tom petty & the heartbreakers

Playlist #267

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Happy Monday, folks! We’re well into June now, and school continues for…reasons? I’m not really sure anymore. But I’m getting stuff done and prepped for next year, so that’s good. Anyway, some coworkers and I are going to get together this week and next to play some music! Here’s our setlist.

  1. Santo & Johnny, “Sleepwalk”: It’s an instrumental that you’d probably recognize if you heard it. One of the guys I’m playing with plays pedal steel guitar, which makes this a perfect song for us.
  2. Iron & Wine and Calexico, “History of Lovers”: Some of these songs are ones I’ll sing, like this one. I tried to choose songs that were (A) easy to play and (B) could or did feature pedal steel in them already. This one fits both criteria! And it’s fun.
  3. Wilco, “Jesus, Etc.”: Another of my choices. I wanted a Wilco song, and had it narrowed down between this one and “California Stars.” Kinda tempted to ask if we can change it to “California Stars” now, though, ’cause it’s such a fun song.
  4. Bruce Springsteen, “Stolen Car”: Dunno how all my choices got shoved into the beginning of the set, but that’s okay (it’s probably just down to the way I searched them up on my phone when putting together the playlist). This one falls under the “easy to play” side of things, since it’s just a two-chord song (just G and C. Now you can figure out how to play it yourself. This is educational).
  5. The Eagles, “Take It Easy”: Not one of my picks, surprisingly enough, though one that I am clearly well aware of and already know how to play. I’ll do some backing vocals on it, though, although I’m not sure I can get as high as the “eaaasy” as I ought to. We’ll have to see.
  6. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, “Built To Last”: For some reason, my brain always thinks of this as “latter-day Tom Petty,” but it’s from the first half of his career. The ’90s was also only six years ago, as far as my brain is concerned, so ignore that. It’s another easy one to play, and I love playing it.
  7. Hank Williams, “Hey, Good Lookin'”: The last of my suggestions. If you’re looking for a good pedal steel song, you can’t go wrong with Hank.
  8. Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Lodi”: My only challenge with this song is going to be hitting that key change for the last verse. I’ve never been able to pull off the key change. I’m gonna have to practice.
  9. Eric Clapton, “Lay Down Sally”: Another super-easy one to play, and it’s a lot of fun.
  10. The Band, “The Weight”: The biggest challenge with this one is going to be hitting those backing vocals and not sounding like a wounded cat.

Playlist #259

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Happy Monday, folks! The weather here in Northern Virginia is heating up this week; we’ll be getting our first 90°+ days of the year this week (I know, Okies, y’all have already had days that hot, aren’t you special?). Anyway, here’s some songs to cool off to.

  1. Jeremy Messersmith, “Bridges”: I love this song for two things: (1) its chorus, which is depressingly sing-along, and (2) the line “I’ll break you like a promise,” which just hits right in the guts with the way it’s so tossed off all casual-like.
  2. Josh Ritter, “Getting Ready To Get Down”: The Bible College to Lesbian Pipeline should be discovered and somehow harnessed to create a vast amount of Subaru-and-carabiner-strengthened power that can be harnessed to solve, if not global hunger or something similar, at least get all the dogs adopted in your area.
  3. Bo Didley, “Who Do You Love”: It’s “whom,” actually, Mr. Didley. Just sayin’.
  4. Willie Nelson, “Come On Up To The House”: I have always kinda loved Willie Nelson as in interpreter of other people’s music, and his version of this Tom Waits song (with help from Sheryl Crow and at least one of his songs) really spotlights how good he is at it.
  5. Elvis Presley, “Run On”: Elvis in full-on gospel music I-ain’t-got-time-for-your-shenanigans mode.
  6. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Never Be You”: Even Tom Petty’s cast-offs are better than most other bands’ top songs. I will fight you on this.
  7. The Frames, “When Your Mind’s Made Up”: This song is almost 20 years old. Imma just go turn to dust now.
  8. Sonic Youth, “Teen Age Riot”: Of course, this one’s pushing 40, but doesn’t act a day over 18. Gotta love the energy.
  9. Gary Moore, “Parisienne Walkaways”: I was introduced to this one by Uncle Gert. He had me sing it for one of his “Family, Friends, and Me” collections a couple of years ago. How does it somehow feel more haunting now?
  10. Fleetwood Mac, “Storms”: Tusk is the Fleetwood Mac album that keeps giving. Sure, Rumors may have had more top singles on it and is revered as the end-all, be-all of Mac albums, but Tusk is a messy masterpiece all its own. And this quiet, powerful song is just one more reason why.

