richard thompson

Playlist #245

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Good morning and happy first Monday of the new year. Yes, the government took some extrajudicial actions down in Venezuela over the weekend, and we’re all scrambling figuring out how to deal with that, but in the meantime I’ve got some songs for you.

  1. The Cranberries, “Salvation”: A blistering blast of punky energy and the occasional horn? Yes, please.
  2. Lyle Lovett, “Lungs”: An old Townes Van Zandt song that, according to Lovett, Van Zandt said ought to be “shouted rather than sung.” Lovett sings it here anyway. It’s good, as Van Zandt songs tend to be.
  3. Rufus Wainwright, “Chelsea Hotel No. 2”: There’s just a…sadness to this song that I’ve always felt an affinity for. Maybe it’s the line, “You told me again you preferred handsome men/But for me you would make an exception.”
  4. George Harrison, “Marwa Blues”: Just a beautiful instrumental number off Brainwashed with some absolutely perfect slide guitar from George.
  5. Tom Waits, “(Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night”: I think of this one as the flipside to a Bruce Springsteen song from about the same era: there’s a yearning there, like in Bruce songs, but a bitter sadness as well, not just a sense that there is no escape from this life but that even trying to escape from this life isn’t worth the effort.
  6. Better Than Ezra, “Desperately Wanting”: Drugs are bad, m’kay?
  7. Counting Crows, “Up All Night (Frankie Miller Goes to Hollywood)”: A lot of the songs on this particular list deal with longing and loss, I think. Did I do that on purpose? Man, who even knows anymore.
  8. Billy Bragg & Wilco, “When The Roses Bloom Again”: Going off to war always sucks. Always. And there are always unintended consequences.
  9. Brian Fallon, “Forget Me Not”: Brian Fallon remains one of my favorite songwriters of the past twenty or so years. There’s some Bruce in there, some doo-wop, and a lot of joy at just making music. And I will always dig that.
  10. Richard Thompson, “Beeswing”: Again, drugs are bad. The “white horse in her hip pocket” is a less-than-subtle reference to heroin, after all.

Playlist #197

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Happy Monday, folks! We finally made it through that nigh-unending January, sanity (mostly) intact. Here’s some songs to get us through the week.

  1. David Gray, “As I’m Leaving”: David Gray’s earlier stuff is much more striped down and folky. I kinda dig a lot of it, especially this piano ballad off the Lost Songs collection.
  2. You+Me, “From a Closet in Norway”: Maybe I’m just a sucker for acoustic-based folk-pop?
  3. Van Morrison, “Madame Joy”: This song is just so full of joy, it’s hard not to love. Van could rave it up sometimes.
  4. Wilco, “You Are My Face”: I love the breakdown in this song, where it totally changes tone and rhythm and becomes a completely different song for a couple of minutes. Great.
  5. Jackson Browne, “Downhill From Everywhere”: An actual environmental protest song, this time about the sea and how we’re all connected to it.
  6. Beck, “Lost Cause”: I know Sea Change is Beck’s big breakup album/Bob Dylan reference, and it’s good, and it sounds like he’s just being backed by the Flaming Lips the whole time (to the point that he took them out on tour as his opener and his backing band for the subsequent tour), but it does occasionally make me miss the whimsical, clearly-stoned-out-of-his-gourd Beck.
  7. Richard Thompson, “Beeswing”: Back on my folky acoustic bullshit, but it’s a damn good story song.
  8. George Harrison, “Not Guilty”: Solo George is the best George.
  9. The Gaslight Anthem, “Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts”: Early Gaslight Anthem, with the band showing they have a softer, more sensitive side.
  10. Aimee Mann, “Stranger Into Starman”: A subdued ender for this particular playlist, but a perpetual favorite. Aimee Mann somehow became one of my favorite artists over the past few years, and I’m not sad about that at all.

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.