Playlist #186

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Happy Monday, folks. Like many other individuals, I have decided to migrate from Twitter (still not gonna call it X, as that is stupid), that Nazi-amplifying hellsite, and over to Blue Sky! I have been posting regularly so far; we’ll see if that keeps up.

  1. Jessye DeSilva, “Let It Burn”: I think we can all agree that white supremacy is a huge issue in the United States today and that maybe, just maybe, burning it all down wouldn’t be a bad idea. And if that’s not a sentiment you can agree with, what the fuck are you doing here? Go away.
  2. David Gray, “After the Harvest”: It’s David Gray doing David Gray things, with delicate acoustic guitars picked over vaguely electronic beats. It ticks a few boxes in my head that give me that good dopamine hit, so this isn’t a complaint.
  3. Phil Collins, “I Don’t Care Anymore”: An effort to repeat the success of “In the Air Tonight”? I dunno, maybe. It has that same sort of minimalist drum/keyboard approach, the same dark theme, but more forceful singing (despite being about having no fucks left to give).
  4. Bon Iver, “S P E Y S I D E”: It’s weird hearing Bon Iver being almost…straightforward with a song after years of getting more and more cryptic and byzantine with his approach to lyrics specifically and music in general. I kinda dig it.
  5. George Harrison, “Not Guilty”: That little repeated guitar riff just eats its way into my head and won’t leave. I love it.
  6. The Velvet Underground, “Who Loves the Sun”: Hearing such bright, bouncy pop from the Velvet Underground always hits me weird. Like, these lyrics and those “Bop-ba-ba-ba”s shouldn’t be coming out of Lou Reed’s mouth.
  7. Patsy Cline, “I Fall to Pieces”: This woman had such a voice. And that shouldn’t be telling any of you anything you don’t already know.
  8. Lucero, “On My Way Downtown”: A song of drinking and regret and the promise of a better day.
  9. Mike Doughty, “Fort Hood”: Best use of “Let the Sunshine In” ever. Even better than the original “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.” Fight me.
  10. The Mountain Goats, “No Children”: My wife’s favorite Mountain Goats song. Should I be worried?

Playlist #185

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It’s a Tuesday, folks. Those’re like Mondays.

  1. Johnny Rivers, “Seventh Son”: I happen to like late ’50s/early ’60s swagger songs like this. “I can heal the sick/Raise the dead/Make the little girls talk out of their heads” is a pretty great claim.
  2. Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, “Love Don’t”: This dude can holler, and this song is pretty damn great.
  3. Neko Case, “Hold On, Hold On”: I listened to this album (and especially this song) just about on repeat last week and almost bought a tenor guitar because of it.
  4. The National, “Sorrow”: The band once played this song for over six hours. It’s pretty amazing how the song evolved and shifted over that time.
  5. Billy Bragg & Wilco, “When The Roses Bloom Again”: It’s a fairly standard war story sort of thing, where a dying soldier tells the last person he sees to let his darling know he remained faithful to her, but it still tugs at the heartstrings.
  6. The Mountain Goats, “Going Invisible 2”: With its refrain of “I’m going to burn it all down today/Down today, okay?”, this song might just be my anthem for the month.
  7. Big Red Machine, “Phoenix (feat. Fleet Foxes and Anias Mitchell)”: A bouncy, folky burst of pop that offers a moment of respite in an otherwise gloomy world.
  8. Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, “Home”: It takes chutzpah to sample Phil Collins, and even more to feature him prominently in the accompanying video, but it really works.
  9. Tom Waits, “Chocolate Jesus”: Not just for Easter anymore.
  10. James McMurtry, “Just Us Kids”: The older I get, the less I feel like I have everything in my life together. I get the feeling this was uncommon even a generation ago, but feels very common today. Why is that?

Playlist #184: Election Day

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Happy Monday, folks. Tomorrow is the day here in the United States: Election Day. Have you voted yet? You ought to. I’d tell you who I voted for and who I think you should vote for, but that seems crass. Besides, if you’ve talked with me or seen my comics from the past decade or so, you can probably guess how I voted. Anyway, here’s a playlist of songs to encourage you to vote!