Playlist #256: The Setlist

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s my birthday this week. You can help me celebrate by listening to the new song I’ve got coming out this Friday, “When I Say Your Name, Only Silence Answers.” You can pre-save it on Spotify, if that’s your thing. For this week’s playlist, I’ve put together a setlist of covers I’d play if I were playing a show, because why not?

  1. Tom Waits, “Chocolate Jesus”: This is my “weird” song, though the guitar chords really aren’t that different from just about any other song on the list. But Waits’s stuff just always comes across as weirder. It is seasonally appropriate, at least.
  2. Langhorne Slim, “House of My Soul”: This one is just fun to play. I like songs that are fun to play.
  3. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Built to Last”: Tom Petty always writes such simple, heartfelt songs. It’s hard not to want to sing along with a Tom Petty song.
  4. Wilco, “Handshake Drugs”: I don’t know if I could tell you what a handshake drug is. Is it the kind that fits in your hand so you can exchange it when you shake hands with the dealer? Did I just crack the code on this twenty-something year-old song?
  5. Bruce Springsteen, “Stolen Car”: It’s only two chords, but that’s all the Boss needs to tell a heartbreaking story of survival and desperation.
  6. Led Zeppelin, “Hey Hey (What Can I Do)”: The Zeppelin song I can play. And play pretty well, I might add! Though I do struggle with the intro bit, which is tricky for a chord player like myself.
  7. Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Who’ll Stop the Rain”: I love playing CCR songs. They’re just fun, and as I said earlier, I like playing fun songs.
  8. Hank Williams, “Move It On Over”: I have an affinity for this version that I never really had for the George Thorogood version.
  9. Bob Dylan, “Tell Ol’ Bill”: The latest in my long line of Dylan songs I will play over and over until my ears and fingers bleed.
  10. Gin Blossoms, “Pieces of the Night”: I feel everyone needs a ’90s song that can pull out of their back pocket on a spur of the moment, and this one’s mine.

Playlist #252

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Happy Monday, folks! Seems like winter wanted to give us one last snow day this season, so I’m sitting at home enjoying an extra day off. Here’s a playlist for you to while away those hours.

  1. Jason Isbell, “Songs That She Sang In The Shower”: Southeastern is filled with great story songs, and this is one of the best on there. I always wonder how autobiographical songs are, and can’t help but feel this one comes from personal experience.
  2. Boygenius, “Not Strong Enough”: These three write and perform some of the best songs I’ve heard in the past several years. I’m so glad they decided to form a supergroup and bless us with songs as good as this one.
  3. Brandi Carlisle, “Turpentine”: Brandi Carlisle remains one of the unsung treasures of country-tinged Americana. If she’d only ever written just this song, that’d still be the truth. But she’s done several albums’ worth of songs that are all just as good. It’s kinda wild.
  4. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “It’ll All Work Out”: I heard a remix of this song the other day on the Tom Petty Radio SXM station that emphasized the acoustic guitar over other instruments. I kinda low-key love it the way I love the album version I’ve heard dozens of times.
  5. Iggy Pop, “The Passenger”: Did you know you can make a five minute rock song playing the same four chords over and over in the same patter the whole time? ‘Cause Iggy Pop does.
  6. Led Zeppelin, “Hey Hey What Can I Do”: It’s the Led Zeppelin song that I can play on the guitar! Hurray!
  7. David Gray, “First Chance”: I feel like every song on the Draw the Line album is just fantastic.
  8. Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins, “Born Secular”: One of the best songs on one of the best albums ever.
  9. Rage Against The Machine, “Killing In The Name”: “Some of those who work forces/are the same that burn crosses.” Just as relevant and accurate today as it was the day this song released over thirty years ago.
  10. The Rolling Stones, “Mixed Emotions”: Man, no one escaped the ’80s unscathed.

