fiona apple

Playlist #238

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Happy Monday, folks! The air is becoming crisper, it’s a little colder in the morning, and all the leaves have fallen off the trees and are now piled up everywhere. It’s actually feeling like fall! I’m here for it.

  1. Mavis Staples, “Anthem”: Mavis Staples’s latest album includes three straight-up amazing covers at the end, including this one. It takes some guts to cover Leonard Cohen, and to choose a Cohen cover that isn’t “Hallelujah.” Her vocals have the gravity to pull it off.
  2. Lord Huron, “Meet Me In The Woods”: Obsessed with this album still, and especially with this song. I probably listen to it at least three or four times a week.
  3. Dan Auerbach, “Trouble Weighs A Ton”: There’s something about a song that’s just a voice and an acoustic guitar that speaks to something primal in me.
  4. Fiona Apple, “Fast As You Can”: This woman and her music are criminally underrated (see what I did there? Because her best-known song is still probably “Criminal”).
  5. The Police, “Masoko Tanga”: A lyric-less song off their debut that features Sting hootin’ and hollerin’ and carryin’ on with yelps and mumbles and all sorts of vocalizations.
  6. Mark Knopfler, “Speedway At Nazareth”: Just the way this song builds and builds to its climactic coda, it’s just…*chef’s kiss*
  7. Fastball, “You’re An Ocean”: Less well-known than their first couple of hits, but still bouncy and fun and a good listen.
  8. The Like, “I Can See It In Your Eyes”: They do the girl group style up right for the 2000s.
  9. She & Him, “I Should Have Known Better”: If I ever do a Beatles cover, I hope I do it half as well as they did.
  10. Ben Harper & The Blind Boys Of Alabama, “Satisfied Mind”: The Blind Boy’s actual hoots in the verses just send me every time. Love it.

Playlist #212

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Happy Monday, folks! The end of the school year always seems so far away, until suddenly it’s upon you. We’ve only got a few classes left with each of our cohorts, and then it’ll be summer time! In the meantime, I finally have physical CDs of the new album, Beard Situation, so hit me up if you want a copy of that. And now, on with the playlist!

  1. The Record Company, “So What’cha Want”: Did you ever want to hear the Beastie Boys as a blues jam? ‘Cause this is what that would sound like.
  2. The Lemonheads, “Sad Cinderella”: Nothing better than a Townes Van Zandt cover to get your Monday started off right. Or wrong. I don’t know you, I don’t know how you feel about Townes Van Zandt. I know how you should feel about his music. You should feel good knowing you yourself are not Townes Van Zandt and are, statistically, not nearly as fucked up as he was.
  3. Macy Gray, “Creep”: Macy Gray did a covers album, and if you’re wondering, “Do all the songs sound like I think they should sound by the lady who sang ‘I Try’?” well buddy, I’ve got some good news for you. This is a cover of the Radiohead song. Not the one by Stone Temple Pilots. Or TLC.
  4. Fiona Apple, “Pretrial (Let Her Go Home)”: A damn good song about a pressing topic: maybe we shouldn’t lock people up just because they can’t afford bail, then take away their children because they can’t get out of jail to go home because they can’t pay bail. Cash bail is a huge scam, is what I’m saying.
  5. Thom Yorke, “And It Rained All Night”: I like my Thom Yorke drone-y and paranoid.
  6. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Ways To Be Wicked”: Not a week goes by where I don’t think, “Man, I need to add [fill-in-the-blank-Tom-Petty-song] to a playlist!” This week, it’s this song.
  7. JD McPherson, “Signs And Signifiers”: Any ideas what kind of guitar is on the cover of this album? I wanna say it’s an Epiphone, but my knowledge of guitars from the 1950s and 1960s is sketchy at best.
  8. Jelly Roll Morton, “Black Bottom Stomp”: According to his own self-mythology, Jelly Roll Morton invented Jazz with this song. I don’t know how true that statement may be, but it’s a fun song. It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.
  9. Watkins Family Hour, “Steal Your Heart Away”: A cover of a Lindsey Buckingham song and not, as I first kinda hoped, the Van Morrison song of the same name. Oh well. It’s still a beautiful string band ballad.
  10. The War On Drugs, “Living Proof”: An original, not a Bruce Springsteen cover. Though that is a cover I would now like to hear…

Playlist #161

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Tuesdays are the new Mondays, am I right? Whatever. I was hanging out with my mom yesterday, on the rare opportunity to have a family member from Oklahoma out in my neck of the woods, so today is the day for the playlist.

