beck

Playlist #197

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Monday, folks! We finally made it through that nigh-unending January, sanity (mostly) intact. Here’s some songs to get us through the week.

  1. David Gray, “As I’m Leaving”: David Gray’s earlier stuff is much more striped down and folky. I kinda dig a lot of it, especially this piano ballad off the Lost Songs collection.
  2. You+Me, “From a Closet in Norway”: Maybe I’m just a sucker for acoustic-based folk-pop?
  3. Van Morrison, “Madame Joy”: This song is just so full of joy, it’s hard not to love. Van could rave it up sometimes.
  4. Wilco, “You Are My Face”: I love the breakdown in this song, where it totally changes tone and rhythm and becomes a completely different song for a couple of minutes. Great.
  5. Jackson Browne, “Downhill From Everywhere”: An actual environmental protest song, this time about the sea and how we’re all connected to it.
  6. Beck, “Lost Cause”: I know Sea Change is Beck’s big breakup album/Bob Dylan reference, and it’s good, and it sounds like he’s just being backed by the Flaming Lips the whole time (to the point that he took them out on tour as his opener and his backing band for the subsequent tour), but it does occasionally make me miss the whimsical, clearly-stoned-out-of-his-gourd Beck.
  7. Richard Thompson, “Beeswing”: Back on my folky acoustic bullshit, but it’s a damn good story song.
  8. George Harrison, “Not Guilty”: Solo George is the best George.
  9. The Gaslight Anthem, “Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts”: Early Gaslight Anthem, with the band showing they have a softer, more sensitive side.
  10. Aimee Mann, “Stranger Into Starman”: A subdued ender for this particular playlist, but a perpetual favorite. Aimee Mann somehow became one of my favorite artists over the past few years, and I’m not sad about that at all.

Playlist #152 – Talk Singin’

/ xeyeti / 1 Comment

Happy birthday to me! And happy Wednesday, I guess. I’m currently in the heart of Oklahoma, visiting family. Anyway, here’s a playlist of songs that feature talk singing.

1. Bob Dylan, “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues”: A tongue in cheek look at the very real John Birch Society, an anti-communist group back in the ‘60s that was more than a little paranoid.

2. Beck, “Loser”: “In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey.” If that doesn’t speak to your soul, you probably weren’t in your teens in the ‘90s.

3. Butthole Surfers, “Pepper”: I’m not really sure what this song is about. A group of friends who all die horrible deaths? Maybe. Random word association? Far more likely.

4. Cake, “Never There”: The band that made the donkey call cool again.

5. Shawn Mullins, “Lullaby”: “She’d be a whole lot prettier if she’d smile once in a while” just comes off real creepy, Shawn. Maybe…maybe don’t say things like that in a song, yeah?

6. Soul Coughing, “Blame”: Sampling and bass & drums and repetitive lyrics, oh my.

7. Arlo Guthrie, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacre”: An 18 minute epic that tells the story of Thanksgiving, littering, getting drafted, and getting out of being drafted by telling the psychiatrist you can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant and then just walking out.

8. Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, “Bomb. Repeat. Bomb.”: A raucous, punky song that rips.

9. Van Morrison, “And the Healing has Begun”: The featured spoken-word section really makes the song drag, but it’s still a fun tune.

10. Harry Nilsson, “Everybody’s Talkin’”: There’s no talk-singing in this song, but the title sure fits.

Playlist #42: Love Stinks!

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Valentine’s Day, folks! Here’s some songs about love that anyone can enjoy, whether you’re single AF this year or happily married or anything in between.

  1. The Beatles, “I’m A Loser”: Back when I was in college, I put together anti-love playlists every Valentine’s Day. This one was a recurring feature.
  2. Sting, “She’s Too Good For Me”: It was true 15 years ago when I married the Wife, and it’s true today.
  3. Jesse Malin, “She Don’t Love Me Now”: I think it’s the guitars on this one that really do it for me.
  4. The Hold Steady, “You Can Make Him Like You”: “You don’t have to go to the right kind of schools/Let your boyfriend come from the right kind of schools/You can wear his old sweatshirt/You can cover yourself like a bruise.”
  5. The Grass Roots, “Things I Should Have Said”: Is there ever a bad time for a Grass Roots song? No. No, there is not.
  6. Placebo, “You Don’t Care About Us”: I swear, I had at least three friends who listened almost exclusively to this album during high school/college. If you didn’t do that, you probably also have at least one or two of those friends as well.
  7. Beck, “Loser”: When you can’t just say it in English, say it in Spanish as well: “Soy un perdador.”
  8. Barenaked Ladies, “One Week”: When you fight, you should always make up afterwards. Maybe don’t wait a whole week for it, though.
  9. Hank Williams, Sr., “You Win Again”: The resignation in his voice is just…damn, Hank.
  10. The White Stripes, “The Denial Twist”: “If you think that a kiss is all in the lips/C’mon, you got it all wrong, man.”

Happy Valentine’s Day 2017

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

When I was a younger man, single and insecure and full of anxiety and dumb ideas, I was a bit of a sad sack.  Okay, a lot of a sad sack.  I moped around the campus fountain at midnight listening to sad songs on my Discman like some mooney-eyed twit.  And I made mix CDs of songs about love gone sour and losers.

Nowadays, I tend to mope less, mostly because I finally got medication and therapy.  Marrying an amazing woman helped, too.  While I don’t make mix CDs anymore (I make playlists on my phone instead, because it’s 2017), I do still enjoy putting together thematic lists for special occasions.  While I think of myself as less of a loser than I once did, I thought it might be fun to put together one more Loser List for Valentine’s Day.

Before the list, though, a few words on this holiday.  I’ve never been a big fan of Valentine’s Day.  Maybe it’s a result of being single throughout college and grad school.  Maybe I resent being told I have to be romantic on a set day in a specific way (today’s comic is a pretty clear indicator that the Wife and I have our own unique brand of affection and romance).  Honestly, I don’t think there’s any real reason to feel obligated to do some big, ridiculous thing today, unless you really want to.  Some folks really love Valentine’s Day, and that’s great for them!  For the rest of us, let’s just act like it’s a regular ol’ Tuesday, and everyone has joined Garibaldi’s Red Shirts for the day for some weird reason.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the Losers List.

The Beatles, “I’m a Loser”: A Hard Day’s Night is one of my absolute favorite Beatles albums, and this manages to be one of the best songs on the record.

Beck, “Loser”: Like this song wasn’t going to show up on this list.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Even the Losers”: More a song of hope than anything else, it always gives me strength to think that even the losers can get lucky sometime.

The Avett Brothers, “Shame”: Sometimes we feel so sure of ourselves, only to realize we’re being tremendous assholes.

Bob Dylan, “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go”: Blood on the Tracks is full of sad songs of love gone wrong, but this is one of my favorites.

Cake, “Friend is a Four-Letter Word”: If early-20s me had an anthem, this was probably it.  If anyone needed a punch in the face, it was early-20s me.

Camera Obscura, “Lloyd, I’m Ready to be Heartbroken”: “‘Cause I can’t see further than my own nose at the moment.”  Brilliant.

Sting, “Seven Days”: Sting’s face is pretty punchable, too, if only because he refers to his rival as “Neanderthal.”

Jesse Malin, “She Don’t Love Me Now”: I’m a sucker for great horn arrangements.

Led Zeppelin, “Hey Hey What Can I Do”: Your woman runs around on you while everyone’s at church?  Robert Plant feels your pain.