  1. Radiohead, “Electioneering”: I definitely expect some shenanigans from at least one side of the aisle this year.
  2. Billy Bragg & Wilco, “Christ for President”: Could there be a better man for the job? No, there could not. Would be flip some tables? You bet your ass.
  3. The National, “Mr. November”: I kinda hoped they’d release an updated version of this called “Mrs. November” this year. Alas, it was not to be so.
  4. Molly Lewis, “Pantsuit Sasquatch”: An ode to former candidate Hillary Clinton, who after the 2016 election fucked off into the woods like the mythical Bigfoot, only wearing a pantsuit.
  5. Toad the Wet Sprocket, “Old Habits Die Hard”: I know this election cycle has flipped a lot of voters from one party to the other, or at least away from one slightly orangish candidate.
  6. The Byrds, “I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician”: No, guys, you really don’t.
  7. The Doubleclicks, “President Snakes, Part 1”: A president who is nothing but a bunch of snakes? Wouldn’t be the worst we’ve dealt with.
  8. Drive-By Truckers, “The President’s Penis Is Missing”: It very well might be, guys. It very well might be.
  9. Over the Rhine, “If A Song Could Be President”: I find it amusing that they name check Neil Young in this song, a famously Canadian songwriter.
  10. The Presidents of the United States of America, “Lump”: Like I wasn’t going to include a song from this band.

Playlist #183

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Happy Monday, and happy last week of the first quarter! We’re already 1/4 of the way through the school year, which is hard to believe. I’ll take the short week that gives us, though, and next week is Election Day, which means another short week. Two of those back to back? Is it my birthday already? Anyway, have some songs.

  1. Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, “Love Don’t”: This white boy’s got a blues holler. I dig it.
  2. Jesse Malin, “Argentina”: I oftentimes feel like fucking off forever to Argentina and just starting a new life as a cafe regular, maybe strum my guitar in the village plaza by the fountain. I dunno.
  3. Chuck Prophet, “Betty’s Song (feat. Qiensave)”: I’m a sucker for anything about a character named Betty. I blame my grandmother of the same name.
  4. Josh Ritter, “Only a River (feat. Bill Frisell)”: A song written for Bob Weir’s album several years back and featured on Ritter’s latest, rather stripped down and quiet collection.
  5. Richard and Linda Thompson, “Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed?”: It’s fascinating watching two people who share a life and a career dissolve in slow motion in front of you. This song helps document that dissolution.
  6. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Deliver Me”: The deluxe version of Long After Dark is good. Essential? I wouldn’t go that far. But it’s got better songs on it than I remembered.
  7. David Gray, “After the Harvest”: New David Gray always makes my heart happy. What makes me sad is that the full album doesn’t come out until January.
  8. Cracker, “Low”: I like a burst of ’90s nostalgia as much as the next gen-xer/millennial.
  9. Gillian Welch, “Pocahontas (Live)”: A damn good cover of the old Neil Young song, and it somehow sounds less cringe coming out of her mouth than it does his.
  10. Willie Nelson, “Lost Cause”: Beck cover. Beautiful. Listening to Willie Nelson grapple with mortality like he’s been doing for the past couple of albums (and especially on his forthcoming Last Leaf on the Tree (his 76th album, holy crap) has me feeling things I’m not ready to feel.

Playlist #182

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Happy Monday, folks. We begin this week as we have so many others, with a playlist of tracks chosen by yours truly. This week, those songs are:

