glen phillips

Playlist #244: End of Year Wrap-Up

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Happy last Monday of 2025, folks! It’s been a helluva year, I think we can all agree, and I’ll be glad to see the back of it. But there were a lot of songs I listened to pretty much on repeat this year, such as the following:

  1. The Wallflowers, “It’s a Dream”: I love the rhythm of this song and the interior rhymes Jakob Dylan throws into it. And that’s a great chorus, too.
  2. Lord Huron, “Meet Me In The Woods”: I apparently have listened to this song about 50 times this year, and I only first hear the album in…August? September? Geez.
  3. Langhorne Slim, “House Of My Soul (You Light The Rooms)”: This song lights to rooms in the house of my soul.
  4. Matt Berninger, “Little By Little”: I loved this album and I love this song. It just has such great momentum and a catchy melody that I can’t stop humming to myself.
  5. Bob Dylan, “Red River Shore”: Why does this song feel more like a relic of a past century than something Dylan penned in 1997? And yes, I realize 1997 was last century, but you know what I mean. This feels like a song that has always existed, not one Dylan conjured from the aether while working on Time Out of Mind.
  6. Mon Rovia, “Heavy Foot”: It’s a simple political song masquerading as a stomp-clap-hey song.
  7. Chris Smither, “Origin Of Species”: Satirical look at the ascent of man through a warm, folky groove.
  8. Glen Phillips, “Go”: Just one of the most affecting songs I’ve heard in recent years. It’s beautiful and haunting and moving.
  9. Bob Dylan, “Boots Of Spanish Leather”: One of the saddest early Dylan songs, if you ask me. There’s no bitterness in it; the bitterness came later, I think. There’s just a resigned sadness in it.
  10. Hurray For The Riff Raff, “Snake Plant (The Past Is Alive)”: It’s amazing what you can do with just two chords.

Playlist #239

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s Thanksgiving this Thursday, or “Thursday” as most of the world calls it. Americans call it an excuse to stuff ourselves silly with turkey and more pies than is advisable under any circumstances. America: We may be obese, but at least we also have shitty health care.

  1. Todd Snider, “Alcohol and Pills”: Only just now discovering this guy’s music is like learning about a great novelist who wrote all these books that you know you’ll love but simultaneously discovering that he’s also dead and there won’t be anymore new stuff from him. Except he plays guitar.
  2. Fastball, “You’re an Ocean”: From the album after their big breakout. It’s a solid song. Does it do anything new or exciting? No. But it’s charming and fun and bouncy and features a nice guitar lick, so it gets a pass.
  3. Marc Scibilia, “More to This”: Dude finally released a whole album, and it’s pretty good indie singer-songwriter stuff, but this is still the best song on the thing.
  4. Florence + the Machine, “Everybody Scream”: I feel like Florence Welch has the right idea here, folks.
  5. Jimmy Cliff, “Many Rivers to Cross”: This man just passed, and I’m listening to his version of this song off of “Later with Joles Holland,” and damn could he sing.
  6. Big Red Machine, “Mimi”: I just like the rhythm to this one, I guess.
  7. Ra Ra Riot, “Ghost Under Rocks”: When was the last time I listened to this band? I need to go back and give them a listen again, I think.
  8. Glen Phillips, “Thankful”: It is Thanksgiving week, after all, and I do have a lot to be thankful for. I’ve got a job and a wife and a car and a place to live, I have all the things I need to do so comfortably, and I own more guitars than a saner woman would let me own. Someday, I may even be able to retire and live out the rest of my days as a curmudgeonly old man who yells at clouds.
  9. The Rolling Stones, “Mother’s Little Helper”: If at least five people reading this don’t feel the need to reach for a bottle of mother’s little helper this week, I don’t know my audience.
  10. Josh Ritter, “Wait for Love (You Know You Will)”: It’s a sweet love song. Sort of.

Playlist #224

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Happy Monday, folks. We’re up bright and early today because it’s the first day of teacher in-service week, when they see if they can crush the desire to teach out of us via the medium of meetings. We’ll see if they succeed this year or not.

