the flaming lips

Playlist #202

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Mondays just keep happening, don’t they? And on the heels of Daylight Saving Time starting up again, so I got to drive to work while it was still nighttime today. Woo. Here’s some songs.

  1. Jason Isbell, “Foxes in the Snow”: I knew that a solo acoustic album could be powerful and beautiful and heartbreaking, but Jason Isbell just keeps showing me how far you can take such a simple conceit. The title track here is bouncy and thoughtful and just absolutely perfect.
  2. The Goo Goo Dolls, “Sympathy”: I’m a sucker for strummy acoustic numbers, especially when they also feature a mandolin. Who knew the Goo Goo Dolls could deliver?
  3. The Flaming Lips, “Do You Realize??”: This song always makes me cry.
  4. Drive-By Truckers, “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac”: Carl Perkins didn’t need no Grammy, he just needed that Caddy.
  5. Phosphorescent, “Revelator”: I have finally discovered what I want my own musical sound to be, and it’s basically this.
  6. The Temptations, “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”: Watched a long-form video essay this weekend on “Progressive Soul,” which is classic Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, and – I’d argue – at least this particular track from The Temptations. It has the same emphasis on the groove and the rhythm section that those other Progressive Soul musicians had, and it’s a damn-good song.
  7. Hurray for the Riff Raff, “Pyramid Scheme”: Why do I feel like this could just be about MLM?
  8. Chris Smither, “Visions of Johanna”: You know me, I love a Dylan cover, and this one’s pretty solid.
  9. Van Morrison, “Once In a Blue Moon”: Late-period Van can still deliver when he wants to.
  10. Fleetwood Mac, “Seven Wonders”: I do have a soft spot for ’80s Mac. Is it as good as anything from Rumors or even Tusk? No. Is it still good, well-crafted pop-rock? Oh my, yes.

Playlist #192 and #193: M’Shelby Mix Edition

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Happy…Monday? Wait, that can’t be right. Monday? Well, stranger things have happened other than me posting a playlist on time. For instance, today also happens to be my 18th Wedding Anniversary. Yay, our relationship is old enough to vote! Here’s a double playlist of some songs that I think my wife would love. I’ve been curating a playlist for her on my phone for years called M’Shelby Mix, and here’s the latest iteration.

  1. The Pixies, “Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf Mix)”: Probably the definitive version of this particular tune. Slowed down from the original, given a slight air of menace, and just a killer drum beat.
  2. Arcade Fire, “Intervention”: Gotta love the church organ.
  3. AC Newman, “Take On Me”: Newman doesn’t aim for quite the same glass-shattering falsetto in the chorus, but the slowed down, acoustic-driven version he turns in sounds just as good as anything a-ha ever did.
  4. Elliott Smith, “Baby Britain”: Favorite line is a toss-up between “We knocked another couple back/Dead soldiers lined up on the table/Still prepared for an attack/They didn’t know they’d been disabled” and “The light was on but it was dim/Revolver’s been turned over/And now it’s ready once again/The radio was playing “Crimson and Clover.”
  5. The Flaming Lips, “Free Radicals (A Hallucination of the Christmas Skeleton Pleading with a Suicide Bomber)”: A sneering indictment of Bush-era foreign policy.
  6. Rilo Kiley, “Does He Love You?”: A sordid tale of love triangles and whether or not he’d ever really leave his wife for you. Why would he, though?
  7. Phil Collins, “In the Air Tonight”: If there’s a better drum fill in existence, I don’t know about it. Oh, to be able to go back and hear this song for the first time.
  8. The National, “Slow Show”: Probably Michelle’s favorite song by the National. And it’s a banger. I love that guitar chord progression. Wish I could get my voice low enough to actually sing it.
  9. Josh Ritter, “Golden Age of Radio”: We both sing along at the top of our lungs when this song comes on. It might as well be part of our marriage vows.
  10. Iron & Wine, “Such Great Heights”: Postal Service cover done with such delicate heartache and beauty that you forget there’s another version of this song out there.
  11. The Four Tops, “Bernadette”: Shouted backing vocals are always fun.
  12. The Cure, “Just Like Heaven”: Given her adoration of stuff from the ’80s, it should come as no surprise that Michelle loves the Cure. I’ve grown to tolerate most of their stuff, though this song I really do actually enjoy.
  13. Tom Waits, “Hoist That Rag”: What can I say? Michelle likes pirates and pirate songs.
  14. They Might Be Giants, “She’s An Angel”: This song always makes me think of Michelle. I know she digs TMBG, and likes this song, but she said it couldn’t be our song because it’s too one-sided and doesn’t reflect her feelings for me. And, y’know, I get it. But it’s still a song that makes me think of her.
  15. Better Than Ezra, “Rosealia”: Michelle also really digs the ’90s, and especially Better Than Ezra. This one is another sing-along song.
  16. Pearl Jam, “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town”: Acoustic Pearl Jam? More entertaining and worthwhile than you might think!
  17. David Bowie, “Life On Mars”: Did you know he wrote this after Frank Sinatra didn’t accept some lyrics he wrote for “I Did It My Way”? It’s true! It’s why the two songs have such similar chord progressions.
  18. Weezer, “Say It Ain’t So”: Far better than that song about him hitting on a lesbian.
  19. Bruce Springsteen, “Candy’s Room”: Probably Michelle’s favorite Springsteen song. It’s got amazing drums and a beautiful piano line, so I get it.
  20. The Magnetic Fields, “Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing”: This is our song. We eloped and didn’t have a wedding reception, much to our chagrin, but if we did have one, this would’ve been the first song we danced to. We have a poster with the lyrics of it hanging up in our living room.

