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.
- 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.
- Simon & Garfunkel, “Kathy’s Song”: I’m constantly amazed by what these two could do with just their voices and a single acoustic guitar.
- 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.”
- Glen Phillips, “Train Wreck”: Glen Phillips sometimes comes across as a master of songs that are depressing as all hell and very, very bittersweet.
- The Head and the Heart, “Rivers and Roads”: The harmonies on this one are pretty nice.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- The National, “Lucky You”: Probably the first great song written by these guys. It’s perfect, no notes.
- 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?