Playlist #231

Happy Monday, folks. A lot of new music came out last week that I really dug, and I’m still going through it and listening. But hey, the playlist waits for no man, except sometimes me when I forget that it’s Monday and I have to post one of these.

  1. Neko Case, “Winchester Mansion of Sound”: Case’s music continues to grow and shift; she’s never content to just coast by on what she’s done before. This is probably one of my favorites off the new album.
  2. Jeff Tweedy, “Cry Baby Cry”: Dude dropped a triple album on Friday. That’s wild. This is not, unfortunately, a cover of the Beatles song of the same name, but it is, fortunately, quite a good song anyway. The whole album is pretty good, honestly, though I feel like some of the lyrics could’ve used a second pass.
  3. Amanda Shires, “The Details”: I have never been divorced, as I’m sure most folks know. That being said, this song sounds like what I imagine divorce feels like, and it makes me uncomfortable and more than a little voyeuristic, like I’m listening in on a couple in the final throes of the inevitable end.
  4. David Gray, “Kathleen”: Sometime in the past few years, Draw the Line somehow became my favorite David Gray album, and this one of my favorite songs off that album. I can’t adequately explain the why of either of those, so instead I just accept them and continue grooving to the album and this song in particular.
  5. Bruce Springsteen, “Reason to Believe”: I always enjoy the work of Bruce the Storyteller. Here, it’s a series of vignettes with a common theme: at the end of a hard day, when the world wears you down and tells you to just give up, folks still find a reason to go on.
  6. Andrew Bird, “So Much Wine, Merry Christmas”: I learned the lead break from this song a few months ago, and it’s a great joy to play.
  7. Buckingham Nicks, “Frozen Love”: This album has finally appeared on streaming, so it’s okay that I left my copy in Oklahoma with my dad back in April.
  8. Doechii, “Anxiety”: It uses that one Gotye song (you know the one, he only did the one) as a basis for a very different tune.
  9. The Presidents of the United States of America, “Kick Out the Jams”: Who doesn’t love an MC5 cover? It’s suitably quick and jagged, and I kinda love it.
  10. Iron & Wine and Ben Bridwell, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”: Speaking of covers, here’s Iron & Wine and the dude from Band of Horses doing an U2 cover. It sounds exactly how you think that will sound.