Playlist #247

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Day today, so I’ve been sitting at home becoming increasingly concerned that the world Dr. King imagined will never come to pass. Yeah, I’m a cheerful sort today. Let’s get to the playlist.

  1. Rose Betts, “Doodles”: I learned of this Irish singer/songwriter through Facebook, of all places. There’s a certain type of singer/songwriter and a certain type of song that they write that tickles all the right spots in my brain; this is that songwriter, this is that song.
  2. Florence + the Machine, “Ship To Wreck”: The rhythm section for this song is just absolutely amazing. It slaps. Hard.
  3. Yarn, “Don’t Break My Heart Again”: String band doing string band things. Good times.
  4. Calexico, “Sunken Waltz”: Was talking with my brother about this song the other day, and he pointed out how difficult it is sometimes to understand what, exactly, a given Calexico song is really about. I mean, is this song about a carpenter who throws money randomly over his shoulder or what? Damned if I know. I just know it’s a good song.
  5. The Family Crest, “Beneath The Brine”: Speaking of songs I have no idea what they’re actually about…
  6. Birdy, “Wings”: I love this song and it especially amuses me that a musician who goes by “Birdy” named a song “Wings.”
  7. The National, “Ashamed Of The Story I Told”: One of the best covers I’ve ever heard by a band that just…got it.
  8. Phosphorescent, “Storms”: A nice little Fleetwood Mac cover. One of Stevie Nicks’s best compositions.
  9. David Gray, “Dead In The Water”: This was the song that inspired my novel The Armageddon Seed. Or at least the title, which was based on a misremembered lyric from this song (I remembered “The Armageddon seed” instead of “that Armageddon sky.” Easy mistake).
  10. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, “About To Give Out”: I just love when Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers cut loose and just have fun with a song.

Playlist #243: Holiday Playlist

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s the week of Christmas, so here’s a playlist full of some of my favorite Christmas songs.

  1. Darlene Love, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”: Just the absolute best Christmas song ever. You can keep your Wham! and your Mariah Carey, just leave me Darlene Love.
  2. She & Him, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”: This song seems like it was tailor-made for this band. Zoey Deschanel just has a lovely voice made for this kind of song.
  3. The Eagles, “Please Come Home For Christmas”: The guitar work in this song always gets to me. It’s very well-done and Don Henley sounds particularly impassioned.
  4. The Royal Guardsmen, “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron”: Is it technically a Christmas song? Not really. Is Christmas the only time I listen to it because it was on a tape of Christmas songs we listened to constantly when I was a kid? Yes.
  5. Elvis Presley, “Blue Christmas”: I’m not much of an Elvis fan, but I really dig this song. It’s just fun.
  6. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Christmas All Over Again”: Speaking of fun Christmas songs, of course Tom Petty turns in one for the books. It’s just a good time from start to finish.
  7. Neko Case, “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis”: “Charlie, I’m pregnant,” the song begins, and just gets worse and sadder from there. Neko doesn’t even try to sing it like Tom Waits, instead making it all her own and turning this into one of the absolute saddest Christmas songs I’ve ever heard.
  8. My Morning Jacket, “X-Mas Curtain”: Just what, exactly, is a Christmas Curtain? I imagine something involving snowmen and giant snowflakes and maybe a Santa Claus, but I honestly don’t know, and I’m not sure this song makes it any clearer.
  9. Andrew Bird, “So Much Wine, Merry Christmas”: I love playing this one on guitar, and have even halfway managed to play the solo for it. It’s lovely.
  10. The Pogues, “Fairytale of New York”: It’s a dreary picture of a dreary town in a dreary decade, but it feels hopeful despite all that. Kinda reminds me in a small way of the Mountain Goats’ “This Year,” with its defiant tone and resistance to the turning of the world.

Playlist #241

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Happy Monday, folks! I’ve returned from sunny, warm Florida to a much chillier Northern Virginia. But it was a good trip! We relaxed and had a lot of fun, I got to see a friend from college whom I had not seen in over 20 years, and I slept quite a bit. And the Wife’s presentation went over well! Here’s some songs.