  1. The Wallflowers, “Some Flowers Bloom Dead”: One of the first Wallflowers songs I tried to learn (after “One Headlight,” of course). The chords are easy enough, as I recall, though I don’t think I ever sang it very well. That has never stopped me from singing a song, though.
  2. Neil Young, “Harvest Moon”: Speaking of songs I don’t sing well, I kinda love this one. It’s a simple love song, but it just sounds so beautiful.
  3. Fleetwood Mac, “Seven Wonders”: ’80s Mac just hits different.
  4. Glen Phillips, “Men Just Leave”: I still love how stripped down and countryish that first Glen Phillips solo album is. Even almost 25 years later, it’s still very immediate and evocative.
  5. Van Morrison, “Once In A Blue Moon”: Mid-2000s Van is a strange beast, taking elements from all the other versions of him that are out there and amalgamating them into something that still feels relevant, joyful, and vital.
  6. The Raconteurs, “Carolina Drama”: Sometimes you’re the preacher man, and sometimes you’re the milkman.
  7. The Band, “Acadian Driftwood”: It’s always interesting hearing about the treatment of Native Americans/Indigenous Americans/First People (depending on where and who you are) in places like Canada, though a lot of it still boils down to, “Same shit, different government.”
  8. Wilco, “Summer Teeth”: A perfect encapsulation of the wanning days of summer.
  9. Old 97s, “Every Night Is Friday Night (Without You)”: Gotta love a shout-along song from these guys. It’s always fun.
  10. The Decemberists, “Sons & Daughters”: It’s so rare that you hear a song sung in the round in this day and age, but they manage to pull it off.

Playlist #217: Summertime

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Happy Monday! It’s all officially summer now, what with the summer solstice occurring late last week, so let’s look at some of my favorite songs about summer and summer-related stuff.

  1. Don Henley, “Boys of Summer”: Did you know the Ataris did a cover of this song, only instead of a “Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac” it’s a “Black Flag sticker” on the Caddy? I’m pretty sure the Venn Diagram of people who drive Cadillacs and people who would put a Black Flag sticker on their car has zero overlap.
  2. Mungo Jerry, “In the Summertime”: It’s all loosey-goosey and jugbandy. Feels like the most casual, tossed-off thing in the world, which is perfect for summer. We’ll just ignore the bit about, “If her daddy’s rich, taker her out for a meal/If her daddy’s poor, just do what you feel,” which feels a little like Mungo Jerry and his ridiculous hair ought to be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
  3. Sublime, “Doin’ Time”: Ever heard a ’90s alt-punk band borrow liberally from Gershwin? Well, you have now! And it actually works surprisingly well.
  4. Glen Phillips, “Winter Pays For Summer”: I rather like the idea that the reward for dealing with the season you don’t like is the season you do like. The winter, that is, pays for the summer, though in my case I think it works the opposite (I hate summer heat. I should escape to cooler climes, but I’m pretty locked-in here in Fairfax County).
  5. Wilco, “Summer Teeth”: Does the title make any sense? Does it matter if it does? Not even a little. This bright bite of poppy bubblegum is from the similarly-named album Summerteeth, which is likewise full of Brian Wilson-esque tunes to bop along to as a summer night stretches out before you.
  6. Better Than Ezra, “Summerhouse”: It’s about a summer house, but more accurately it’s about a murder that no one really seems to care about. So it goes.
  7. Iron & Wine, “Summer in Savannah”: From that weird, experimental period where Iron & Wine tried to pretend they weren’t an old-timey string band sort of thing and were just a bunch of synth nerds. You can be both, Sam Beam. You can be both.
  8. The Head and the Heart, “Summertime”: With enough reverb on the guitar for a Ventures solo and enough yearning to make Brian Wilson blush.
  9. The Beach Boys, “Fun, Fun, Fun”: We’ve already established that the Beach Boys were the quintessential band of summer, and “Fun, Fun, Fun” is one of their absolute best summertime tunes. Joyriding in a T-Bird? Saying you’re going to the library when you’re going out cruising? It’s such a time capsule of the early 1960s. I can just see Harrison Ford and Opie searching for the Wolfman while this song plays.
  10. Ray LaMontagne, “Summer Clouds”: A wistful, finger-picked ballad that feels like a Sunday morning in October kind of song, a longing remembrance of the past.

