rufus wainwright

Playlist #214

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Happy Tuesday! We’ve eased into June and the last couple of weeks of the school year here in Northern Virginia. We’re down to just half days now, and you can tell the students are really ready to just be done with it all. I also have a new closet! It should be able to sustain the weighty heft of all of our clothes, unlike the previous, crappy closet. Here’s some songs.

  1. Matt Berninger, “Times of Difficulty”: It seems that all the forward momentum the National albums used to have was saved up for the lead singer’s new solo album, Get Sunk. The songs on it are catchy and remind me of when the National weren’t just a drone-y, sad-sack band with lots of keyboards and a drum machine, but a drone-y, sad-sack band with lots of guitars. I like guitars.
  2. The Minus 5, “Blow In My Bag”: I’m reasonably certain the title refers to someone trying not to hyperventilate, not the contents of Scott McCaughey’s luggage. Reasonably certain.
  3. Earth, Wind, and Fire, “Boogie Wonderland (feat. The Emotions)”: One of the quintessential disco songs. It’s got a beat and you can dance to it.
  4. The Faces, “Three Button Hand Me Down”: I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write a song that rocks as hard as this song Rod Stewart wrote about a hand-me-down jacket.
  5. The Animals, “Gonna Send You Back To Walker”: It’s one of those songs about a girl who saw the bright lights of the city and decided to never, ever stop partying. Honestly, I get it.
  6. Linda Ronstadt, “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me”: The way she just rips through this song like a woman on fire never fails to entertain and delight me.
  7. John Mellencamp, “Right Behind Me”: At some point in the past fifteen, twenty years, John Mellencamp stopped trying to be relevant and just started writing strange little songs about whatever the hell he wanted to. And I’ll admit, I love it. He did a whole album like it was straight out of the 1950s, with improvised recording set-ups and carefully-placed single microphones to pick up all the instruments (and voices!) all at the same time. It sounds fantastic, and this song is a stellar example of it all.
  8. Rufus Wainwright, “Going To A Town”: As with Rufus, I am also tired of you, America.
  9. Josh Ritter, “Golden Age of Radio”: I dig me some Josh Ritter, even if his most recent couple of albums have sounded rather bland and uninteresting to me. This song reveals that the man knew what he was doing from the very start, and I really kinda wish he’d get back to this looser, more country sound.
  10. Drive-By Truckers, “Decoration Day”: Sure, Decoration Day was technically last week (we call it Memorial Day now), but there’s never a bad time to listen to this song.

Playlist #173 – Back to School Edition!

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Happy Monday, folks! Once more, a new school year has rolled around, and once more I woke up having not won the lottery, so I’m back in the classroom for my twentieth year of teaching. Which is more than a little horrifying. How can I be old enough to have done anything for twenty years? Except make playlists, of course. I’ve been doing that since I was born, essentially.

  1. The Call, “Let the Day Begin”: As I said last year when I featured this song on my start of the year playlist, this song always played on the classic rock station we listened to in my hometown first thing in the morning, usually around the time I was on my way to school. So I kind of associate it with the school day staring.
  2. Matchbox 20, “Stop”: Are these guys the most middle-of-the-road pop rock from the last twenty-some years? I think they might be.
  3. John Bonamasa, “Driving Towards the Daylight”: I had certain preconceived notions about what a John Bonamasa song would sound like and who he was as an artist, and boy was I wrong. It’s pretty good stuff.
  4. Billy Idol, “Bitter Taste”: Speaking of songs from artists I didn’t expect, this latter-day Billy Idol song is actually pretty damn good.
  5. Post Malone, “Have the Heart (feat. Dolly Parton)”: I didn’t have “Post Malone releases an actual country album” on my 2024 bingo card, let alone a duet with Dolly Parton that features the classic country like “I didn’t have the heart to break yours,” but here we are.
  6. Rufus Wainwright, “Going to a Town”: Melancholy and downbeat, but a lovely and beautiful song.
  7. Bruce Springsteen, “Stolen Car”: Speaking of downbeat, this is probably the most subtle song Springsteen has ever recorded, and I’m including Nebraska in that tally. I’m sure it was totally by accident.
  8. Young Dubliners, “Last House on the Street”: A simple love song, but the best love songs are simple.
  9. Van Morrison, “Into the Mystic”: “It’s too late to stop now.”
  10. Bob Dylan, “Born in Time”: Every so often, latter-day Dylan pops up with an absolute gem that he, for reasons I can’t explain, he relegates to the Bootleg Series rather than releasing on an album proper. This is one of ’em.

Playlist #144

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Happy Monday! And a truly happy Monday it is, too, for I just did something I haven’t been able to do in three months: take a hot shower in my condo! Sure, it cost a ridiculous amount of money to get it all fixed, but it’s a small price to pay to have water above room temperature when I step into the shower.