  1. MGMT, “Kids”: Yeah, it’s the only song I or probably any of you have ever heard from this band, but it’s a pretty good song. The Wife likes it, at any rate.
  2. Madison Cunningham, “Hospital”: So the album this song is off of won a Grammy for Best Folk Album? But this is very much not folk? Am I missing something? I think I must be missing something.
  3. Eve, “Let Me Blow Ya Mind”: One of our Uber drivers in Florida was bumpin’ a throwback R&B radio station, and this was one of the songs that came up.
  4. George Harrison, “You”: In case your morning needed a little…extra texture (see, this is funny, since the name of the album this song came off of was Extra Texture) (explaining the joke always makes it funnier) (over-explaining the joke makes it even funnier).
  5. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Insider”: This song just about made me cry yesterday afternoon. Admittedly, I’d had a weird dream featuring my grandmother and hadn’t taken my medication yet, but the fact holds.
  6. The Gorillaz, “Clint Eastwood”: A plinky little Casio cover of this song played over the plane speakers as we were boarding our flight home. The Wife and I looked at each other and immediately felt a million years old. The songs of our youth have become muzak.
  7. The National, “Rylan”: I still just absolutely love the drums for this song. As with most songs by the National, the drums are definitely the best part.
  8. Counting Crows, “Hard Candy”: The twelve-string jangle of this song heals something in my soul every time I hear it.
  9. Jet, “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”: Stomping, rollicking fun with a sleazy guitar riff. Good way to kick off your week.
  10. Traveling Wilburys, “Heading for the Light”: The second Traveling Wilburys song I learned to play (the first was “Handle With Care,” naturally) and a whole lot of fun. I should play that one again.

Playlist #232

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Happy Monday, folks. It’s SAT week here in Fairfax County, so I get to help administer that test this Wednesday. Joy. I love testing. These songs will hopefully carry me through the week.

  1. Taylor Swift, “Wood”: Yes, there’s a new Taylor Swift album out, and it’s all anyone is talking about. While I enjoy this song, it’s also rather amusing to me. Hearing Taylor sing double entendres is like hearing your middle schooler try out the word “fuck”: it’s mildly adorable to hear them trying, even though it sounds kinda cringey.
  2. Rhett Miller, “The El”: This could’ve come off an Old 97s album, honestly, but I can’t blame Rhett for keeping it for this solo record. It’s a bop.
  3. Neko Case, “Dirty Knife”: What is this song about? I have no idea, but there’s mention of the titular knife and a chorus (?) sung in, I think, Latin. It’s great.
  4. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “California”: I’m just a sucker for the She’s the One soundtrack, as we are all well aware by now.
  5. The Raconteurs, “Intimate Secretary”: This just always seemed like an extremely fun band to be a part of, like these guys really synched up well and were all on the same page. This song is a perfect example of that chemistry.
  6. Robert Plant, “Chevrolet”: Robert Plant still makes pretty compelling music. His latest feels even more in line with the stuff he’s been making with Allison Krauss, even though she’s not even involved with the project.
  7. Spoon, “Chateau Blues”: A Spoon song that does and does not sound like a Spoon song is quite an accomplishment, but it’s one they pull off here.
  8. Lord Huron, “Meet Me in the Woods”: Still rather obsessed with Strange Trails. Will not apologize for that.
  9. Pearl Jam, “Hail, Hail”: When you need a little pick me up first thing in the morning, put it on this song and crank the volume. You’re welcome.
  10. John Prine, “Souvenirs”: And when you need someone to make you wistful and nostalgic and maybe just a little bit angry at the past, you could do much worse than Prine.

Playlist #225: Back to School Edition

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Happy Monday, folks! And welcome back to school, students. That’s right, the school year has officially begun in Northern Virginia, marking my 21st year as a teacher. Yup, my career will be old enough to drink this year. That’s terrifying. Let’s get to the playlist.

