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