  1. Rufus Wainwright, “Harvest”: The one that features Andrew Bird on violin and guest vocals! It’s such a beautiful and simple rendition of the Neil Young tune.
  2. k.d. lang, “Constant Craving”: I, too, hope to someday be disentangled enough from my ego to ignore proper punctuation and capitalization when writing my name. Until then, I stick to the capital letter at the start.
  3. Sinead O’Connor, “Nothing Compares 2 U”: We could all use a little Prince tune to get us moving today, I think.
  4. Alannah Myles, “Black Velvet”: This song is about Elvis, right? Pretty sure it’s about Elvis.
  5. The Eagles, “After the Thrill is Gone”: One of the sadder Eagles songs out there, and one where Don Henley only kinda over-sings.
  6. Elliott Smith, “Christian Brothers”: Elliott Smith sounds like he could and would fuck you up really bad in this song. It’s great.
  7. Frank Turner, “Get Better”: Just a reminder that things can always improve, you just have to let them.
  8. Iron & Wine, “About a Bruise”: One of Sam Beam’s goofier songs, probably, at least based on backing vocals.
  9. Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, “Bomb. Repeat. Bomb.”: Explosive.
  10. 10,000 Maniacs, “These Are Days”: Such a soaring song. Very uplifting. A great way to start the week, I think.

Playlist #115

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Happy Monday to all the folks who celebrate it out there. And if you do celebrate Mondays, what is wrong with you? Do you just really like new playlist day?

  1. Murder By Death, “No Oath, No Spell”: There’s is something oddly compelling about this guy’s voice. He sounds about two centuries old on their best songs.
  2. Rufus Wainwright, “Harvest (feat. Andrew Bird and Chris Stills)”: Who doesn’t love a Neil Young cover? Who doesn’t love a Neil Young cover that features Andrew Bird prominently? Communists, that’s who.
  3. Van Morrison, “Sweet Jannie”: As weird as the dude’s gotten in recent years (and he’s gotten pretty freakin’ weird), I still love his old stuff. This song is a bop.
  4. Electric Light Orchestra, “Eldorado”: I’ve been thinking about it for a while now (especially since I listened to most of their discography a few weeks ago on a whim), and I think Eldorado might be my favorite ELO album. Sure, as a concept album it falls a little short of the mark Jeff Lynne was aiming for, but the song cycle is still one of the best he ever wrote, and this – the penultimate song on the album – is a good summation of what ELO could do at the height of their powers.
  5. Elk Eyes, “It Goes Dark”: Why am I listening to guys with whiskey-dark voices sing doom and gloom this week? I dunno, I just am.
  6. Family Familiar, “I Don’t Need You”: Did you know I helped write this song, back over 20 years ago? This is my brother’s band performing it. Did you know I get a small cut of the streaming revenue for this specific song? It’s true.
  7. George Harrison, “P2 Vatican Blues (Last Saturday Night)”: I know that what I need a lot of on a Monday morning is some George Harrison slide guitar. I’m sure you’ll agree it almost makes it worth waking up for.
  8. Paul McCartney, “Teddy Boy”: This version of this song is just as ramshackle as its appearance on McCartney would lead you to believe it would be. I kinda love it.
  9. John Prine, “Jesus, the Missing Years”: Was chatting with a friend on Facebook about “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore” this weekend, which got me in a John Prine mood. That’s not a bad mood to be in.
  10. Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, “St. Paul’s Autograph”: I swear to God, this album is just designed to make you wanna curl up on a rainy Sunday afternoon and block out the rest of the world.

Playlist #111

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Happy Monday, folks. It’s the last week of school finally, and all the kids (and teachers) are antsy to get the heck outta Dodge. Here’s a new playlist for ya.

  1. Jenny Lewis, “Joy’All”: Nothing Jenny Lewis has done since Rabbit Fur Coat has really grabbed me like that one album did. This song, off the album of the same title (pronounced “Joy y’all”) is good, but it feels too…by the numbers? It’s a retread of stuff she’s done better in the past.
  2. Foo Fighters, “Hearing Voices”: There was so much new music I was interested in released last week that I still haven’t listened to it all (I’m partway through this Foo Fighters album, for instance, and haven’t even started on Janelle Monae’s new one yet!). That said, this song – and, to some extent, the entire album – are all about the Foos dealing with the loss of longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins.
  3. Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, “King Of Oklahoma”: I was probably predisposed to liking this song just given its title (and the fact that it’s a Jason Isbell song), but the fact that it rings true probably also helps.
  4. Hawksley Workman, “Ilfracombe”: Heard this in a store? Or on a TV show I was watching? I don’t recall, exactly, but it grabbed my attention at the time, and I kinda dig it. No, wait, it was on NPR. That’s it.
  5. Bob Dylan, “What Was It You Wanted”: Dylan recently released Shadow Kingdom, a sort of live-in-the-studio-reimagining of some of his classic songs featuring a backing band of several guitars, a bass, and an accordion. As an interpreter of other people’s songs and, of course, of his own, Dylan remains a fascinating study. These tracks are all stripped down and rebuilt from the ground up, using different melodies and rhythms that make them feel familiar and completely unfamiliar all at once. And they’re all mercifully short: no 40-verse versions of anything here.
  6. Rufus Wainwright, “Harvest (featuring Andrew Bird and Chris Stills)”: A beautiful rendition of a Neil Young classic. Wainwright lets his collaborators take the lead and offers some beautiful vocals of his own.
  7. 40 Watt Sun, “Behind My Eyes”: A song for when you want to slow everything way down and maybe take a nap.
  8. Wilco, “Whole Love”: I’ve started developing a taste for latter-day Wilco, which apparently includes this album that came out 12 years ago now somehow.
  9. Fun., “We Are Young (featuring Janelle Monae)”: See, I haven’t listened to her new album yet, but I still found a way to slip her onto the playlist this week anyway.
  10. Hank Williams, “You Win Again”: Hank knew how to write a tear-jerker, woe-is-me song.