Playlist #157

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Happy Monday, folks! I hope everyone is doing well, and that folks out in Oklahoma weren’t hit too hard by all that weather over the weekend. It looks like the city of Sulphur got beaten up pretty badly, though.

  1. Uncle Tupelo, “Steal the Crumbs”: Went through an Uncle Tupelo kick late last week, especially their final record, Anodyne. Such a good album, and Jeff Tweedy really starts to find his voice as a songwriter. But Jay Farrar is still the frontman of this band, and this song is a good example of why.
  2. Simon & Garfunkel, “Kathy’s Song”: I’m constantly amazed by what these two could do with just their voices and a single acoustic guitar.
  3. Bob Dylan, “Seven Curses”: A simple tale of a horse thief condemned to death and his daughter, whose only path to freeing him is to sleep with the crooked, sleezy judge. Who, of course, does not free her father, but has him hanged instead. She puts one hell of a curse on him for it, too: “That one doctor cannot save him/That two healers cannot heal him/And that three eyes cannot see him/That four ears cannot hear him/That five walls cannot hide him/That six diggers cannot bury him/And that seven deaths shall never kill him.”
  4. Glen Phillips, “Train Wreck”: Glen Phillips sometimes comes across as a master of songs that are depressing as all hell and very, very bittersweet.
  5. The Head and the Heart, “Rivers and Roads”: The harmonies on this one are pretty nice.
  6. Jackson Browne, “Fountains of Sorrow”: Another one of those bittersweet songs about loss of love and innocence that just feels like a nostalgic gut punch.
  7. Moxy Fruvous, “My Poor Generation”: I always wish these guys had gotten just a little bigger, had stayed together just a little bit longer, and maybe released another album or two. It was awful, coming in right at the end of their time together, getting to hear all the cool stuff they’d done and slowly realizing that, hey, that’s it, there will be no more.
  8. REM, “Sweetness Follows”: I could not for the life of me tell you what this song is about, though it always feels like an elegy to me.
  9. The National, “Lucky You”: Probably the first great song written by these guys. It’s perfect, no notes.
  10. John Prine, “The Late John Garfield Blues”: Damn, but this man wrote simple songs about complicated things. Or maybe complicated songs about simple things? A little of both?

Playlist #128

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Happy Monday, or Indigenous People’s Day as we call it around here. If you wanna celebrate that Columbus guy, go get lost in the spice aisle at the Kroger.

  1. Wreckx-n-Effect, “Rump Shaker”: My wife was not familiar with this song, somehow. Even I know this song, and I spent the 90s in a virginal haze of video games and Pink Floyd music.
  2. The National, “Terrible Love (Alternate Version)”: I prefer this version because the drums are better than the original.
  3. The Mountain Goats, “This Year”: Never not good.
  4. David Gray, “Stella the Artist”: Somehow, over the years, Hold the Line became my favorite David Gray album. I know there aren’t too many people with a favorite David Gray album, but I have one. It’s Hold the Line.
  5. Richard Thompson, “Beeswing”: Just such a beautiful song.
  6. Glen Phillips, “Everything Matters”: A heartfelt love song that encourages me on dark days.
  7. Van Morrison, “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m In Heaven)”: The rave up we deserve. If more Van Morrison songs were like this, the world would be better.
  8. Murder By Death, “Creep”: You just have to listen to this one to full appreciate it. It’s not the Radiohead “Creep,” and it’s not the Stone Temple Pilots “Creep.” No, it’s the other one. The one you wouldn’t think a crusty-sounding white dude would sing.
  9. Moxy Fruvous, “Greatest Man in America”: Who doesn’t love a song that just gives the middle finger to Rush Limbaugh? Fuck that dude, even if he is dead already.
  10. The Who, “A Quick One, While He’s Away”: If I asked for an orchestra, and the suits told me no, I’d probably have just sung the word “cello” instead of hiring a cellist out of my own pocket, too.

