bill small

Playlist #194 and #195

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Happy Monday! It’s Martin Luther King, Jr, Day, and Inauguration Day. One of those is a cause for celebration, while the other is a cause for heavy drinking. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which one is which.

  1. The Refreshments, “Banditos”: I am embarrassed just how long I got the Refreshments and the Replacements confused. It was…far longer than I care to admit.
  2. Chris Smither, “Origin of Species”: A fantastic, farcical song mixing stories from the Bible with a winking nod to Charles Darwin and the double helix.
  3. Jason Isbell, “Super 8”: No one wants to die in a Super 8 Motel, Mr. Isbell. My wife won’t even set foot in one.
  4. Stevie Nicks, “Lighthouse”: Still love this song. It’s still a banger. I will not be accepting questions at this time.
  5. Tom Waits, “Goin’ Out West”: “I know karate and voodoo too” is a hell of a line.
  6. The Mountain Goats, “No Children”: We’ve talked about this one before, about how it’s my wife’s favorite Mountain Goats song and maybe I need to be concerned about that? Who knows.
  7. Michael Penn, “No Myth”: I dunno, maybe comparing yourself to Romeo and Heathcliff is not the flex you think it is.
  8. Big Red Machine, “Latter Days”: I like the album this song is from so much I picked it up on vinyl a couple of weeks ago. Great decision.
  9. Kate Bush, “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)”: About the only slice of ’80s music I can really stand, it’s a damn good song with a killer chorus.
  10. Franz Ferdinand, “Take Me Out”: It will never cease to amuse me that the band named after the dude whose assassination kicked off World War I released a single called “Take Me Out.” Just top-tier trolling.
  11. Jimmy Eat World, “The Middle”: Such an uplifting, shout-along song. And easy to play on the guitar to boot!
  12. Tracy Bonham, “Mother Mother”: A nice slice of ’90s nostalgia. Apparently the Wife hates her music? I was just as surprised as you are.
  13. Whiskeytown, “Jacksonville Skyline”: I know everyone was all about the authenticity of the cowpunk/alt-country movement in the early 2000s, but Whiskeytown’s country always felt like a coat Ryan Adams was wearing and took off as quickly as he could when he went solo.
  14. Wilco, “At Least That’s What You Said”: The snarling, Neil Young-esque guitar explosion that erupts about halfway through this song is giving me life.
  15. Diana Ross & the Supremes, “Reflections”: Sometimes, you just need a girl group singing close harmonies to get you through the day. This might be such a day.
  16. Edwyn Collins, “A Girl Like You”: Britpop, you say? Britpop? I’ll give you Britpop!
  17. Bob Dylan, “Mississippi”: For nothing else than I got the line “You can always come back but you can’t come back all the way” stuck in my head the other day.
  18. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “A Thing About You”: This has somehow become one of my favorite Tom Petty songs in recent years. Dunno how or why. I think I just like the breakneck pace of it and how I always imagine things almost tumble apart in the instrumental break but barely hold on.
  19. Calexico, “Beneath the City of Dreams”: I am a sucker for a good Calexico song, which really means any Calexico song. They’re all pretty damn good.
  20. Bill Small, “This Old House”: A dark tour through the empty halls of one’s life, or an empty house that used to be occupied by a loved one.

Playlist #53

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If I were a more clever person than I am, I’d have made this playlist all songs from the second album by bands. But alas, it’s a Monday morning, and cleverness can only take one so far. In other news, I did just drop the April song over on Patreon, which you should sign up for and follow me on for a song a month!

  1. Bill Small, “This Old House”: Where did I first hear this song? I think was at the Mansion on O Street, back when I was still playing there on Sundays. It’s a simple song with a nice gimmick (a house reminding the singer of all the times he had there but now the only reason to stay is gone).
  2. The Black Keys, “Unknown Brother”: I like the Black Keys. I know it’s kinda popular amongst certain music aficionados to pooh pooh them, but I always kinda liked their energy and songwriting.
  3. Radiohead, “Ill Wind”: I’m not as familiar with this song as I am with most of the songs I put on my playlists. And latter-day Radiohead is always kinda hit and miss for me anyway. But it’s an interesting song.
  4. Roy Orbison, “You Got It”: Roy Orbison + Jeff Lynne = stuff I will listen to on repeat.
  5. Elliott Smith, “Christian Brothers”: Did I originally put the Heatmiser version of this song on a playlist? Or was it this version? And why am I too lazy to comb through 52 other playlists to find the answer?
  6. Queen, “Fat Bottomed Girls”: They do indeed make the rockin’ world go ’round. More to the point, though, the first Queen CD I ever owned (an import from Hong Kong), a greatest hits collection, had the edited version of this song on it. The only difference between the two versions is there’s less Brian May guitar solo on the edited version. I ask you, dear reader, who in their right mind would want less Brian May guitar on a song? Not I. Not I.
  7. REM, “Nightswimming”: It’s just a beautiful song. Love the piano.
  8. David Gray, “What Am I Doing Wrong”: I’ve been listening to David Gray a lot this week, and digging through his older albums reveals a treasure trove of excellent songwriting (if not always excellent or interesting execution).
  9. Don Henley, “I Will Not Go Quietly”: Yeah, it’s another artist that it’s popular to shit on. I still like a lot of Henley’s stuff. He can be overbearing and preachy at times, but when he’s firing on all cylinders, he’s pretty great.
  10. Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors, “Ain’t Nobody Got It Easy”: My Grandma Betty has a saying: “Nothing’s Easy.” The way she says it, you can hear the capital letters in each word. This song kinda reminds me of that.

I’m currently almost 40,000 words into Book 7. It’s coming along and I’ve found my groove again! Maybe it’ll be finished by this summer? Fingers crossed!