  1. Fleetwood Mac, “Silver Springs (Live)”: The one from The Dance, the 1997 live album, where Stevie Nicks gives such a performance directly at Lindsey Buckingham that I’m surprised he didn’t just sink through the floor and into oblivion. I’ve been obsessed with this song for the past week, and it doesn’t show any signs of letting me go anytime soon.
  2. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Straight Into Darkness”: They just released a deluxe version of this 1982 album, complete with a bonus disk of outtakes and rarities. Good stuff. Now gimme one for Damn the Torpedoes!
  3. Cunningham Bird, “Don’t Let Me Down Again”: So Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham did a track-for-track remake of Buckingham Nicks. It still sounds very Andrew Bird-y, so lots of beautiful violin and virtuoso whistling.
  4. Live, “Pain Lies on the Riverside”: Did you know they wrote and recorded and performed songs other than “Lightning Crashes”? Well, they did! And a lot of them are a damn-sight better than that song.
  5. Van Morrison, “Everyone”: My brother called me up Friday and asked me, “What Van Morrison song has a lot of flutes and sounds like it’s straight out of the Middle Ages? And there’s something about mulberry bushes in there, too, I think?” He meant “Everyone,” which, while it does indeed feature flutes in a rather prominent role, does not ever mention mulberry bushes.
  6. The Offspring, “Staring at the Sun”: Sometimes, you just wanna rock out to a song that aint’ that deep. The Offspring are there for you.
  7. Michigander, “Better (Acoustic)”: Is this better than the electric version? I’m not convinced.
  8. Melissa Ethridge, “Come to my Window”: Man, when is Lilith Fair gonna get revived?
  9. Josh Ritter, “The Curse”: The best song about a mummy accidentally cursing the woman he loves who found him and slowly sucking all of the life out of her until she’s just a desiccated husk of a person like he was when she first found him that I have ever heard. It is, admittedly, a rather niche genre of song.
  10. John Mellencamp, “No One Cares About Me”: Poor John Mellencamp. It sure ain’t his mid-80s heyday anymore, which is too bad, since he’s become a much more interesting songwriter since then and mellowed out in a number of ways. Not in his voice, mind you, which sounds like he gargles glass, sand, whiskey, and an ashtray before every vocal take.

Playlist #181

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Wednesdays are the new Mondays, baby!

  1. Redbone, “Wevoka”: Monday was Indigenous People’s Day, after all, so what better way to kick off our playlist for this week than a song from the Native American rock band Redbone?
  2. Stevie Nicks, “The Lighthouse”: If you told me that, in her late 70s, Stevie Nicks would release a maximalist pop song supporting women’s rights just weeks before the 2024 presidential election, I’d have said that…sounds about right, actually.
  3. Juan Luis Guerra, “Ojala Que Lluave Cafe”: A Dominican Republic singer-songwriter writes about only being able to move home if it starts raining rice and coffee. It’s a beautiful, heartbreaking song that includes a children’s choir.
  4. Teddy Swims, “Lose Control”: This man’s got some pipes. There’s something about the big white guy with face tattoos who can really belt that I kinda dig.
  5. Tom Petty, “Won’t Back Down”: I’ve been immersing myself in Tom Petty again lately. This song will still remain long after America is a distant dream in some ancient textbook.
  6. Adele, “Rolling in the Deep”: Is it a four-chord pop song? Yes. Does Adele just whip ass at singing the hell out of it anyway? Oh my, yes.
  7. Soundgarden, “Black Hole Sun”: My favorite part of this song is the guy who does the backing vocals singing, “Black hole sun, black hole sun!” in the background towards the end of the song. I don’t know why, but the guy’s tone just cracks me up every single time.
  8. Bruce Springsteen, “Atlantic City”: Nebraska remains my undisputed favorite Springsteen album. Sure, it’s very spare and stark, but I kinda like that about it, and the way he plays the guitar on some of them – like “Atlantic City,” for instance – fills in the corners of the song in a way that make a full band treatment absolutely unnecessary.
  9. Paul McCartney, “My Brave Face”: No idea why McCartney wrote a song about trying to get back on the horse after a divorce while he was still married to and deeply in love with Linda, but it’s a decent one.
  10. The Wallflowers, “Sleepwalker”: Did they ever write a better song than this? I don’t think they did.

Playlist #180

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s PSAT/SAT Week here at the school where I teach, which means I get to spend Wednesday administering a test. Joy. In the meantime, here are some tunes to help you get through the next seven days.