Playlist #127

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The packing continues unabated. We have electricity and water at the new place. And I have a new playlist for you.

  1. Shemekia Copeland, “Clotilda On Fire”: Sure, I came to this song because Jason Isbell plays lead guitar on it, but I stayed for the absolute baller story of a slave ship burning.
  2. Jason Isbell, “Relatively Easy”: I was realizing over the weekend that Jason Isbell might be my current favorite musician. His songs are just so damn good.
  3. Owen Danoff, “Never Been Kissed”: Haven’t heard much from this guy lately, which is a shame. He’s a solid songwriter.
  4. Ram Jam, “Black Betty”: Bam-a-lam.
  5. Ringo Starr, “Photograph”: It’s easy to crap on Ringo. The dude just seemed happy to be there most of the time. But he’s a fantastic drummer and had a good ear for songs early on in his solo career (the less said about Ringo the 4th, his abysmal foray into disco, the better). It helped that some of the songs, like “Photograph,” were contributed by former Beatle bandmate George Harrison (the same album had songs from John and Paul as well).
  6. Van Morrison, “And The Healing Has Begun”: That spoken word interlude always drives me up the wall. Just sing, Van. Just sing.
  7. The Grass Roots, “I’d Wait A Million Years”: I just love this song. I love the Grass Roots. I wish they’d done even more music than they released.
  8. Glen Phillips, “Men Just Leave”: I still really enjoy the sound and style of Glen Phillips’ first album. I wish he’d pursued this style more instead of the more polished, Toad the Wet Sprocket-esque stuff he did afterwards.
  9. Gillian Welch, “Revelator”: My introduction to this song was the Glen Phillips cover. Her original version is better.
  10. Electric Light Orchestra, “Twilight”: Was still on an ELO kick last week, and ended up listening to Time. It’s still an interesting latter-day ELO album, filled with interesting ideas and quirky musical directions.

Playlist #108

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What, it’s Tuesday? I accidentally forgot to post a playlist yesterday because I took the day off from work and forgot that the rest of the world keeps spinning while I sit and play Persona 5? Inconceivable!

  1. Sting, “We Work The Black Seam”: I’ve been working on notes and slideshows for next year, when I’ll be team-teaching a World History II class (my favorite class content!). This week, it’s the Industrial Revolution, so terrible conditions and black lung for everyone! Hurray!
  2. Taylor Swift, “Betty”: Am I including it because it’s a sweet song possibly about a same-sex crush she had as a teenager, or because my grandmother’s name is Betty? Who knows! And I’m not willing to examine that question any further.
  3. Pink Floyd, “Lost For Words”: Included for no other reason than to hear David Gilmour sing, “And they tell me to please go fuck myself/You know, you just can’t win.”
  4. Glen Phillips, “The Next Day”: Love this song, though I frequently got it confused with a David Bowie song of the same name.
  5. David Bowie, “The Next Day”: Love this song, though I frequently got it confused with a Glen Phillips song of the same name.
  6. Wilco, “The Late Greats”: “The best life never leaves your lungs.” Damn, ain’t that true. Or is it? I dunno. It’s a great line, though.
  7. Jars Of Clay, “Much Afraid”: Could this be a theme song for our time? It feels like it could be. It feels like there’s so much out there to be afraid of.
  8. Billy Bragg, “A New England”: I’ve loved this song since I first heard it many years ago. Grad school, maybe? There’s a simple charm to it, a searching quality that’s tricky to pull of and not sound like an asshole. Bragg manages it.
  9. Bob Dylan, “Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)”: The way this song builds and builds until it finally explodes in that blistering, cathartic guitar solo at the end? *chef’s kiss*
  10. Rodney Crowell, “Oh Miss Claudia”: I’ve only started listening to this guy last week, but I already like his style and his songwriting. It’s just superb. I could have picked any song off the recent The Chicago Sessions and it would’ve been a good example of what he does, but I like the shuffley tempo and slightly off-kilter tone of this one.

