Wednesday Playlist – Songs About Articles of Clothing

This week’s playlist is more songs about things you wouldn’t think would normally inspire songwriting.

How epic does clothing have to be to make someone sit down and write a song about it? I could understand the phenomenon more if it’s about clothing someone else is wearing – because transference of affection from a person to their clothing makes sense. It’s safer to say how much you love that chick’s mini skirt than it is to say how much you love that chick. But to sit down and write about how much you love some of your own clothing… well that’s gotta be some kick-ass clothing, or else you’re just a crazy obsessive maybe. Anyway, whatever, here’s this week’s playlist!

(If anyone has a service I can use to compile a playable list of these songs, please to forward it to me? Blip won’t support playlists, favtape won’t load for me, last.fm forces you to have 45 songs, etc.) Continue reading »

Wednesday Playlist – Songs About Rain

Since I write neither music or lyrics, but am fascinated by those who do, it’s interesting to me what things inspire someone so much they’ll sit down and write a whole damn song about them. I mean, everyone writes songs about love and broken hearts, not many people write songs about muddy boots, or tub grout. So seeing these human commonalities, the things that lots of people sit down and write a whole damn song about, that’s fun. And it turns out that lots of people write songs about weather, particularly rain. I get that. I find rain inspirational, especially spring rain. There’s something about the appearance of rain on an otherwise temperate day that removes all the pressure to get out and do something. Rain gives you permission to just sit inside and ruminate while you idly listen to it slap at your windows. Permission to do nothing but think is nice.

In any case, “Songs about Rain” was the topic of the day, and here are some favorites: Continue reading »

Wednesday Playlist – SuperLate Edition

So last Wednesday’s playlist was a hard one. Apparently not everyone has a secret folder on their iPod full of songs with their name in them. Ummm… color me half surprised/half embarrassed. I guess it helps that I have a pretty common name that has maintained a steady level of popularity over a long period of time. It would be harder if your name was say… Suri, or Shoshanna or something like that.

But I also think some of you aren’t paying attention and have never given proper thought to the matter! For instance, the lovely lyrics search engine at Leo’s Lyrics can help you find songs containing your name. Make a playlist! Mine the depths of your narcissism! Pretend everything you hear is written about you! Come on and explore my world. Don’t worry, it smells nice here.

So without further ado, I present:

Your favorite songs with your name in them.

• @superbadgirl - For my actual name I like Kevin Johanssen’s “Susan Surrender” and for my screen name I am going to have to go with the song from which I took it, Iffy’s “Superbad Girl”
• Dave Who Won’t Twitter likes the song “David Watt” either by The Jam or the Kinks, depending how old you are.
• @jenxdigital says that “Jenny Says” by Cowboy Mouth wins hands-down
• @UnclePilot: defaults to “Jason and the Argonauts” by XTC because it’s the only song he’s ever heard with his name in it. Luckily, he REALLY likes XTC. (ed: he’s apparently never listened carefully enough to the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Somebody’s Gotta Die“)
• @narcise had two  songs,”Ripplin’ Waters” by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band AND “Jennifer Juniper” by Donovan
• @_bunny_ reminds @narcise that she can also claim Tommy Tutone’s “Jenny (867-5309)” which he thinks is awesome.
• @_bunny_ Can’t think of any with his real name, so he wants to steal @UnclePilot‘s choice. However I found a better one for him, from a musical entitled (no kidding) Urinetown, which is called “Don’t be the Bunny“
• @karamichele couldnt’ find any songs with her name in them, and neither could I, unless they were in Russian or maybe that was Korean.
• @gatewaygroupie loves “Julie” by Ali G. featuring Shaggy. Mostly for the lyrics “She hear mi voice and get a nipple erection”
• @sub_english Likes “88 Lines About 44 Women.” for the line “Katherine was much to pretty, she didn’t do that shit at all.” Except of course, she notes, she does.
• @violentecstasy Couldn’t really find anything good for her that wasn’t cheesy 80′s rock, but I found “Michelle” by Xymox with this lyric: “Michelle, my hagridden goblin” This has now become one of my all-time favorite lyrics
• @stevodarkly Claims there are no songs about guys named Steve, so I found one called “Erotic Nightmares” by a guy named Steve for him to claim
• @avandonsel wasn’t playing, so I chose Counting Crow’s “Amy Hit the Atmposphere” for her
• @SgtHotpants Gets “Fry Chicken In Your Hotpants” by Clarence Foster And The Internal Revenue OR “Funky Purple Hotpants from the Planet Disco” but she really has to choose one and stick to it.
• @evad23 also thought there were no Dave songs, but Nellie McKay’s “David” cracked me up, so I assigned it to him.
• and finally I am assigning @todderickv with Julie London’s “Come-on-a-My-House/Hot Toddy [Rip off artist remix] because I love it so.