Playlist #176

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It’s Tuesday, because I spent all Sunday night vomiting and most of yesterday sleeping it off. So here’s this week’s playlist today.

  1. John Prine, “All The Best”: John Prine remains the songwriter’s songwriter. I caught a performance he did for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert of this song, and it’s simple and beautiful and deadpan. Love it.
  2. Van Morrison, “Almost Independence Day”: I can’t be the only person who heard this song and thought it sounded like Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.”
  3. Pearl Jam, “Corduroy”: Was Vitalogy the last great Pearl Jam album? Probably not. But it was the last one I bought on CD until grad school, when I picked up Riot Act on a whim. I’d definitely chalk it up as their strangest album, with more weirdness than you usually expect from a mainstream rock act.
  4. Tom Petty, “Down South”: Okay, I’ll admit, I’ve come around on Highway Companion in recent years. Like any Tom Petty album, it features a good selection of classic tunes, including this one. Bonus, it’s fun to play on the guitar.
  5. Billy Bragg & Wilco, “Jesus Christ for President”: The first debate between Trump and Kamala Harris is tonight, and while I’ll watch it, I won’t be excited to watch it. Debates mostly just enrage me. But hey, maybe JC will make a sudden reappearance and run for office. Despite being an immigrant. And unemployed.
  6. Lee Isaacs, “Born Outta This Time”: I’m still not quite sure how I feel about this song. He rushes too much through some of the lyrics in the chorus, but it’s otherwise a pretty solid tune with good instrumentation and a catchy hook.
  7. The Flaming Lips, “Spider Bite”: The Soft Bulletin remains one of my favorite albums of all times, and this is a fun, weird little song from that one. A precursor to Spider-Man? Maybe.
  8. Roy Orbison, “Help”: Roy Orbison’s voice just sends chills up your spine, and his solo acoustic take on “Help” from documentary Everyman: John Lennon, “Journey in the Life” is just breathtaking. Wish a full version of it was available somewhere.
  9. Peter Gabriel, “Steam”: Is it just a slight rewrite of “Sledgehammer”? Yeah, sure. But is it still pretty awesome? Heck yeah. Even a rehashed “Sledgehammer” still hits a sweet spot in my brain.
  10. Sean Watkins and Glen Phillips, “Let It Fall”: Just one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard, with gorgeous mandolin and guitar runs throughout.

Playlist #103

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Happy Monday. We’re in the 4th quarter of school out here in Northern Virginia now. The home stretch. Here’s some songs to get you through the week, at least.

  1. Adeem the Artist, “Books & Records”: A song about leveraging the things you love just to survive and the hope that you’ll be able to recover them someday. It’s so sad and heartbreaking and hopeful that I just can’t help but love it.
  2. Dion, “Runaround Sue”: The song itself is pretty good, yeah, but it’s the vocalizations at the beginning and end that really get me on this one.
  3. Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, “What I Am”: Someday, I’m going to put together enough songs for a philosophy playlist. This will be the first song on that playlist.
  4. The Elected, “I’ll Be Your Man”: Did you want a sad some about trying to win someone’s heart? Because here’s a sad song about trying to win someone’s heart.
  5. The Mountain Goats, “Woke Up New”: If you really want to twist the knife in your own guts, you listen to the Mountain Goats. Because that’s all those guys do.
  6. Roy Orbison, “Workin’ For The Man”: “Well, I’m pickin’ ’em up and I’m layin’ ’em down/I believe he’s gonna work me into the ground” is just a banger of a couplet.
  7. Robert Plant & Allison Krauss, “Killing The Blues”: What did we do to deserve not one, but two whole albums of these two duetting? What dark pact did we make? What price will we have to pay on down the road?
  8. Paul McCartney, “Ballroom Dancing”: I had the album this song is from, Give My Regards to Broad Street, on a tape that my uncle (I think) made for my dad back in the 80s. Damn near wore that thing out. Kinda giggle at the line “Big B.D.” now (it stands for “Ballroom Dancing,” FYI).
  9. The Flaming Lips, “Vein Of Stars”: “Who knows, maybe there isn’t/A vein of stars calling out my name.” Wayne Coyne just knows how to write a good song, eh?
  10. Fleetwood Mac, “Storms”: I’ve come to appreciate the album Tusk over the past couple of years.