Playlist #96

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Gooooood morning, folks! Here’s this week’s playlist, for your listening pleasure.

  1. Andrew Bird, “Capital Crimes”: Is there even such a thing as a bad Andrew Bird song? I’ve yet to hear one.
  2. Pearl Jam, “Leaving Here”: The menfolk have done something bad, and the women aren’t having it anymore. They are out.
  3. The National, “The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness”: A song by The National with a guitar solo in it is a rare thing indeed, and hearing the solo in this song only makes me wish they did more guitar solos.
  4. Glen Phillips, “Revelator”: Who doesn’t love a Gillian Welch cover? No one.
  5. David Bowie, “The Next Day”: David Bowie at his late-career David Bowie-est.
  6. Jeremy Messersmith, “Ghost”: The craft and writing on this whole album (2014’s Heart Murmurs) is just phenomenal. This song is a standout even amongst that.
  7. Wilco, “Jesus, Etc.”: Speaking of albums made of standout tracks, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot remains one of my top ten favorite albums of all time.
  8. The Beatles, “For No One”: Revolver might be in that top ten, too.
  9. The Gaslight Anthem, “Biloxi Parish”: I think Handwritten is probably my favorite album by the Gaslight Anthem, though it’s a close race with the 59 Sound and American Slang.
  10. Jesse Malin, “You Know It’s Dark When Atheists Start To Pray”: I included this one primarily for the title, because that’s a pretty great title.

Playlist #82: Give Thanks!

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Happy Monday, everyone! It’s a short week here, as Thanksgiving is this Thursday. A two-day work week? How will I ever survive? With a new, Thanksgiving-inspired playlist, that’s how!

  1. Neil Young, “Harvest Moon”: What is Thanksgiving if not a harvest festival? One without sacrifice to the harvest gods, that’s what. And you can’t tell me that’s right. The old gods grow hungry and angry. Hangry old gods. Don’t ignore them this year, I beg you.
  2. Alanis Morissette, “Thank U”: I’m not 100% sure why Alanis is thanking India and disillusionment, or quite what she’s thanking them for, exactly, but it’s a good song anyway.
  3. Wilco, “The Thanks I Get”: Yeah, this one was just featured a few weeks ago on another one of my playlists. It still slaps. What else do you want?
  4. Dido, “Thank You”: Remember when this song was everywhere for, like, a month in 1999? Man, turn of the millennium was a weird time. We were all pretty sure society itself was gonna collapse when January 1, 2000 rolled around, so we just listened to damn-near anything.
  5. Glen Phillips, “Thankful”: I always really enjoy Glen Phillips songs. They’re quirky and catchy and I just really dig them, okay?
  6. John Mellencamp, “Thank You”: I was listening to Mellencamp for most of the weekend (the newly-released extended version of Scarecrow, which is alright), so it only seemed appropriate to include one of his tunes on this list. Thematically appropriate, too.
  7. The National, “Sailors In Your Mouth”: It’s a Thanksgiving song, I swear.
  8. The Flaming Lips, “Thank You Jack White (For the Fiber-Optic Jesus)”: It’s truly, deeply weird, as all good Flaming Lips songs are.
  9. The Beatles, “Thank You Girl”: Sure, this is less about giving thanks in the traditional Thanksgiving sense of the word, and more “thanks for the sex stuff, lady friend.”
  10. The Band, “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)”: And to round things out, here’s another song about harvesting. I’m pretty sure King Harvest is some sort of simulacrum, a wicker and cornhusk concoction – or maybe even abomination – brought to life to bring the horror of the new harvest straight to you.