jack johnson

Playlist #218

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Happy Monday, folks! Summer proceeds apace, and we have air conditioning again, thank God. I was not doing well in those higher temperatures we were experiencing last week, let me tell you. Anyway, here’s some songs.

  1. Bruce Springsteen, “Shut Out the Light”: Been slowly working my way through Tracks II the past few days, and I know it’s cliche at this point but holy crap, Bruce throws out entire albums he’s not completely satisfied with? Which makes me wonder what possessed him to release High Hopes (zing!).
  2. Wilco, “Hell is Chrome (Live)”: A new live Wilco set just dropped, but most of what it did was remind me that I really do not remember many Wilco songs after about Sky Blue Sky. These are good songs, expertly performed, but they all feel pretty damn ephemeral to me, just background noise as I go about my day. This song, from A Ghost is Born, still slaps, though.
  3. James McMurtry, “South Texas Lawman”: A new James McMurtry album is a cause for celebration. He does one about 9/11 and W on here, and even though that’s only about a quarter century late it still feels entirely too relevant given the current tensions in the Middle East with another country whose name starts with an “I.” But that’s not this song. This is a country rocker about a lawman who wants to retire to the beach.
  4. Murder by Death, “Believe”: These guys just hit that dopamine button in my brain and make me wanna pick up my guitar and just strum the hell out of a couple of songs.
  5. Better Than Ezra, “Desperately Wanting”: There’s more to this song than the chorus, but all you really want to sing is the chorus part. The band gets that. They keep the verses short.
  6. Adeem the Artist, “Cowards Together”: I wish more country artists had the guts to be as open about who they are as Adeem the Artist, the cast-iron pansexual who pens such beautiful songs about not wanting to fight.
  7. The Wallflowers, “It’s A Dream”: My brother dismisses Glad All Over as “the Wallflowers just trying to sound like the Clash, but we’ve already got the Clash at home,” but I think it plays enough with the usual Wallflowers formula to keep them fresh and interesting and it’s still one of my go-to driving albums.
  8. Jack Johnson, “Taylor”: I remember, back in college, hearing a solo acoustic demo of this song around the time his debut, Brushfire Fairytales, came out, and I loved it. The version included on On and On is still plenty good, mind you, but I’ve been sorely tempted to go digging and see if I can find that original version again.
  9. Counting Crows, “Untitled (Love Song)”: “Throw your arms around my neck” is actually a pretty good chorus, actually.
  10. Aimee Mann, “Columbus Avenue”: Aimee Mann makes me nostalgic for college. Not because I listened to her stuff in college – I was stick pretty deep in the Bob Dylan thing back then – but just the tone of it seems to evoke a nostalgia in me, and when I feel nostalgic, that’s the time I think of. I feel like I could walk the streets of Clarksville at midnight with this song on repeat on the discman and all would be, if not quite right with the world, at least bearable and acceptable.

Playlist #171

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Happy Tuesday, folks! I’m back from Florida, and just in time if the weather is anything to go by. We had a lot of fun at Disney World, and I built me a lightsaber. Yes, I am a giant geek. Anyway, here’s a list of songs.

  1. Bikini Kill, “Rebel Girl”: I want to be in a band that plays this song live. It’s just so much fun.
  2. The National, “I Need My Girl”: I just love the guitar riff in this song. The whole song is just gorgeous and moody and perfect.
  3. Blondie, “Dreaming”: I always forget that Blondie were capable of this driving, powerful sort of song, not that disco-glammy “Heart of Glass” stuff all the time.
  4. Jack Johnson, “Flake”: When you leave the beach, but the beach don’t leave you.
  5. Extreme, “Hole Hearted”: The story is that the guitarist just got a 12-string acoustic and took it with him to the bathroom. When he came out, he’d written the chord structure for this song, and they did a quick demo of it that turned out better than any actual recording attempt they tried at a later date, so the version you hear on the album is that demo version. Wild.
  6. Soundgarden, “Burden in my Hand”: I heard this song about a half dozen times on Sirius XM over the course of a few weeks, so it’s stuck in my head. I dig it.
  7. Waxahatchee, “War”: I love how simple yet complex her songs are.
  8. U2, “Atomic City”: The chorus sounds almost note-for-note like “Call Me.” It’s weird.
  9. Echosmith, “Cool Kids”: I was not one of the cool kids in school. Ever. No one ever thought I was cool. My wife makes the argument that she thinks I’m cool now, but I know I’m even lamer now than I was back then. See previous statement about building a lightsaber at Disney World.
  10. Electric Light Orchestra, “So Serious”: Sure, by this point in the band’s history, they were really just ELO, there were no strings (except for the guitars, natch), and it’s mostly just Jeff Lynne accompanied by Jeff Lynne and Jeff Lynne, but the dude could write damn catchy songs.

