the head and the heart

Playlist #217: Summertime

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Happy Monday! It’s all officially summer now, what with the summer solstice occurring late last week, so let’s look at some of my favorite songs about summer and summer-related stuff.

  1. Don Henley, “Boys of Summer”: Did you know the Ataris did a cover of this song, only instead of a “Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac” it’s a “Black Flag sticker” on the Caddy? I’m pretty sure the Venn Diagram of people who drive Cadillacs and people who would put a Black Flag sticker on their car has zero overlap.
  2. Mungo Jerry, “In the Summertime”: It’s all loosey-goosey and jugbandy. Feels like the most casual, tossed-off thing in the world, which is perfect for summer. We’ll just ignore the bit about, “If her daddy’s rich, taker her out for a meal/If her daddy’s poor, just do what you feel,” which feels a little like Mungo Jerry and his ridiculous hair ought to be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
  3. Sublime, “Doin’ Time”: Ever heard a ’90s alt-punk band borrow liberally from Gershwin? Well, you have now! And it actually works surprisingly well.
  4. Glen Phillips, “Winter Pays For Summer”: I rather like the idea that the reward for dealing with the season you don’t like is the season you do like. The winter, that is, pays for the summer, though in my case I think it works the opposite (I hate summer heat. I should escape to cooler climes, but I’m pretty locked-in here in Fairfax County).
  5. Wilco, “Summer Teeth”: Does the title make any sense? Does it matter if it does? Not even a little. This bright bite of poppy bubblegum is from the similarly-named album Summerteeth, which is likewise full of Brian Wilson-esque tunes to bop along to as a summer night stretches out before you.
  6. Better Than Ezra, “Summerhouse”: It’s about a summer house, but more accurately it’s about a murder that no one really seems to care about. So it goes.
  7. Iron & Wine, “Summer in Savannah”: From that weird, experimental period where Iron & Wine tried to pretend they weren’t an old-timey string band sort of thing and were just a bunch of synth nerds. You can be both, Sam Beam. You can be both.
  8. The Head and the Heart, “Summertime”: With enough reverb on the guitar for a Ventures solo and enough yearning to make Brian Wilson blush.
  9. The Beach Boys, “Fun, Fun, Fun”: We’ve already established that the Beach Boys were the quintessential band of summer, and “Fun, Fun, Fun” is one of their absolute best summertime tunes. Joyriding in a T-Bird? Saying you’re going to the library when you’re going out cruising? It’s such a time capsule of the early 1960s. I can just see Harrison Ford and Opie searching for the Wolfman while this song plays.
  10. Ray LaMontagne, “Summer Clouds”: A wistful, finger-picked ballad that feels like a Sunday morning in October kind of song, a longing remembrance of the past.

Playlist #157

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Happy Monday, folks! I hope everyone is doing well, and that folks out in Oklahoma weren’t hit too hard by all that weather over the weekend. It looks like the city of Sulphur got beaten up pretty badly, though.

  1. Uncle Tupelo, “Steal the Crumbs”: Went through an Uncle Tupelo kick late last week, especially their final record, Anodyne. Such a good album, and Jeff Tweedy really starts to find his voice as a songwriter. But Jay Farrar is still the frontman of this band, and this song is a good example of why.
  2. Simon & Garfunkel, “Kathy’s Song”: I’m constantly amazed by what these two could do with just their voices and a single acoustic guitar.
  3. Bob Dylan, “Seven Curses”: A simple tale of a horse thief condemned to death and his daughter, whose only path to freeing him is to sleep with the crooked, sleezy judge. Who, of course, does not free her father, but has him hanged instead. She puts one hell of a curse on him for it, too: “That one doctor cannot save him/That two healers cannot heal him/And that three eyes cannot see him/That four ears cannot hear him/That five walls cannot hide him/That six diggers cannot bury him/And that seven deaths shall never kill him.”
  4. Glen Phillips, “Train Wreck”: Glen Phillips sometimes comes across as a master of songs that are depressing as all hell and very, very bittersweet.
  5. The Head and the Heart, “Rivers and Roads”: The harmonies on this one are pretty nice.
  6. Jackson Browne, “Fountains of Sorrow”: Another one of those bittersweet songs about loss of love and innocence that just feels like a nostalgic gut punch.
  7. Moxy Fruvous, “My Poor Generation”: I always wish these guys had gotten just a little bigger, had stayed together just a little bit longer, and maybe released another album or two. It was awful, coming in right at the end of their time together, getting to hear all the cool stuff they’d done and slowly realizing that, hey, that’s it, there will be no more.
  8. REM, “Sweetness Follows”: I could not for the life of me tell you what this song is about, though it always feels like an elegy to me.
  9. The National, “Lucky You”: Probably the first great song written by these guys. It’s perfect, no notes.
  10. John Prine, “The Late John Garfield Blues”: Damn, but this man wrote simple songs about complicated things. Or maybe complicated songs about simple things? A little of both?

Playlist #122

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Happy Monday, folks! Unless you live in Florida, in which case, um, have fun getting hit by a hurricane?