Playlist #101: Oklahoma for Spring Break

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Happy Monday, folks. As you read this, I’m heading toward my home state to visit family during Spring Break. Yeah, it’s a bit late, but that’s just when FCPS and the rest of Northern Virginia do it.

Anyway, there’s a number of absolutely fantastic musicians who call or called Oklahoma their home, too. Here’s a list of then of ’em and some of their songs.

  1. JJ Cale, “Clyde”: While I can’t see him pickin’ on a bass, I can see my brother barefoot on the porch pickin’ his guitar, so this one’s close enough.
  2. JD McPherson, “Crying’s Just A Thing You Do”: Apparently McPherson isn’t his own singer? He’s just the guitar player (as if anything this guy does on the guitar is “just” anything. He’s fantastic).
  3. Parker Millsap, “Other Arrangements”: These new Oklahoma musicians draw on styles and themes from the past but give them modern twists. I like it.
  4. The Flaming Lips, “Five Stop Mother Superior Rain”: From really early in the Lips’ career comes this number, which references a Jesus egg? I don’t know what that is, but the song is trippy and beautiful and fun to play on guitar.
  5. Woody Guthrie, “Pastures of Plenty”: One of the key touchstones of Oklahoma music and folk music in general.
  6. The Gap Band, “You Dropped A Bomb On Me”: Damn, that keyboard riff. That drum beat. Damn.
  7. The All-American Rejects, “Gives You Hell”: I’ve never listened to these guys. Dunno what I was expecting. It wasn’t this. Some MOR alternative rock that sounds designed by committee to be as non-offensive as possible. I expected this song to have more teeth.
  8. Gene Autry, “Back In The Saddle Again”: I prefer this version to the Aerosmith version.
  9. Barry McGuire, “Eve of Destruction”: I prefer the Turtles’ version of this song, but they’re not from Oklahoma. McGuire was, apparently.
  10. Roy Clark, “Yesterday When I Was Young”: You ever see this guy do pickin’ live? He was a monster on a flattop acoustic. Dude coulda put all those metalheads to absolute shame.

Playlist #82: Give Thanks!

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Happy Monday, everyone! It’s a short week here, as Thanksgiving is this Thursday. A two-day work week? How will I ever survive? With a new, Thanksgiving-inspired playlist, that’s how!

  1. Neil Young, “Harvest Moon”: What is Thanksgiving if not a harvest festival? One without sacrifice to the harvest gods, that’s what. And you can’t tell me that’s right. The old gods grow hungry and angry. Hangry old gods. Don’t ignore them this year, I beg you.
  2. Alanis Morissette, “Thank U”: I’m not 100% sure why Alanis is thanking India and disillusionment, or quite what she’s thanking them for, exactly, but it’s a good song anyway.
  3. Wilco, “The Thanks I Get”: Yeah, this one was just featured a few weeks ago on another one of my playlists. It still slaps. What else do you want?
  4. Dido, “Thank You”: Remember when this song was everywhere for, like, a month in 1999? Man, turn of the millennium was a weird time. We were all pretty sure society itself was gonna collapse when January 1, 2000 rolled around, so we just listened to damn-near anything.
  5. Glen Phillips, “Thankful”: I always really enjoy Glen Phillips songs. They’re quirky and catchy and I just really dig them, okay?
  6. John Mellencamp, “Thank You”: I was listening to Mellencamp for most of the weekend (the newly-released extended version of Scarecrow, which is alright), so it only seemed appropriate to include one of his tunes on this list. Thematically appropriate, too.
  7. The National, “Sailors In Your Mouth”: It’s a Thanksgiving song, I swear.
  8. The Flaming Lips, “Thank You Jack White (For the Fiber-Optic Jesus)”: It’s truly, deeply weird, as all good Flaming Lips songs are.
  9. The Beatles, “Thank You Girl”: Sure, this is less about giving thanks in the traditional Thanksgiving sense of the word, and more “thanks for the sex stuff, lady friend.”
  10. The Band, “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)”: And to round things out, here’s another song about harvesting. I’m pretty sure King Harvest is some sort of simulacrum, a wicker and cornhusk concoction – or maybe even abomination – brought to life to bring the horror of the new harvest straight to you.