That’s it – hope I didn’t miss anyone who replied.

Coming soon = this week’s playlist: songs about rain.

I’ll Put a Spell on You

A few months ago I was assembling a list of songs which sound like love songs but are really about stalking. I think i’ve found the ultimate song of that ilk, here below. Beautiful, and yet creepy as hell. This guy is trying to make a suit out of someone’s skin right here.

Other submitted songs are after the lyrics to this one. (Sorry, I forgot who submitted what – but I am always open to more submissions. I love creepy stalker songs.)

Aqualung – Strange and Beautiful

I’ve been watching your world from afar,
I’ve been trying to be where you are,
And I’ve been secretly falling apart,
Unseen.
To me, you’re strange and you’re beautiful,
You’d be so perfect with me but you just can’t see,
You turn every head but you don’t see me.

I’ll put a spell on you,
You’ll fall asleep and I’ll put a spell on you.
And when I wake you,
I’ll be the first thing you see,
And you’ll realise that you love me.

Yeah…
Yeah…

Sometimes, the last thing you want comes in first,
Sometimes, the first thing you want never comes,
And I know, the waiting is all you can do,
Sometimes…

I’ll put a spell on you,
You’ll fall asleep,
I’ll put a spell on you,
And when I wake you,
I’ll be the first thing you see,
And you’ll realise that you love me.

I’ll put a spell on you,
You’ll fall asleep ‘cos I’ll put a spell on you,
And when I wake you,
I’ll be the first thing you see,
And you’ll realise that you love me, yeah…

Wednesday Playlist – Sexing People Up (or not) Songs

So this week’s playlist is posted a little late because I have been… well, doing other things. And all this hyperlinking works my nerves. But anyway, the categories this week were best/worst songs for sexing someone up, and they were pretty revealing. Lots of people thought of unsexy songs, and a few songs were on one person’s “sexy” and another person’s “not-sexy” list.

Anyway the concept of this list just intrigues me, I like to know what other people think of as sexy-time music, and what’s the biggest turn-off. I am potentially going to market the 2nd list as some kind of ultimate anti-horniness tonic, and I think it will work. Except for that it will include NIN “Closer” which I actually think is a damn sexy song. I had presupposed everyone actually listens to music when they’re fucking, and I find that that’s not necessarily the case, so I was surprised. But then again I constantly need a soundtrack, so the idea of not having music on when I am doing pretty much anything is anathema.

I guess I need to do a poll on whether people actually listen to music in the bedroom or not. Maybe I will do a twitter poll. (DONE! Take my poll here .)

(I stopped linking up all the songs, because I am tired, and it’s tiresome to do. Go to last.fm or blip.fm and find em your own self.)

Best Song for Sexing Someone Up

• @superbadgirl – Massive Attack “Dissolved Girl“
• @libster77 – Queens of the Stone Age “Make it Wit Chu“
• @kbestoliver – Jeff Buckley “Everybody Here Wants You“
• @UnclePilot – Portishead “Wandering Star” or Buddy Guy’s “Baby Please Don’t Leave Me“
• @avondonsel – Nine Inch Nails “Closer”
• @jenxdigital – Color Me Badd “I Wanna Sex You Up”
• Dave who won’t Twitter  – Muddy Waters “I just want to make love to you“
• @_bunny_ D’Angelo “Playa Playa” (he apparently has a personal story in which this song is directly responsible for him getting lucky. If that’s true I think he may owe D’Angelo some extra royalties or something.)
• @stevodarkly – Dead can Dance “Yulanga” or Mazzy Star “So tonight that I might see”
• @cbellers – Fiona Apple “Slow like Honey” or “Criminal“
• @Sgthotpants – Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong “Summertime“
• guacamolly – Ludacris “Ho” (she also says she doesn’t listen to music while getting it on, and I think she’s missing out.)

