is just gloriously mean. Stevie Nicks sings it directly to and at Lindsey Buckingham, a great big lyrical fuck you the likes of which you rarely get even in the best sad songs.
  5. Wilco, “Livid”: Wilco’s new EP is pretty good, if sadly short.
  6. Flying Burrito Brothers, “Dark End of the Street”: These guys were putting the country in country-rock well before that was even a genre.
  7. John Prine, “The Great Compromise”: I’m still discovering amazing songs written by this guy. He left us far too soon.
  8. The Shins, “Phantom Limb”: I kinda like the Shins still. They didn’t change my life, contrary to what the movie Garden State would have you believe, but they’re good.
  9. Violent Femmes, “American Music”: The snide condescension in the vocals on, well, all Violent Femmes songs sustains me in my dark moods.
  10. The Velvet Underground, “Rock & Roll”: Why does this song include a Bb6? What is the point of that damn chord other than to infuriate me when I try to play the song?

Book Seven Cover Reveal!

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Book Seven of the Hazzard Pay series, The Armageddon Seed, is out this week! And here’s the cover, revealed to y’all!

Here’s the description for Book Seven:

Eddie Hazzard knows something is missing from his life, but he can’t quite put his finger on what it is. There are holes all over Arcadia, bits of information missing, gaps in the narrative, and only Eddie can fill them in.

Assuming he wants to. Assuming he’s okay with finding out the terrible truth that underpins everything in the city.

Everything has been building to a single moment, but as it fast approaches, will Eddie actually come out the other side a changed man, let alone alive? The Armageddon Seed has been planted, and the time to harvest has come.

Playlist #167: Beach Party

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Happy Monday, folks. We’re at the beach this week with the Wife’s family, but I have a surprise! The new book comes out this week! That’s right, Hazzard Pay 7, The Armageddon Seed, will be available sometime this week (whenever it gets through the Amazon process, which should be today or tomorrow?). I’ll show you the cover tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s a playlist while I soak up some sun and splash around in the Atlantic.

  1. Alanis Morissette, “Head Over Feet (Acoustic Version)”: Mellower with age, as things tend to be.
  2. Soundgarden, “Burden In My Head”: The Lithium station on Sirius XM plays a lot of Soundgarden, and I’m kinda here for it, I think.
  3. Charley Pride, “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone”: Apparently, my grandfather only ever attended one concert in his life, and it was to see Charley Pride.
  4. Fleetwood Mac, “Seven Wonders”: I’ve developed a certain fondness for latter-day Fleetwood Mac.
  5. The Rolling Stones, “Not Fade Away”: I’m always slightly amazed at how ramshackle and almost chaotic this song is, like the band were barely keeping it together while they played it.
  6. Radiohead, “2+2=5”: On the other hand, you’ve got Radiohead, who even when they get into a heavy breakdown still feel completely in control of everything.
  7. Ben Harper & the Blind Boys of Alabama, “Well, Well, Well”: What’s that, someone doing a Dylan cover? It’s more likely than you’d think!
  8. Band of Horses, “General Specific”: I love this song for reasons I’ve never been able to fully articulate. It just seems so joyful.
  9. Uncle Tupelo, “Steal the Crumbs”: Meanwhile, this song just hits me right in the gut and tugs on the ol’ heartstrings.
  10. Wilco, “Say You Miss Me”: Speaking of the heartstrings, this one gets to me, too. Maybe I’m just more vulnerable to songs of love and loss right now.

Playlists #164, #165, and #166

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As you read this, I’m somewhere between Virginia and Oklahoma, headed back to the land of my birth for my grandfather’s funeral. He passed away this weekend, and it’s kinda left me gutted. I’m glad I got to see him over Father’s Day weekend, and that he was in good spirits at the time. It’ll be nice to remember him that way.

Anyway, I’m combining three playlists into one today, because I’m behind a bit and I put together a big playlist to get me to Oklahoma. Here’s thirty songs.