  1. Stone Temple Pilots, “Big Easy”: Still follows the soft/loud dynamic of every band that ever heard the Pixies, but the incorporation of acoustic guitars and slide guitar is rather novel. I dig it.
  2. Mount Eerie, “Ravens”: Part of a song cycle/album about the death of the singer’s wife, it’s soft and contemplative and bare bones in its instrumentation, like it was made for Saturday around 3:00 AM.
  3. Buckingham Nicks, “Long Distance Winner”: Early work from Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, pre-Fleetwood Mac, and the album is indeed hard to track down. It’s not available on any of the streaming services I checked, and even a CD version on Amazon was more money than I want to admit I spent on Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. But it’s damn good music, even if some of the lyrics are a little too simple most of the time.
  4. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Breakdown”: Sometimes, I’m just in the mood for some good ol’ fashioned rock ‘n’ roll. And Tom always provides. Always.
  5. The Smile, “Foreign Spies”: More electronic than their previous two albums, but what do you expect from 2/5 of Radiohead?
  6. Jimmy Eat World, “Lucky Denver Mint”: Jumped up rocker is jumped up rocker.
  7. Carole King, “(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman”: I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a Carole King song that I didn’t like.
  8. Louis Armstrong, “A Kiss To Build A Dream On”: If you don’t love Satchmo, I don’t think we can be friends.
  9. The Clovers, “Love Potion No. 9”: This will always be the goofiest damn song to me. Dude drinks a love potion and ends up kissing a cop. Classic.
  10. Glen Campbell, “MacArthur Park”: So apparently this song is based on the love story between Jimmy Webb (who wrote it) and Susie Horton. Horton was working at an insurance company office near – you guessed it – MacArthur Park at the time. It’s apparently symbolic of the end of the love affair, according to Webb, but that really makes me wonder what kinda kinky cake-related shenanigans they got up to. Also, original recording of the song was by actor Richard Harris, later of Dumbledore in Harry Potter fame.

Playlist #179

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It’s another rainy, gray Monday here in Northern Virginia. But we’ve got some tunes and we’ve got a bit of caffeine in our systems, so let’s go!

  1. Kris Kristofferson, “The Best of All Possible Worlds”: I know four things about Kris Kristofferson, who passed away over the weekend. (1) He was pretty badass in the Blade movies. (2) He stood beside Sinead O’Connor at the Concert for Dylan’s 30th Anniversary in solidarity with the singer while the crowd booed her (she’d just torn up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live, like, a week earlier). (3) He once threatened to beat Toby Keith’s jingoist ass into the ground at a 9/11 benefit concert. (4) He was a damn good songwriter, and he’ll be missed.
  2. Jimmy Eat World, “The Middle”: Uplifting and danceable.
  3. Sabrina Carpenter, “Please Please Please”: Maybe I’m just showing my age here. Maybe this music isn’t for me, no matter how ELO-inflected the instrumentation may seem. But when did pop singers get so horny on main? I’m no prude, and I definitely don’t want to yuck someone else’s yum (especially since I think she’s pretty talented and a decent-enough songwriter), but I just don’t think I’m the target audience for this, and that’s okay.
  4. Chappell Roan, “Red Wine Supernova”: Speaking of pop singers I’m not the target audience for…
  5. Bruce Springsteen, “She Don’t Love Me Now”: A Springsteen cover of a Jesse Malin song? Yes, please! The sax solo fits perfectly.
  6. Billy Idol, “Bitter Taste”: A 21st century Billy Idol song that’s actually pretty good? It’s more likely than you’d think!
  7. The Gaslight Anthem, “Stay Lucky”: If ever there was a song that got the blood pumping while you speed down the highway doing way too many miles per hour over the speed limit, it was probably this one.
  8. Pearl Jam, “Hail Hail”: Maybe I’m just in a mood this morning and need to be pepped up, I dunno.
  9. Toad the Wet Sprocket, “Nightingale Song”: I love the harmonies on this song.
  10. JD McPherson, “The Phantom of New Rochelle”: A surfy rock instrumental from the Okie guitarist. Fun and reverby.

