the black crowes

Playlist #250

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Monday! I’m sure a lot of you are still celebrating the victory/mourning the defeat of your favorite sportsball team from last night, but since I don’t give two figs about football I’m up and ready to face the day with a new playlist.

  1. Carbon Leaf, “Life Less Ordinary”: Can I tell you, I’ve been searching for this song for the past, oh, ten, fifteen years? All I had to go on was one line from the chorus – “you shook the bones of me” – and it wasn’t until this weekend that I finally just typed that into Apple Music and it spit out the artist and song title for me. I probably could’ve done this with a Google search anytime in those ten to fifteen years, but that’s not nearly as much fun as searching for it yourself. I feel like searching up the lyrics in my Music app was a sign of defeat.
  2. Gin Blossoms, “Mrs. Rita”: There’s just something about the jangly ’90s sound that I will always love.
  3. Winnetka Bowling League, “My Own Summer (Shove It)”: I was never really into the Deftones, so I am quite confident in stating I never want to hear a different version of this song.
  4. Burt Bacharach & Elvis Costello, “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again”: Man, ’90s soundtracks just managed to get the best damn songs, didn’t they? Like, I cannot think of a a song off a soundtrack from anything in the past almost 25 years that has been half as good as anything off a ’90s soundtrack. This came from the freakin’ Austin Powers movie. Austin Powers, you guys.
  5. Toad the Wet Sprocket, “Something’s Always Wrong (Acoustic)”: Toad recently did an all-acoustic album of old songs, some off of their first couple of releases even (never thought I’d hear a new version of “Scenes From A Vinyl Recliner,” but there it is), though many of them lack the original versions’ energy and some have been changed up considerably (I’m looking your way, “Jam”). This is a good read on this one from a group of veteran performers.
  6. Bad Bunny, “BAILE INoLVIDABLE”: Did I pay for a subscription to Peacock last night just to watch this guy turn in a killer halftime show? Yes, yes, I did. And I’d do it again just to spite the MAGAts.
  7. Jenny Scheinman, “I Was Young When I Left Home”: I love this song and every version I’ve heard of it. This particular version is led by lap steel (and apparently doesn’t exist on Spotify, more’s the pity).
  8. The Ink Spots, “Java Jive”: It’s amazing the number of songs I’ve been introduced to thanks to the Little Lulu cartoons. Okay, it’s only two (this one and Bing Crosby’s “Swingin’ On A Star,” but that’s two more than I’d’ve guessed).
  9. The Black Crowes, “She Talks To Angels”: The big ballad off their first album. It’s good, I’ll grant you, as with so many of the songs off that debut. I’m sure part of that is the age at which I first heard the song.
  10. The Horrible Crowes, “Sugar”: What’s it with bands spelling “crowes” with an e? Why is that a thing? This song slaps.

Playlist #206

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy dreary, rainy Monday, folks. Next week is Spring Break! And then we don’t get another break until Memorial Day, so we better make it count.

  1. Wilco, “You Never Know”: Did you know Jeff Tweedy and Co. wrote the best song George Harrison and Jeff Lynne never recorded? It’s true! It’s this song.
  2. Linda Ronstadt, “Tumblin’ Dice”: Brother Clyde’s distaste for this Rolling Stones classic notwithstanding, Ronstadt’s cover blows it out of the water, hands down.
  3. The New Pornographers, “Ballad Of The Last Payphone”: There are stranger things to write an ode to, but few as heartbreaking as an outdated, outmoded piece of technology.
  4. Alison Krauss & Union Station, “Richmond On The James”: It’s a song about Richmond, VA. It’s off their first album in well over a decade, and it’s just as good as anything else they’ve ever released.
  5. Jeremy Messersmith, “Billionaires”: As I sit here, watching my retirement savings disappear because someone decided they wanted to start a trade war with the entire rest of the world (including some islands that don’t have any human inhabitants), I listen to this song and I think…maybe the French had the right idea during the Reign of Terror.
  6. Sting, “All This Time”: One of my favorite songs of all time, featuring one of my favorite lines of all time: “Men go crazy in congregations/They only get better one by one.”
  7. The Black Crowes, “Hard To Handle”: I love me an old R&B cover. I remember that my dad had this album on cassette when we were kids; it was the last new music I think he’s bought.
  8. Townes Van Zandt, “Pancho And Lefty”: If there’s a better version of this song out there, I haven’t heard it.
  9. The Hollies, “The Air That I Breathe”: Just such a simple, beautiful love song. Gotta give it to the Hollies.
  10. Jim James, “Long, Long, Long”: And we close with another cover, this one of the George Harrison classic “Long, Long, Long” from the White Album. It’s slow and languid and sad, and I could listen to it all day long (long, long).