  1. The Gaslight Anthem, “Positive Charge”: This song has been stuck in my head for two or three weeks at least. Maybe this will finally dislodge it. Maybe.
  2. Charlie Sexton, “Regular Grind”: Of all the musicians I listen to, this is the one who needs to put out a new album the most. It’s been almost 20 years, man! Give us something new!
  3. Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, “King Of Oklahoma”: This man, on the other hand, cranks ’em out like clockwork pretty regularly. And damn if this song doesn’t make me feel something.
  4. John Cougar Mellencamp, “Rumbleseat (2022 Mix)”: Generally speaking, I’m curious to hear what musicians come up with when they remix their old albums with modern techniques and studio trickery. This feels…unsuccessful on that front. The guitars are too muted, the drums are too loud and yet also lifeless, and it just feels like it was a huge missed opportunity to really punch everything up.
  5. Drive-By Truckers, “Used To Be A Cop”: The Drive-By Truckers can take even the most irredeemable character – in this case, a cop who had a nasty streak and has all sorts of misogynistic tendencies – and still make them someone you want to sympathize with. That’s impressive.
  6. The Head And The Heart, “Lost In My Mind”: “How’s that bricklayin’ comin’/How’s your engine runnin'”? is one of those couplets that seems innocuous when you first listen to it, but the stuff that follows – “Is that bridge getting built/Are your hands getting filled/Won’t you tell me my brother/’Cause there are stars/Up above” – and the way their voices soar in harmony is just…damn, it’s just really good.
  7. Mark Knopfler, “Hill Farmer’s Blues”: Speaking of musicians who can make downtrodden and misunderstood characters feel sympathetic, here’s Knopfler singing about a farmer going to town for supplies and making it seem freakin’ epic.
  8. Fall Out Boy, “Dance, Dance”: You get a pass this one time, Fall Out Boy, but only because you’re named after a Simpsons reference.
  9. The Beatles, “You Really Got A Hold On Me”: Michelle and I were listening to this song over the weekend and just commenting on how great a song it is. Smokey Robinson knew what was up, my friends.
  10. Van Morrison, “Magic Time”: Though it happens less frequently than it used to, Van Morrison can write a stunningly beautiful song. This one counts and makes me wish he hadn’t become some sort of weird Covid skeptic and conservative curmudgeon in recent years.

Playlist #85

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It’s Monday. We had to put my cat to sleep late last week, so expect most of this particular playlist to be more than a bit maudlin.

  1. Joey Purp, “Elastic”: This song has been used recently in an ad for Chromebooks. An ad that plays before and during two out of every three videos I’ve watched on Youtube in the past few weeks. It is ridiculously catchy.
  2. My Politic, “What A Life”: A folky Missouri duo (actually based out of Nashville, TN) who sing with longing and bittersweet sadness about life back home. It hits all the right spots.
  3. Hozier featuring Mavis Staples, “Nina Cried Power”: A tribute not just to Nina Simone, but Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Mavis Staples (who contributes amazing backing vocals and an excellent bridge), James Brown, and so many other giants of the R&B and blues world.
  4. Stevie Nicks, “Edge of Seventeen”: Just like the one-winged dove, indeed.
  5. The Head And The Heart, “Rivers And Roads”: These folks always seem to remind me of home, even though (1) none of them are from Oklahoma and (2) they do not, strictly speaking, play a musical style reminiscent of Oklahoma. Something in their singing and lyrics, though, evokes my home state something fierce.
  6. Jakob Dylan, “Everybody’s Hurting”: “We’ve hunted these hills dry/We’ve long outlasted the winter and our last wood pile/Only one thing is certain/That’s everybody/Everybody’s hurting.”
  7. Donovan Woods, “‘Cause the last time I saw you/Was the last time I saw you,” is such a heartbreaking line to me. You never really know when the last time you’ll see someone is.
  8. George Harrison, “All Things Must Pass”: Is this one too obvious? I don’t care. George has brought me comfort in dark times, and this song continues to do so.
  9. Sean Watkins, “Let It Fall”: I’ve probably mentioned before with this song, but it always strikes me as the sort of song that plays at the end of the movie, as we fade to black and the credits start to roll. There’s a sort of finality to it that sits with me long after the song has ended.
  10. Tom Petty, “Wake Up Time”: The closer from Petty’s best album, Wildflowers, really sums up things very well. “Well, if he gets lucky, a boy finds a girl/To help him to shoulder the pain in this world.” Sometimes we do get lucky, and we ought to cherish those we walk these roads with.

Playlist #40

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Sorry, this one won’t be going up on Spotify, nor will future playlists, because screw those guys.

  1. 40 Watt Sun, “Behind My Eyes”: I have a tendency to play every song on the guitar at about the same speed. These guys play slower than anything I will ever be capable of playing, and I kind of love it. Maybe I’ll try to write a song that goes this slow? But definitely not this long. It’s a very long song.
  2. Lana Del Rey, “Tomorrow Never Came”: Why does every female singer of a certain style sing like their mouth is full of cotton? I mean, I dig this song, don’t get me wrong, but she sounds like someone numbed her mouth for a dentist visit and she stopped halfway through to sing.
  3. Soul Asylum, “Growing Into You”: Never really listened to them back when they were big back in the early ’90s, but this is a fun song.
  4. Cat Power, “Paths of Victory”: Again with a song so very slow. But very pretty.
  5. Counting Crows, “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby”: This one cranks the tempo up a bit. There’s something about the drum sound from this song that I dig.
  6. Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Effigy”: This is a fun song to play. I especially love hitting the low E string to get that grungy “bwam” sound out of it.
  7. The Who, “A Quick One, While He’s Away”: Sing it with me: “Cello, cello, cello, cello…”
  8. Sparklehorse, “Sick Of Goodbyes”: A band I imagine my brother might enjoy.
  9. Josh Ritter, “Right Moves”: The first Josh Ritter song I really loved, and still one of my favorites.
  10. The Head and the Heart, “Lost In My Mind”: I think we all sometimes get lost in our mind.