Playlist #38

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Last week was a rough week, if I’m being honest. I was mostly over my case of covid, but still couldn’t return to work, and my wife…well, we had to take her to the hospital on Thursday because her O2 sats dropped dangerously low frighteningly quick. It’s only been in the past day or two that we’ve come to find out just how bad off she was. If we hadn’t taken her to the hospital when we did, she would not have survived the night.

So, she’s still at the hospital (in a covid isolation room where I cannot visit her), but thankfully on the mend. On Saturday, my old college advisor passed away suddenly from a brain aneurysm, which…yeah, still haven’t processed it. All of that probably explains the slower tempo and more downbeat list of songs on this week’s playlist.

  1. The Horrible Crowes, “Sugar”: I always thought it was more than a little daring to open the album with this song, which is by far more downbeat and subtle than what follows.
  2. Iron & Wine, “Hard Times Come Again No More”: I don’t know how I found this particular recording. I think it’s from the TV show Copper, if anyone remembers that (I never actually saw it, but still somehow heard this version of the song).
  3. Jars of Clay, “Faith Enough”: A song filled with contradictions and paradoxes.
  4. Jason Isbell, “Cover Me Up”: Beautiful and heartfelt and far more subtle than most of the songs I prefer by him, but no less glorious for it.
  5. The Wallflowers, “Up From Under”: If Breach isn’t the best Wallflowers album, it’s definitely top two. And while this isn’t my usual go-to song from that record, it’s still simple (for a song with a string arrangement) and beautiful.
  6. Willie Nelson, “The Rainbow Connection”: A voice and a song that I’m surprised it took so long to put together, though I have to ask – aside from this one and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” just how many songs are there out there about rainbows?
  7. The Beach Boys, “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times”: “Sometimes I feel very sad.” Sometimes Brian Wilson just cuts right to the damn chase.
  8. The National, “I Need My Girl”: I would like my wife home from the hospital now, please.
  9. The Flaming Lips, “Do You Realize??”: The happiest song about death that I know.
  10. Glen Phillips, “Train Wreck”: This one just sorta…feels right at the moment? That’s probably not good, is it?

Playlist #13

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I’m traveling to Oklahoma this week, so all of this week’s songs are by Oklahoma artists or bands related to Oklahoma in some way, shape, or form. It’s also longer than most of our lists, ’cause I couldn’t leave any of these songs off.

  1. John Fullbright, “Jericho (Live)”: Sort of Oklahoma’s favorite musical son. He’s a damn good singer, and this is my favorite song by him. I also sang on the same tribute album as him once, so we’re, like, connected and stuff.
  2. Parker Millsap, “Truck Stop Gospel”: He’s a good ol’ country boy just pickin’ and grinnin’.
  3. Samantha Crain, “Santa Fe”: A Shawnee girl (my hometown), she apparently went to high school with my brother?
  4. The Regular Joes, “Restless”: My uncle’s old rock and roll band. He’s the lead guitarist.
  5. The Flaming Lips, “Waitin’ For A Superman”: Yeah, this is two Flaming Lips songs in a row, but it’s my playlist and I’ll put the Lips on as many playlists as I wanna.
  6. Woody Guthrie, “This Land Is Your Land”: Patron Saint of Okies, unionist, and antifa before being antifa was cool.
  7. Tulsa, “Shaker”: They called their band Tulsa. Like I wasn’t gonna include one of their songs on this list.
  8. Turnpike Troubadours, “Every Girl”: Country hoedown! Bop along and sing along if you know the words.
  9. Cross Canadian Ragweed, “In Oklahoma”: The late-90s Oklahoma musical success story that still kicks out new stuff even now.
  10. Billy Bragg & WIlco, “Way Over Yonder In the Minor Key”: “I come from a place called Okfuskee,” this song begins. That’s where the town of Okemah, where my grandparents lived for so long (and where Woody Guthrie is from), is located.
  11. Leon Russell, “Tight Rope”: He’s an Okie from Lawton. Dude was the session musician back in the ’60s and ’70s, and he continued to kick ass until his death in 2016.
  12. Bruce Springsteen, “My Oklahoma Home”: Hey, remember the Dust Bowl and how it tried to kill the Great Plains? This song is about that, though it has a sense of humor about things.
  13. JD McPherson, “Signs and Signifiers”: This guy does ’50s-style rave-up electric blues like it never went out of style. This song is slower than most of the rest of the album it’s from, but it’s still pretty awesome.
  14. James McMurtry, “Choctaw Bingo”: Let’s have a family reunion in Okahoma, why not?
  15. Merle Haggard, “Okie From Muskogee”: Look, if I didn’t include this song on this list, they’d take away my Okie License, and then I wouldn’t be able to go snipe hunting anymore, and I still haven’t caught a damn snipe yet.

