steve miller band

Happy Monday! I’m back from the beach, a little more tanned and a little less rested than I’d prefer. But that’s okay, because being chronically exhausted is just part of my brand. Here’s a playlist.

Steve Miller Band, “Mercury Blues”: My dad (whose birthday is tomorrow; happy birthday, dad!) owns a early-60s Mercury Comet. It’s his current fixer-upper, the car he is working on restoring from basically the ground up. The song is a banger.
Stone Temple Pilots, “Trippin’ On A Hole In A Paper Heart”: By this point (1996), Stone Temple Pilots and many of their grunge peers had already abandoned the grunge label for a broader alternative approach. It pays off in spades here.
The Heavy Heavy, “Go Down River”: The latest in my “heard it in a restaurant” playlist does not really disappoint. It’s a country song, as far as I can tell, but a pretty decent one.
Noah Kahan, “The Great Divide”: Another “hear it in a restaurant” tune. It’s not bad. Is it as good as any of the better songs off Stick Season? Eh. It’s good, but not exactly great. Hard to really put my finger on it.
Jeremie Albino, “Across The Hall”: Guy reminds me a lot of John Fullbright, and that’s a style and musician we could use a lot more of, I think.
The Shins, “Gone For Good”: The world needs more songs with pedal steel and a plot about divorce and leaving your wedding band on the train tracks for the train to flatten. It’s just a fact.
The White Stripes, “The Denial Twist”: You know things will get interesting if (1) Bob Dylan or (2) Jack White gets behind a piano for a song. This does not mean I endorse the whole “I’m going to spend the whole concert at the piano” Bob Dylan we’ve seen over the past decade or so.
Portugal. The Man, “Once Was One”: I think it’s about evolution? I dunno, there’s a line in the chorus about monkeys, and I can’t really get past that for whatever reason.
The Coral, “Dreaming Of You”: I watched the hell out of Scrubs back in the day, and have enjoyed what I’ve seen of the latest revival season. I still remember this song pretty much verbatim from back then. Thanks, Scurbs.
Blur, “Song 2”: I have this thing I do where I recite the lyrics to this song as if I were reading a Shakespearean sonnet, all slow and sonorous and full of self-import. The “whoo-hoo”s are my favorite part. The Wife absolutely hates this and rarely lets me get that far before she shuts it down.

Happy Monday, folks! Well, we survived the first week of school somehow. Most of the kids did, too, and without their cellphones, if you can imagine that! Anyway, here’s a bunch of songs about animals.

Bob Dylan, “Man Gave Names to All the Animals”: We could think of the Garden of Eden as a sort of proto-zoo, I guess, and Adam and Eve as the first zookeepers. Well, until all that apple business went down.
Survivor, “Eye of the Tiger”: Let’s start things off in the big cats area. And watch out for the tigers. If you can see their eyes, it’s probably already too late.
Steve Miller Band, “Fly Like an Eagle”: Let’s hop over to the aviary, where we can soar with the eagles and look at the sea, apparently.
Neko Case, “The Tigers Have Spoken”: Oh, back to the big cats. Did you know tigers talk? It’s true! Neko Case said so.
Pink Floyd, “Sheep”: Pink Floyd did a whole album called Animals, so you know they knew what was up with zoos.
Josh Ritter, “To the Dogs or Whoever”: Dogs might be in zoos, right? Or dog-like animals, perhaps?
Peter Gabriel, “Shock the Monkey”: There’s definitely monkeys, and they’re only shocking when they fling their poo or masturbate in front of zoo visitors.
Tom Waits, “Get Behind the Mule”: Not sure how mules feature into a zoo, but who knows, maybe in the petting zoo area?
Andrew Bird, “Sic of Elephants”: Elephants are definitely something you’d see at a zoo! Maybe not sycophants, though.
Tom Petty, “Zombie Zoo”: The worst zoo. Everyone tried to bite me. Zero stars.

Charlie Cottrell

Author, Artist, and Musician

Playlist #275

Playlist #174 – Life’s a Zoo