Playlist #178 – Jangly Electric 12 String

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Happy Monday and happy Autumn, folks! Last week, Clyde challenged me to come up with a whole playlist of songs that feature an electric 12-string. At first, I just thought I’d post a link to the Byrds’ greatest hits and leave it at that, but I decided that might be too much of a cop-out even for me. So instead, I sat down and came up with ten songs that feature electric 12!

  1. The Byrds, “Turn! Turn! Turn!”: Honestly, any Byrds song could fill this spot. All of their best stuff features an electric 12 played by Roger McGuinn. This is the single most obvious song on this entire list.
  2. The Beatles, “A Hard Day’s Night”: George Harrison occasionally rocked an electric 12 on some Beatles songs, including this one and the always-awesome “And Your Bird Can Sing.” It was a close call between those two songs, but I went ahead and put this one on the list because of the electric 12 guitar solo.
  3. Led Zeppelin, “The Song Remains the Same”: For a dude who carried around a double-necked Gibson an awful lot, I don’t feel like Jimmy Page played much electric 12. He does on this track, though, and it’s great.
  4. Tom Petty, “I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better”: Tom Petty is often associated with twelve string guitars, though I feel like he mostly stuck to acoustics for that. Not for this one, though. Also, the “12 string” part of “American Girl?” Not actually a 12 string, but two six-string guitars played by Petty and Mike Campbell in such sync that it just sounds like a 12 string. Kinda amazing.
  5. XTC, “Mayor of Simpleton”: Just a fantastic song from a fantastic band with a fantastic electric 12-string guitar part in it.
  6. Pink Floyd, “Fearless”: Apparently David Gilmour occasionally deigns to use an electric 12 on some songs, including this Floyd number from Meddle. Such a damn good album.
  7. The Hollies, “Bus Stop”: Another band that frequently used an electric 12. “Bus Stop” is possibly the greatest love story song from the British Invasion era.
  8. The Decemberists, “Yankee Bayonet”: Apparently Chris Funk, guitarist for the Decemberists, frequently uses the electric 12 for his stuff. Very cool.
  9. REM, “So. Central Rain”: That 12-string riff that starts the song off? So damn good.
  10. Gin Blossoms, “Til I Hear It From You”: When I think of ’90s jangle-pop, the Gin Blossoms are what I’m thinking of. This song is a perfect example of why.

Playlist #177

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Happy Monday, folks! Did you know that you can join my Patreon and hear a new song every single week? It’s true! Come join me, I’m lonely. Here’s songs by other people:

  1. Gary Wright, “Two Faced Man”: Pre-“Dream Weaver,” Gary Wright had a mustache and a more Americana approach to music. This one features George Harrison on slide guitar!
  2. Lucero, “Downtown/On My Way Downtown”: I unabashedly love this song. The horns that feature throughout this whole album (called Women and Work, if you’re curious) is top-notch and adds a great layer of novelty to the songs.
  3. Deer Tick, “Easy”: This song sounds so damn angry every time I listen to it, and I love it. Very loud and brash and upset and unhappy and so damn angry.
  4. Van Morrison, “Give Me a Kiss”: This song is so lighthearted and bouncy, like the musical equivalent of a kiss from your significant other.
  5. Bruce Springsteen, “One Step Up”: Getting back to sadness, apparently, with the Boss’s cheating song. At least, that’s how I always think of it.
  6. Days of the New, “Touch, Peel and Stand”: An acoustic-based grunge song? It’s more likely than you think!
  7. The Flying Burrito Brothers, “Sin City”: Sometimes, you just want some good ol’ fashioned country rock, and the FBBs are here for you in that moment.
  8. Neil Young, “Harvest”: Speaking of country rock, here’s another classic of the genre. I spent a good chunk of the end of last week learning how to play a number of songs off this album, so I’m pretty stuck in on this one.
  9. Garbage, “Only Happy When It Rains”: Sharp songwriting, incisive lyrics, and a snarl on the lead singer’s lips make this one a classic.
  10. Frank Turner, “We Shall Not Overcome”: Sometimes, it’s best to just say “fuck it” and accept the inevitable.