  1. Drive-By Truckers, “Marry Me”: It’s so rare to hear a joyous, happy song from these guys, and this one stands as one of my favorites.
  2. Soul Asylum, “Runaway Train”: On the list “90s Songs I Love to Play But Really Can’t Sing,” this one is near the top. It’s a great, song, though.
  3. Counting Crows, “Rain King”: Speaking of songs from the 90s that I love, this one never fails to get the blood pumping and me singing along. I also end up doing at least 20 over the speed limit whenever it’s on in the car, which might be a problem.
  4. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Have Love Will Travel”: On the long list of Tom Petty albums that I own and love, The Last DJ ranks pretty low (okay, at the very bottom). A recent re-listen just confirms that, while there are a few gems tucked away (the title track, “Dreamville,” “Like a Diamond,” and this particular song), it’s mostly best left forgotten as the concept album that couldn’t.
  5. Fleetwood Mac, “Little Lies”: One of the few Fleetwood Mac songs my wife can even stand. I, of course, like most everything they’ve done.
  6. The Wallflowers, “Bleeders”: I mostly just love the little organ flourish that starts this song off, and want to someday start a song of my own that way.
  7. Fiona Apple, “Criminal”: I also someday want to work in some Fiona Apple-style piano in a song. I have a long list of things I want to borrow and reappropriate from other musicians, as it turns out. All art is love and theft.
  8. Paolo Nutini, “Let Me Down Easy”: I oughta sue this guy for stealing my song title. And I know mentioning him will only bring my brother out of the woodwork to talk about how much of a dick the guy apparently is.
  9. Andrew Bird Trio, “Caravan”: Sadly, not the Van Morrison song, but an old jazz standard, apparently? I would love to hear Andrew Bird sing some Van. Give me that cover album, dammit.
  10. Nirvana, “Lithium”: With our use of Sirius XM in the car nowadays, we’ve spent a lot of time listening to the 90s grunge/alternative station, Lithium. They only play the Nirvana song of the same name about once a day, though.

Playlist #3

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A little less of a downer this week. Let’s gooooo:

  1. Hunters & Collectors, “Throw Your Arms Around Me”: Apparently Australia’s unofficial national anthem? So says one of my coworkers who told me I should learn the song. It’s only three chords, so that will be pretty easy.
  2. Nur-D, “Brighter Day”: Rapper out of Minnesota who decided last year to shift from rapping about nerd culture (Superman, Power Rangers, etc.) to discussing Black Lives Matter and issues near and dear to his community. He still slips in stuff about superheroes and nerdy stuff, though.
  3. Hozier, “Take Me to Church”: Someday I’m gonna put together a playlist of songs relating sex to religion (this one, Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” and Bruno Mars’s “Locked Out of Heaven,” just to name a few) and write an essay about the concept.
  4. The Replacements, “Alex Chilton”: Back in the day when the sister-in-law and I played Rock Band every day, we loved playing this song. It took us forever to five star it at the hard difficulty, but the rush when we finally did…awesome.
  5. Savage Garden, “I Want You”: Did you know there were actual words to this song? I mean, more than that whole “chickey-cherry cola” line? It’s true!
  6. Violent Femmes, “American Music”: “Everytime I look at that ugly moon/It reminds me of me” is one of the best self-deprecating lines ever. Fight me.
  7. The Wallflowers, “Misfits and Lovers”: I know my brother doesn’t like the album this song is off of, but I absolutely love this track (and that whole album, Glad All Over). Again, fight me.
  8. Fiona Apple, “Extraordinary Machine”: I just love the way she works her words and phrases in this song. It’s just perfect, as is the church bell.
  9. The Flaming Lips, “Fight Test”: Best Flaming Lips song. Fight me (it’s appropriate this time).
  10. Fleetwood Mac, “Gypsy”: My wife hates Fleetwood Mac. Hates them. But this song is my jam. She won’t fight me, but that’s probably for the best.