Zzzz's

The first song just entered my head for some reason.

The second song, by virtue of the alphabet, played next.

The third song was not far down the screen. How I have missed the Decemberists.

The first two are for Liz, whose cheeks I see reddening even as I type this. The last one is for cold, cold me.

***

--> Sleep Warm, Cornelius
--> Good Morning Blues (Real Tuesday Weld Clerkenwell Remix), Count Basie
--> Sleepless, The Decemberists

See just how the sun sets in the sky

You have, no doubt, heard of "desert island albums" -- the CD you would simply have to have in your possession if you were ever stranded beyond hope of rescue.

Well, here is my desert island SONG. I haven't spent so much time mastering every yip and yowl of a song like this since high school!

It's a perfect three-act play in four minutes. Act 1: The band lands in NYC. Told from the perspective of our over-excited narrator -- moody Carl won't even appreciate the sunset, and hey, John -- the CHICKS!!

Act 2: Our hero meets laconic Gotham hipsters. (An American Music Anthology? Sounds fun....)

Act 3: The moody break-up, interrupted by an overanxious hostess ("is there anything in particular I can help you with?") as he turns to his already disenchanted love interest, "all I ever wanted help with was youuuuu" — the languid growl of the last word leaving us room to imagine the sequel...

***
--> Myriad Harbour, The New Pornographers

The sun is gonna burn into a cinder before we ever pass this way again

A wonderful time with her this weekend...the long-awaited meeting. Left it with a somewhat topical song humming in my mind....Dylan's "Girl From the North Country." But that one is too sad and retrospective. Not exactly first-date song material.

Instead, here's another song that I played on the drive home, and it sort of fits, too. At least it's sung in the future tense. Whether I am the horse, or the reckless man, or not a party to the song at all...only time will tell. We've only hummed the first bar or two.

***
--> Silver Stallion, Cat Power

I am vanishing into the trees

I have no idea about the conscious intent of this song ("All I can see are dolphins, I feel close to them?"), but I can tell you what it's for: For running on a treadmill at the health club watching yourself in the mirror. Tell me you have ever run so fucking fast!

Buy the album, win the marathon. (If it's later declared a banned substance, don't blame me.)

***
--> Prime, Marnie Stern

And we slept as the storm died down

I was on the couch tonight chatting, and this song came on and just sort of caught my attention for a second. It's one of those that's perfect for the emotionally climactic scene of a movie...and my Germanic-melodramatic sense has room enough for thousands of those. I had to post it here.

I'm thinking about posting future tracks as 30-second excerpts...that's permissible under Fair Use, as I understand it. I would have done that here, but I think it's unfair to the song. If you like it, consider buying the CD. I did.

I had no idea Sigur Ros actually sang intelligible lyrics. I thought it was all gobbeldy-gook. But I found a translation here. No idea if it's accurate or not.

As long as I'm giving credit and promoting commercialism in these troubled times, I might as well point out the illustration above is lifted from shirt.woot (I'm too lazy right now to prowl the archives to give proper credit to the artist...apologies), which is a fun site to visit — those write-ups on woot are always a hoot — and I would even encourage anyone to join the mailing list. They only send out, like, four messages a year, so it's not like they'll bury you in spam or anything, and those are funny, too. I've bought three shirts, including the one with the design shown above.

It's fun to be back music-blogging!

***
--> Fljótavík, Sigur Ros

It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die

Sunday mornings, in my family, were conducted to the accompaniment of "Sunday Soundstage."

The traditional sound my own children are assimilating on the Sabbath is from NPR's "American Routes."

This Sam Cooke song was the closing number of today's show, and damned if it didn't bring tears to my eyes, as I stood there making the pancakes.

***
--> A Change Is Gonna Come, Sam Cooke

I appreciate the herb you brought for me

I have not been able to guess. Do they like Kraft dinner?

***
--> Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Black Uhuru

It's just my job five days a week

At my daughter's preschool, all of the teachers have mini-biographies of themselves posted on the hallway walls.

They're little games of 20 Questions — favorite season, hobbies, family interests, etc.

And my daughter's teacher says she is "best described" by this song: "Rocket Man" by Elton John.

I haven't thought about this much all school year. But today I asked myself, what is best described by "Rocket Man?" And do we really want it teaching five-year-olds?

***
--> Rocket Man, Elton John
--> Rocket Man, Fastbacks
--> Rocket Man, My Morning Jacket
--> Rocket Man, William Shatner

They lay there apart in another world at the dawn of creation

Many, many years ago, there was a Comet that knew the Earth. The Comet flew past every 17 years or so — that's a short-enough interval as comets go, but it seemed like a plenty long time to the Earth, always so green and stolid, but infused with a sense of yearning and wonder each time the Comet whooshed past, draping Earth's atmosphere in shimmering cosmic dust collected from the far depths of space.

"Comet," the Earth said each time the Comet started to head away, "will I see you again?"

"You will, Earth," the Comet seemed to say. "You will."

"Satisfied" is the song Tom used to play for us at 6 a.m. every Friday morning. It was a song that told me, "you'd better hurry the hell up, son." I'm not sure what it's telling me now. I can't see it clearly through all of the cosmic dust.

***
--> Satisfied, Squeeze
--> I Am My Own Grandpa, Asylum Street Spankers

To lose all my senses was just so typically me

Call it pandering, but hey -- you visit my blog, you comment on my blog, you can be pretty sure you will see something you like the very next time you visit. If I get around to it, I mean.

Richard Thompson. One. Thousand. Years. Of. Popular. Music. How can I describe it any better than Mark Deming of allmusic.dot.com?

As the year 2000 loomed on the horizon, Playboy Magazine took it upon itself to ask a number of leading musicians to name the greatest songs of the soon-to-be-completed millennium. One of the musos queried was Richard Thompson, and while many of his comrades couldn't be bothered to go further back than 1940 in their overview of musical history, the scholarly Thompson took the notion seriously enough to extend his own list of notable songs as far back as 1068 A.D.

While Playboy never ended up printing Thompson's list, the notion made enough of an impression on him that he put together a special show in which he guided his audience through his own version of the greatest hits of the past ten centuries. 1000 Years of Popular Music is culled from recordings of Thompson's concert series of the same name, and beyond the novelty value of the set list (from the oldest round in the English language to Britney Spears in a mere 76 minutes!), it also offers a rare look at Thompson the interpretive musician, as well as lends a fascinating perspective on his musical influences.

As one might expect, the early innings are dominated by the British folk tradition, with "King Henry V's Conquest of France" and "Blackleg Miner" suggesting where Thompson's melodic sense first took root, and other tunes demonstrating how operetta and the British music halls absorbed and refined similar themes. Thompson also indulges his passion for classic jazz of the 1930s and '40s on some Nat King Cole and Louis Armstrong chestnuts, and wraps up by following rock & roll through Jerry Lee Lewis, the Who, and the Beatles to Prince and Britney Spears ("Oops! I Did It Again," of which Thompson writes, "Taken out of context, this is a pretty nice song").

Considering that precious few of these songs were meant to be performed by a solo acoustic guitar, Thompson's arrangements are inventive and effective; whether he's going for laughs or drama, he gets the most from his material. (He's also fortunate to be joined in the proceedings by vocalist Judith Owen and percussionist Michael Jerome).

1000 Years of Popular Music is entertaining, informative, and a lot more enlightening than the average lecture on musical history. Perhaps Thompson should consider writing a text on the subject should his remarkable fingers ever fail him.

***
--> I Live In Trafalgar Square, Richard Thompson
--> Oops...I Did It Again, Richard Thompson