norah jones

Playlists #147 and #148

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Good morning and happy Monday, folks. I’m back from Oklahoma. We had to have a funeral for my grandmother who passed away on the 17th. Here are two playlists to make up for missing last week. The first is a selection of my songs, while the second is just a list of songs I’ve been listening to lately.

Playlist #147: A Whitman’s Sampler of Charlie Cottrell Songs

  1. “Unanswered Prayers”: I still love the slide guitar on this one.
  2. “Saint Joan”: Clif really likes how slightly off-kilter the piano on this one is, and I have a hard time disagreeing with him.
  3. “Complete Control”: One of my better rockers.
  4. “I Wish You Would”: I feel like this song could’ve been recorded anytime between 1967 and yesterday. Dig that Bakersfield guitar solo.
  5. “Oh, My Love”: The vocals on this one were overdriven a bit on purpose, and I’m probably most-proud of those guitar solos.
  6. “Dark On My Street”: Still one of the best-recorded songs I’ve ever done; Clif played all the instruments on this one.
  7. “Burnt Offering 2”: If there’s one song that illustrates how important it is to have a good collaborator working on your songs with you, it’s this one. Clif took what I’d recorded and turned it into a powerful, dare I say beautiful song.
  8. “My Head’s Not Equipped To Deal With This Bliss”: An older song that I recorded for the latest album. The new album, Middle Aged Heartthrob, is half old songs, half brand-new songs.
  9. “Losing Sleep”: Just me grappling with death, the passage of time, the collapse of American society, and my reading list.
  10. “The Ocean Just Gets In The Way”: This was originally going to be the closer for the new album, but then Clif went and recorded that little banjo bit at the end of “As Shadows Lengthen” and it just felt like the perfect way to end the album, so this became the penultimate song.

Playlist #148

  1. The Low Anthem, “Champion Angels”: I’ve spent most of this morning listening to Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, and this is one of my favorite songs on there.
  2. Martin Sexton, “Diner”: I blame the TV show Scrubs for this one.
  3. The Mountain Goats, “Fall of the Star High School Running Back”: Who doesn’t love a story of a high school football star who gets injured, starts taking pain medication, then starts selling pain meds for profit?
  4. Norah Jones, “The Long Way Home”: Not the Supertramp song, but the Tom Waits song of similar name.
  5. Ondara, “Torch Song”: I like the simplicity of the instrumentation on this one. Mostly just acoustic guitar and standup bass.
  6. Wings, “Helen Wheels”: McCartney rarely rocked out that hard, but this one rips.
  7. Brian Fallon, “Forget Me Not”: I still like the way he shouts the girl’s name, “Stacy!” at the beginning of the verse.
  8. Jars of Clay, “Reckless Forgiver”: I like the idea of reckless forgiveness. It takes a concept that is usually so carefully considered – forgiveness – and says just give that to everyone, everywhere, regardless of anything. It’s a nice idea.
  9. David Gray, “Easy Way to Cry”: I was on a David Gray kick on the drive home this weekend, listening to several of his albums back to back. This one always sits with me afterwards.
  10. Josh Ritter, “Monster Ballads”: I often wish I was a better lower-register singer. Songs like this make me rue that lack even more.

Playlist #136

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s time for a brand-spankin’-new playlist for your ears’ enjoyment!

  1. Silverchair, “Tomorrow”: I never really listened to these guys back in the day. They were still in high school when they got signed. High school! Back in high school, I was worried about pimples and whether or not my girlfriend would leave me, not signing record contracts and going out on tour.
  2. Peter Gabriel, “Olive Tree”: When an artist takes twenty years to record an album, then releases it with at leas three different mixes, it’s usually a bad sign. This album is an exception to that sort of thinking. Gabriel has put together a beautiful, thoughtful, and touching set of songs. “Olive Tree” is a standout, but honestly I could have put virtually any song from this album in this spot and said the same thing. It’s just so damn good.
  3. Gorillaz, “Tomorrow Comes Today”: Heard it as an interstitial on NPR this morning, and now it won’t stop playing in my head. So you get to hear it, too.
  4. Drive-By Truckers, “Used To Be A Cop”: These folks are such good storytellers. You almost manage to feel sorry for an ex-cop who got kicked off the force for…reasons.
  5. XTC, “The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead”: I have an unabashed, non-ironic love for XTC. They just made such fun, joyful music. It’s fantastic. This song is fantastic. Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding deserve better.
  6. Michael Penn, “No Myth”: This dude just always amazes me with his way with a melody or a lyric. He’s great. This song is peak ’80s but also great.
  7. Sting, “All This Time”: One of my favorite lines of all time came from this song: “Men go crazy in congregations/They only get better one by one.”
  8. Norah Jones, “The Long Way Home”: Who doesn’t love a Tom Waits cover? No one. No one doesn’t love a Tom Waits cover.
  9. Mark Knopfler, “We Can Get Wild”: This man just struggles to write a bad song, y’know? Yeah, they’re out there, but they’re few and far between. He just crafts with such a high level of skill and thought that even his bad songs have something interesting going on in them.
  10. James McMurtry, “Just Us Kids”: This guy tells fun stories about losers and folks who think they’re winning, even if only in their surface thoughts.

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 #50

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Happy Monday, folks. I’m back at work after a lovely and relaxing Spring Break. Over the break, I worked on the next song for Patreon, which you should join if you haven’t already. Anyway, here’s this week’s playlist:

  1. Pink Floyd, “Hey, Hey, Rise Up (featuring Andriy Khlyvnyuk of Boombox)”: A song recorded in conjunction with Ukrainian singer Andriy Khlyvnyuk, who cut short his American tour with his band Boombox to go back and fight against the Russians. The lyrics are from an old anti-war song from 1914 called, “Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow.”
  2. Whiskeytown, “Jacksonville Skyline”: The more I listen to Ryan Adams’ lyrics, the more I realize the dude doesn’t really write coherent stories. What the hell is a “hopeless streetlight,” anyway?
  3. Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, “Alabama Pines”: The loneliness and isolation this song’s narrator goes through is palpable, and the little details – like the only liquor store on the north side of town – add the perfect amount of realism and sincerity to the song.
  4. Mott the Hoople, “All the Young Dudes”: A David Bowie song in all but name. He produced their album and wrote this particular song.
  5. Neko Case, “Hold On, Hold On”: “In the end I was the mean girl/Or somebody’s in-between girl.”
  6. Norah Jones, “Creepin’ In”: Did you know Norah Jones recorded a song where she dueted with Dolly Parton? She did. It’s this song. It’s fun.
  7. Paul Revere & the Raiders, “Kicks”: I originally heard this song when it was covered by the Monkees, of all bands, on an old greatest hits tape my mom had. It’s a damn fine song.
  8. Tonic, “If You Could Only See”: The ’90s called, and it said you can have this song. They overplayed it already, thanks.
  9. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Straight Into Darkness”: Yeah, the album Straight Into Darkness isn’t the most essential Tom Petty release. Most of the songs are inconsequential and nowhere near the heights of Damn the Torpedoes or even Hard Promises. But even mediocre Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers can still kick the crap outta most other bands on their best days.
  10. Soul Coughing, “16 Horses”: I would love to write a song like this someday. I’d love to be able to play a song like this someday.