Worst Song for Sexing Someone Up

• @superbadgirl – Nirvana “Rape Me” or They Might Be Giants “They’ll Need a Crane”
• @libster77 – Brooks & Dunn “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” (or anything country)
• @UnclePilot – Color Me Badd “I Wanna Sex You Up”
• @kbestoliver – Aqua “Barbie Girl”
• @avondonsel – Nine Inch Nails “Closer”
• @_bunny_ – Marvin Gaye “Let’s Get it On”
• @jenxdigital – Color Me Badd “I Wanna Sex You Up”
• @gatewaygroupie – Bobby McFerrin “Don’t Worry Be Happy”
• @stevodarkly – Eminem “Superman” or Glen Miller “In the Mood”
• @cbellers – Buster Poindexter “Hot Hot Hot” or Fiona Apple “Never is a Promise”
• @Sgthotpants – Herman’s Hermits “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” anything by Lamb Chop
• @Joule – Lily Allen “Not Big” & Parasites “Ugly Casanova”

Wednesday Drive Time Playlist

Today’s playlist is all about drivetime. Not necessarily roadtripping songs—that’s a whole different vibe—but songs that are great to drive to even around town. I break these into two categories: those songs which pretty much force you to speed, despite your best intentions, and those songs which make you sing along so hard that the people in the cars next to you either snicker or snap cell phone pics.

I queried Twitter for other people’s submissions, which you will find below. I never got enough songs to make a proper last.fm playlist (you have to have 45 tracks for it to be playable, which is tiresome) but I linked to playable versions where I could. Some of these links don’t have streamable tracks, but do have videos embedded on the pages to give you an indication of what the song sounds like. Some of you obscure motherfuckers linked to bands I couldn’t even find, so people are going to have to stop by your house to hear some of them.

Speeding Songs

• @Superbadgirl – Emilie Simon “Fleur de Saison“
• @Gatewaygroupie – The Cardigans – “My Favorite Game“
• @Bunny – Yes  “Owner of  a Lonely Heart”
• @Bunny – Saga “On the Loose”
• @Bunny – Dazz Band “Let It Whip”
  
• @Bunny – AC/DC  “If You Want Blood“
• @UnclePilot – The Octopus Project “Music is Happiness“
• Dave who won’t Twitter – The Damned “Love Song“
• @The_Cyr – ZZ Top “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide“
• @cbellers Lords of Acid “Lover”
• @Narcise - Underworld “Cowgirl“
• @Narcise  – Chemical Brothers “It Doesn’t Matter“
• @Bunny – David Bowie “Hang On to Yourself”
• @Stevodarkly - Tom Petty “Running Down a Dream“
• @Stevodarkly – Bowling for Soup “Running From Your Dad“
• @todderickv – Live “Pain Lies on the Riverside”
  

Singalong Songs

• @Superbadgirl – The Weepies “Gotta Have You“
• @Gatewaygroupie – Cake “Stick Shifts and Safety Belts“
• @UnclePilot – The Protomen “Unrest in the House of Light“
• @Narcise – Erykah Badu “On & On“
• @avandonsel – Sea Wolf “I Made a Resolution”
• Dave who won’t Twitter – Otis Redding ” Try A Little Tenderness“
• @Bunny – The Brothers Johnson “Strawberry Letter 23“
• @Stevodarkly – Eminem “White America” and “Square Dance“
• @libster77 – Everclear “Santa Monica”
  
• @libster77 – Eagles of Death Metal “San Berdoo Sunburn”
• @todderickv – The Smiths “Half a Person”
  

Other nonspecific driving songs & bands

• @UnclePilot likes to drive to “Leave Them All Behind” by Ride and “Midnight In A Perfect World” by DJ Shadow
• @evad23 likes Robert Johnson for driving in the South on a sunny day and The Beta Band for driving through the desert at night
  
• @cbellers says Paul Oakenfeld makes him speed.