Playlist #124: Home

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Happy Monday, folks. By tomorrow, the wife and I will be homeowners (and the sister-in-law)! We’ve been renting the same townhouse for almost 14 years now, so it’ll be strange to leave it and call some other place home. There’ll be new traffic patterns to learn, a new (slightly longer) route to work, and I’m sure a whole host of challenges and foibles associated with moving into a new place. But I’ll have music to keep me going there, including this week’s playlist.

  1. Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, “Our House”: We’ve only got the one cat, and she won’t really be allowed out (we don’t really have a yard, per se. We’re moving into a condo), but this still feels fitting.
  2. Hem, “Home Again”: Our intention is to move into this place and just settle in. I don’t see us moving again for a very, very long time, if ever.
  3. Iron & Wine, “Walking Far From Home”: I’m hoping to find some walking trails or something close by so I can start exercising again. I will miss having the park right across the street where I could go do that.
  4. Norah Jones, “Long Way Home”: As I mentioned above, this new home will put us slightly further out from work, but that was the trade-off: live further out, find a place you can afford.
  5. Eric Clapton, “Back Home”: We really do like the place. It’s got plenty of very usable space, it’s in a nice neighborhood, and I think we’ll settle in very well there.
  6. Sheryl Crow, David Alvin, Phil Alvin, & Taj Mahal, “Home Again”: This is from the Ghost Brothers of Dark County original soundtrack, that stage play that John Mellencamp and Stephen King collaborated on.
  7. Healthy White Baby, “Home”: Great band, absolutely terrible band name.
  8. Simon & Garfunkel, “Homeward Bound”: A classic.
  9. Jack Johnson, “Home”: If our homes feels as comfortable and laid back as a Jack Johnson song, I’ll be content.
  10. Aretha Franklin, “Bring It On Home To Me”: God, this woman could just SING.

Playlist #112

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Happy Wednesday, folks. I was at the beach on Monday with family, and spent yesterday recovering from the beach, so you get a playlist today and you’ll like it.

  1. Spoon, “Sugar Babies”: These guys manage to stay creative and innovative even a couple of decades into their careers. It’s inspiring and awesome.
  2. X Ambassadors, “Renegade”: I think I’ve been writing songs like this lately. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.
  3. Tom Waits, “Looks Like I’m Up Shit Creek Again”: You an’ me both, Tom.
  4. Kris Orlowski, “Go (featuring Glen Phillips)”: I am just a sucker for any song that features Glen Phillips.
  5. Them, “Gloria”: G. L. O. R. I. A.
  6. Jack Johnson, “If I Had Eyes”: What if a regular ol’ Jack Johnson song, but with an electric guitar instead of an acoustic?
  7. Jake Blount, “Didn’t It Rain”: A modern take on a classic number from ol’ Sister Rosetta Tharpe. The electric guitar in this one makes the song feel much more eerie than the original ever did.
  8. Counting Crows, “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby”: It’s epic in length and bittersweet in scope. It’s like the song was written just for me.
  9. Norah Jones, “Don’t Know Why”: How does Norah Jones crank out these beautiful little nuggets of pop brilliance?
  10. Drive-By Truckers, “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac”: Cadillacs are made out of fiberglass now, so maybe it’s time to give it up.

Playlist #64

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Another week, another playlist! Don’t forget to support me making music over on Patreon. I’m posting a mix of one of my songs done by my brother next Monday, so be sure to check it out!

  1. Ezra Furman & the Harpoons, “Mysterious Power”: This guy does a lot of the music for a tv show called Sex Education on Netflix. It’s a funny show, you should check it out. And the music is pretty solid, too.
  2. Jesse Malin, “Crawling Back To You”: Saw this song on a Jesse Malin album I downloaded over the weekend. “Oh, it has the same name as that Tom Petty song,” I thought to myself. Folks, it is that Tom Petty song, and it’s a pretty good cover of it.
  3. The Beatles, “You Really Got A Hold On Me”: You can’t go wrong with the Beatles covering a doo-wop number. You just can’t.
  4. Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Who’ll Stop The Rain”: There’s just something about CCR songs that always get me in a good mood.
  5. Tom Waits, “The Earth Died Screaming”: The Wife wants me to put together a playlist of weird songs. I told her it’d just be a Tom Waits playlist, then.
  6. The Gaslight Anthem, “Biloxi Parish”: I think The Gaslight Anthem may be one of my top five bands of the past fifteen or so years.
  7. Fleetwood Mac, “Rhiannon”: Just how common is the name Rhiannon, anyway? I can’t imagine there are too many of them wandering around.
  8. Jack Johnson, “Banana Pancakes”: I hate bananas.
  9. Iron & Wine and Ben Bridwell, “This Must Be The Place”: Features the line, “Sing into my mouth,” which is probably the grossest thing I’ve ever heard Sam Beam sing.
  10. Neil Young, “Down By The River”: Neil Young gives me hope that even my crappy guitar solos aren’t so bad. “Solo? You mean play the same note 32 times in a row, right?”