bruce cockburn

Playlist #276

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Monday, folks! The AC is out at the Wife’s school, which has sent them scrambling home and us to the local library for the day. But playlists don’t care about the temperature!

  1. The Allman Brothers Band, “Midnight Rider”: All these years later, this song still kicks a serious amount of ass. Those harmonies in the chorus? They send chills down my spine.
  2. Badfinger, “Day After Day”: It’s always a bit of a tragedy, this band. They had so much potential, and it ended up being (mostly) wasted by managerial incompetence (or, y’know, malfeasance).
  3. Bruce Cockburn, “Lovers In A Dangerous Time”: I heard a Barenaked Ladies cover of this song the other week, and it just…lacked any kind of oomph. The line “You gotta kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight” is still stone-cold badass, though.
  4. Tom Waits, “Get Behind The Mule”: The title for this song apparently came from famous bluesman Robert Johnson’s father, who famously said, “the only thing wrong with Robert Johnson is that he doesn’t want to get behind the mule in the morning and plow.” And that thought now resides rent-free in my head.
  5. Tom Petty, “You And Me”: I’ve softened considerably on latter-day Tom Petty as I’ve grown older, especially The Last DJ and Highway Companion. This one comes from the former, though I think I can be forgiven for originally thinking it came from the latter. It just has that solo style, that easy-going, laid-back tone that so much of his best work possessed.
  6. Queen, “’39”: A folky little slice of…I dunno, colonialism? It’s less endearing than I originally thought now that I give it more thought. Hmm.
  7. Monsters of Folk, “Say Please”: Speaking of a group that’s supposed to be folky, there’s these guys. I wonder if any of them ever went on to make anything else?
  8. The English Beat, “Save It For Later”: A stone-cold classic. I feel like the horn section is what really holds the song together and gives it that certain something that sets it above many of the English Beat’s peers.
  9. Billy Preston, “Nothing From Nothing”: That Billy Preston could release songs with such emotion and energy and feel as…trapped as he apparently felt still resonates with me.
  10. Jefferson Airplane, “Somebody To Love”: How did the band that released songs like this, “White Rabbit,” and “Volunteers” eventually morph into the band that released “We Built This City?” It’s one of life’s great mysteries.

Playlist #51

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Tax Day, America! Happy regular ol’ Monday after Easter! Happy, um, April 18th, everyone else? Don’t forget to join my Patreon, where I’m making new music every month for your listening enjoyment (actual amount of enjoyment may vary. Please see your doctor if you receive too much enjoyment from listening to my music)! Anyway, here’s this week’s playlist.

  1. The Beatles, “Taxman”: Like I wasn’t gonna do this today. “My advice to those who die/Declare the pennies on your eyes.”
  2. Bruce Cockburn, “Lovers In A Dangerous Time”: Only started listening to him this morning, but the line, “Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight/You gotta kick in the darkness till it bleeds daylight” is just one of the all-time best.
  3. The Ink Spots, “Java Jive”: Like most music from the first half of the 20th century, my exposure to this song was through a cartoon when I was a small child. Little Lulu, I think?
  4. Lizzo, “About Damn Time”: Here comes Lizzo with another summer jam. God, where did she find that bass player? That bassline slaps.
  5. Ten Years After, “I’d Love To Change The World”: With a chorus that literally says, “I’d love to change the world/But I don’t know what to do/So I’ll leave it up to you,” this is the quintessential Boomer song. “Eh, I’d love to do something about it, but I’m not gonna. Tough luck, future!”
  6. XTC, “Across This Antheap”: Another song with so many good lines just tossed off all casual-like. And that trumpet? So good.
  7. The Wallflowers, “Bleeders”: Included simply because of the way that organ sounds at the very beginning of the song.
  8. Ben E. King, “Stand By Me”: You know what always aggravates me about the John Lennon cover of this song? It adds absolutely nothing to it. You might as well just go back and listen to the Ben E. King version instead. Which is why this version is on the playlist.
  9. Otis Redding, “That’s How Strong My Love Is”: Listening to this song, I’m reminded of how very much in-touch with that ’60s R&B Stax sound CCR (or really, John Fogerty) was. This coulda been a CCR song. Or any CCR song coulda been an Otis Redding song.
  10. Josh Ritter, “Old Black Magic”: This song just chugs along and gets downright fiery towards the end.