Playlist #12

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It’s the Wife’s birthday this weekend, so this week’s playlist is all songs she likes!

  1. The Pixies, “Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf Mix)”: Preferred version of this song. Dunno why. But it feels suitably surf-y and UK-y.
  2. Arcade Fire, “Intervention”: I think it’s the organ that does it in this one. I do know that this is probably off her (and my) favorite Arcade Fire album, Neon Bible.
  3. AC Newman, “Take On Me”: A beautiful, slowed down cover of the a-ha classic, complete with the really high “in a day or twoooooooooooo”s.
  4. Elliott Smith, “Baby Britain”: I think the Wife was the one who introduced me to Elliott Smith. This song is great, if for no other reason than the fact that he references both Revolver and the song “Crimson and Clover.”
  5. The Cure, “Just Like Heaven”: I did not care much for the ’80s when I was a wee lad. The music felt overproduced, all artifice and no substance. I’ve since learned that I was not even close to 100% correct on that second point (the jury is still out on the first point). This song is really good, either way.
  6. Annie Lennox, “Walking On Broken Glass”: For a song about the torture of a love affair gone bad, this song is very upbeat and fun.
  7. The Flaming Lips, “Free Radicals”: “You think you’re radical/But you’re not so radical/In fact, you’re fanatical/Fanatical (Fuck!)” may be the best chorus of the twenty-first century.
  8. The National, “Slow Show”: Okay, no, it’s “I wanna hurry home to you/Put on a slow, dumb show for you and crack you up.”
  9. REM, “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville”: Why do I love songs where the first part of the title is in parentheses and why have I not written one yet? Oh, right, because it will never be anywhere near as good as this song.
  10. The Magnetic Fields, “Epitaph For My Heart”: I’m reasonably certain this is her favorite Magnetic Fields song. It’s the one she plays every time we listen to that band.

Playlist #3

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A little less of a downer this week. Let’s gooooo:

  1. Hunters & Collectors, “Throw Your Arms Around Me”: Apparently Australia’s unofficial national anthem? So says one of my coworkers who told me I should learn the song. It’s only three chords, so that will be pretty easy.
  2. Nur-D, “Brighter Day”: Rapper out of Minnesota who decided last year to shift from rapping about nerd culture (Superman, Power Rangers, etc.) to discussing Black Lives Matter and issues near and dear to his community. He still slips in stuff about superheroes and nerdy stuff, though.
  3. Hozier, “Take Me to Church”: Someday I’m gonna put together a playlist of songs relating sex to religion (this one, Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” and Bruno Mars’s “Locked Out of Heaven,” just to name a few) and write an essay about the concept.
  4. The Replacements, “Alex Chilton”: Back in the day when the sister-in-law and I played Rock Band every day, we loved playing this song. It took us forever to five star it at the hard difficulty, but the rush when we finally did…awesome.
  5. Savage Garden, “I Want You”: Did you know there were actual words to this song? I mean, more than that whole “chickey-cherry cola” line? It’s true!
  6. Violent Femmes, “American Music”: “Everytime I look at that ugly moon/It reminds me of me” is one of the best self-deprecating lines ever. Fight me.
  7. The Wallflowers, “Misfits and Lovers”: I know my brother doesn’t like the album this song is off of, but I absolutely love this track (and that whole album, Glad All Over). Again, fight me.
  8. Fiona Apple, “Extraordinary Machine”: I just love the way she works her words and phrases in this song. It’s just perfect, as is the church bell.
  9. The Flaming Lips, “Fight Test”: Best Flaming Lips song. Fight me (it’s appropriate this time).
  10. Fleetwood Mac, “Gypsy”: My wife hates Fleetwood Mac. Hates them. But this song is my jam. She won’t fight me, but that’s probably for the best.