  1. David Gray, “A Clean Pair of Eyes”: Early David Gray just hits different. It’s folkier, more acoustic, and very introspective. I dig it.
  2. Louis Armstrong, “Mack the Knife”: There is no better moment in music than when Louis throws it to himself for the trumpet solo at the end.
  3. Bing Crosby, “Swinging on a Star”: One of the best songs about the importance of education ever committed to tape.
  4. Ryan Adams, “Desire”: Yeah, the guy has diarrhea of the recording studio, and some of the crap he’s pulled over the years is rather reprehensible, but he does occasionally write and record good tunes.
  5. Mavis Staples, “Eyes on the Prize”: Leave it to Mavis to turn a Civil Rights Standard into a bluesy banger.
  6. Greg Feldon, “Incoming”: On one of my (many) recent trips back from Oklahoma, I spent the better part of a day driving up I-81 listening to this song on repeat until I had it memorized. It’s a good song.
  7. The Rolling Stones, “Honky Tonk Women”: Poor Mick just can’t even have an easy one night stand, can he?
  8. James McMurtry, “Choctaw Bingo”: It’s something of a standard “driving to Oklahoma” song for me at this point. It pops up on lots of playlists, because it’s a good song and it’s kinda long.
  9. Mark Knopfler, “Cannibals”: There are no cannibals anymore, are there, Mark? I think some folsk would beg to differ with a knife and fork, sir.
  10. Rilo Kiley, “More Adventurous”: Such a beautiful, forlorn sort of song. I’ve always loved it.
  11. Big Red Machine, “Renegade (feat. Taylor Swift)”: I’d be okay with Justin Vernon and Taylor Swift doing more duets for the next decade or so if they’re up for it.
  12. Ben Caplan, “Down to the River”: Did you know you needed more klezmer-inflected folk music in your life before you heard this song? Because I didn’t, but I obvious do need more of that in my life.
  13. Hank Williams, “Honky Tonk Blues”: This man knew from hard living, not that you’d know it from his songs necessarily. If he were alive today, he’d put the rest of the country music scene to shame, I’m pretty sure.
  14. The Mountain Goats, “Training Montage”: An amazing song if for nothing else than the line, “I’m doing this for revenge.”
  15. Neil Young, “Downtown”: I do enjoy it when Neil, the godfather of grunge, rocks out with Pearl Jam in tow. It’s a good time.
  16. Van Morrison, “Give Me a Kiss”: Old school Van was always top notch, as this song proves.
  17. The Wallflowers, “Misfits and Lovers (feat. Mick Jones)”: If you’re gonna do an album that sounds heavily indebted to the Clash, it’s probably a damn good idea to get a member of the Clash to guest on it.
  18. Tom Waits, “Chocolate Jesus”: Sacrilicious.
  19. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Angel Dream”: Can we talk for a minute about the run Tom Petty had between 1987 and 1999? He released Full Moon Fever, Into the Great Wide Open, Wildflowers, the She’s the One Soundtrack, and Echo, all bangers. All classics. Name me band in the past thirty-five years that’s had a string of records that good.
  20. Toad the Wet Sprocket, “Are We Afraid”: A quieter, more reflective moment from their odds & sods collection In Light Syrup.
  21. Pearl Jam, “Better Man”: I think I mentioned a few weeks ago how the Seven Mary Three song “Water’s Edge” is just a 90s rewrite of Richard Marx’s “Hazard,” and this song is just a rewrite of the final verse of Bob Seger’s “The Fire Inside.”
  22. Peter Gabriel, “Washing of the Water”: How does this man create such consistently interesting and provocative music? It’s wild.
  23. Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello, “My Brave Face (Original Demo)”: Two great tastes that taste great together, as it turns out. Elvis brought out the sharper side of McCartney (for a given value of sharper, since McCartney long ago filed off everything to smooth edges).
  24. Drive-By Truckers, “Everybody Needs Love”: An anthem for our time. Everybody does need love.
  25. Descendents, “‘Merican”: Another anthem for our time, this time about the true history of our country and how some folks just don’t want to see everything.
  26. The Dead Weather, “Hustle and Cuss”: It’s nice to see a Jack White project where he kind of takes a backseat to the proceedings, mostly just playing the drums and occasionally singing (like on this track).
  27. David Bowie, “Modern Love”: Dance-pop-era Bowie usually isn’t my favorite, but this song rocks.
  28. Calexico, “Guero Canelo”: Do I understand a word in this song? No. Does it still slap? Yes.
  29. Bob Dylan, “Song For Woody”: Another appropriate “traveling to Oklahoma” song. Woody is a state treasure, or damn well ought to be.
  30. Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Someday Never Comes”: One of the saddest songs that John Fogerty ever wrote, if you want my opinion. It’s dark and bittersweet and sad and longing, and it hits in just that right spot every time.

23 Years of Songwriting…

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That giant stack of paper? That’s most every song Clif, my dad, Emily, and I have written over the past 23 years. Not included are Clif’s Family Familiarity work or some of the solo instrumental stuff he’s done lately, but everything else is there. It’s nearly 200 songs.

There were years where I wrote fifteen or twenty songs. There were years where I only wrote one or two. There’s probably even a year in there somewhere where I wrote nothing. But 200 songs is quite a few, I think you’d agree.

I’m not going to stop writing songs anytime soon. Neither is Clif, and I’m pretty sure Emily and even my dad have a few more in ‘em. This stack of paper will only grow bigger. Next time I print it out, it’ll probably need a new, bigger binder. Here’s hoping.

Playlist #163

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Haaaaappy last Monday of the school year! School officially ends here in Fairfax County on Wednesday, and I for one am more than ready for Summer Break. Here are some songs to get us there.

  1. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Waiting For Tonight”: Heard this one late last week on Tom Petty Radio, and had forgotten the song even existed. Features one of the best lines ever sung, “And I’m wrestling with my overcoat/And I’m fighting with my thoughts.”
  2. Primal Scream, “Rocks”: Hadn’t really listened to these guys before, and while this song is pretty good, it wasn’t enough to get me interested in listening to any of their other stuff.
  3. Van Morrison, “Tupelo Honey”: It’s also Clyde’s birthday this week! Let’s listen to classic Van Morrison in his honor.
  4. Hank Williams, “Kaw-Liga”: My grandfather continues to kick around, though he’s currently in the hospital with pneumonia. But his spirits seem good, and he’s alert and responsive, so I’ll take those as good signs. This is one of his favorite Hank Williams songs, and one he used to sing to us when we were little.
  5. Wilco, “The Late Greats”: What is the greatest song most folks have never heard?
  6. Paul McCartney, “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man”: Great McCartney cover. Run Devil Run was such a good album.
  7. Linda Ronstadt, “When Will I Be Loved?”: Things don’t get much better than Linda Ronstadt singing this song.
  8. Sting, “We’ll Be Together”: The most 1980s song I could imagine, from the processed drum machine to the synth horns.
  9. Pink Floyd, “Fearless”: I’m weird in that I really dig the Pink Floyd album Meddle (it might even be my favorite of theirs). This song, right in the middle of things, is a good example of why it’s such a great collection of tunes.
  10. Alice Cooper, “School’s Out”: Of course it is. And good riddance until next school year, ya filthy animals!