  1. The Calling, “Let The Day Begin”: As I’ve said in the past, this song is intimately linked in my mind with the start of the school day. It played on the classic rock station every morning right around the time I was headed to school, so it’s kinda irrevocably linked forever to me.
  2. Langhorne Slim, “The House of My Soul (You Light the Room)”: Love playing this song. It’s such a simple chord progression that he manages to squeeze a lot of energy and emotion out of.
  3. Radiohead, “Go To Sleep (Live)”: Live Radiohead is always a fun time, because I’m left wondering how they managed to get the song that appeared on the album (with all its blips and squiggles and beeps) to sound so good live.
  4. Golden Earring, “Twilight Zone”: Man, after spending several weeks not working, being back in the classroom feels more than a little like the Twilight Zone.
  5. The Beatles, “Yer Blues”: So John says, “If I ain’t dead already/Well, you know the reason why,” but do we? Do we really know the reason why, John? Because I don’t think we do.
  6. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Casa Dega”: Hearsay and secondhand information lead to heartbreak. Or Heartbreakers.
  7. Pink Floyd, “Pigs (Three Different Ones)”: The repeated “ha-ha, charade you are” line kills me every time. The very British pronunciation of charade (“sha-raad”) makes me giggle.
  8. Elliott Smith, “Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands”: Man, I haven’t listened to Elliott Smith in a while. I think fall is the best time to listen to him, and a revisiting of his discography is imminent.
  9. The Lemonheads, “Into Your Arms”: There are a few ’90s songs that are just there for that killer chorus (this one, the La’s “There She Goes,” REM’s “The One I Love,” Deep Blue Something’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”). Someday I’mma put together that playlist.
  10. Gin Blossoms, “Hey Jealousy”: Speaking of great ’90s songs…

Playlist #220

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Happy Monday, folks. It’s a stormy one here in Northern Virginia, where we’ve reached the part of the summer when it rains most every afternoon for an hour or so. In unrelated news, I’ve received the edits for Book 8 back from my editor, so I’ll probably sit down sometime in the next couple of weeks and go through those and make the changes so it reads like something that wasn’t written by an unhinged lunatic with a comma addiction. Until then, here’s a playlist.

  1. Andrew Bird, “Frogs Singing”: A quintessential summer song. It always makes me think of a time I was visiting with my great-grandparents and they took me to a church revival at a little country church out in the middle of nowhere, eastern Oklahoma. The place was in a swamp, essentially, and all you could hear were the frogs singing and the cicadas buzzing. That sound was and remains summer to me.
  2. Case/Lang/Veirs, “Atomic Number”: Why does this song always make me feel so sad? Am I just trained to hear Neko Case’s voice and immediately feel like all the good has been sucked out of the universe and right into her vocal chords?
  3. Frank Turner, “Get Better”: A great shout-along song for when the world’s got you down and you feel like, fuck it, I can actually handle everything you’re gonna throw at me.
  4. Josh Ritter, “Getting Ready to Get Down”: If you see me dancing to this song in the car, feel free to dance along. It’s very danceable.
  5. Greg Feldon, “Incoming”: There’s no reason to give up. There’s no reason to give in. Keep your head up and keep fighting. The world will improve.
  6. Tracy Chapman, “Fast Car”: The through line from this song to the work of Bruce Springsteen around Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River is just a straight line. I’m not saying Tracy Chapman is the lesbian Bruce Springsteen, but I’m not not saying that, either.
  7. Kris Orlowski, “Go”: There are only a couple of great songs about lighthouses out there in the world. This is one of them, especially the version sung by Glen Phillips.
  8. Van Morrison, “Wild Night”: A song about getting kitted out and going out on the town, as only a young person in their early to mid-twenties could do. I’m too old for that now, I think, but damn if this song doesn’t make me want to give it a try.
  9. James McMurtry, “Just Us Kids”: And then there’s this song to bring me back down to reality and remind me that, no, I’m in my 40s and I have responsibilities, but hey, maybe I can still have some fun if I really put myself out there.
  10. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Spike (Live)”: And then there’s this reminder that sometimes when you put yourself out there, you go into a bar and get made fun of so bad by a bunch of old curmudgeons that you just walk out, hitch a ride on the nearest interstate, and never come back ever again. Life’s funny that way.