And after the jump is my entire _car playlist at the moment. It’s kind of schizophrenic, everything from random industrial to random mope rock tracks I heard on the TV show House and some old ethereal favorites because I am nostalgic this week.They’re all great to drive to – and if you happen to stop next to me at a red light just ignore my antics, I am sure to be singing along with great gusto.

(The titles of these are mostly linked, but they’re not displaying as underlined, and I am not in the mood to go futz with the CSS to figure out why, just trust me and mouse over the titles.) Continue reading »

How 2008 sounded in my world

I love the charting features of last.fm, particularly to see what I have been listening to a lot lately – as I don’t always notice how perpetually I have some songs on repeat. Here’s what 2008 sounded like in my world, and why:

1. Emilie Simon – Fleur de Saison
   

   *le sigh*

   Apparently the absolute top song of 2008, and with very good reason. This song features all the  most basic elements necessary for me to adore it. Dramatic quiet intro, soon followed by an exquisitely driving beat. A  sexy chanteuse at the helm. An insanely imaginative, gorgeously CG-enhanced video that I never tire of watching. Lastly, it’s in French so I can memorize the lyrics and sing along while feeling very exotic and European. What’s not to love?

2. TV on the Radio – Satellite
   This song was on major repeat for my trip to Savannah this summer, and I suspect that’s how it snuck into the the top songs list. I can’t identify any particular lyric or point in the song that makes me love to listen to it, but it’s pretty much the ultimate driving music, and I listened to it when I was on my way to the beach, so it’s imbued with all that magical beachy goodness.
3. Daft Punk – Harder Better Faster Stronger
   Like the song above, this song has a mindlessly-repetitive quality to it that I apparently had great need of this year. I could sing it over and over again in the car without thinking about it, hypnotizing myself into driving to work rather than off a cliff.
4. Justin Timberlake – Cry Me a River
   I have never had a weakness for things Timberlakeian, until I saw that movie this summer with him and the kidnap victim kid. Then I started listening to his music, and this song in particular grabbed me. Again, it kinda surprises me that this made it into the top songs list, but there you go. Charts don’t lie.
5. Citizen Cope – Bullet and a Target
   This song I was actually introduced to via the Justin Timberlake movie I referenced above. I think it’s the end credits song. Grew to love all thing Citizen Cope, and never lost my fondness for this one, even though right now I am grooving much more on the track Sideways.
6. The Weepies – Riga Girls
   If this year had only one sound, it was absolutely the sound of The Weepies. In fact, if I extended my top list to 20 songs rather than 15, The Weepies (or one of their various solo components) would have nine of the top spots. The sound, the lyrics, the combination of sound+lyrics—it’s all perfect. This one “Just a little bit of snake-oil, tinfoil. It takes so little charm to keep you hanging on.” has that way of taking words that rightly shouldn’t mean as much as they do, and making them mean something so clearly that it pierces your soul quite painfully. I want to flinch away from that lyric, like it’s slapping me. I listened to this song over and over during the endlessly gray winter of the broken foot, when I couldn’t ever leave the house and no one ever came over.
7. Fall Out Boy – The Take Over, The Breaks Over
   I  have no clue why I listened to this song so much, and am vaguely ashamed of having Fall Out Boy on my top songs list. This was just another song that I listened to a lot on the way to and from work. Mindless, kept me moving forward rather than sideways.
8. Steve Tannen – Just a Little
   This, the boy half of The Weepies, has some amazing solo work, and the fact that I only got this album in July and this song still made the #8 spot says quite a bit about how much I love it. The lyric “300 miles, and I still miss your stupid face.” is the perfect crystallized expression for those people whom no distance can get out of your fucking head. But it’s the last verse that kicks me in the face every time I hear it.

   “You know what? Just forget it
   Name something and I regret it
   The sun sets like surrender
   And I guess I misremember that whole time
   And what your lips felt like on mine
   It was the sweetest fever dream
   You probably don’t know what I mean”
   

9. Maria Taylor – Irish Goodbye
   This woman is half of Azure Ray. Apparently she’s the half who doesn’t write the music that makes me want to open a vein. This song is all bonus because it’s her lovely voice but none of the angst. Beautiful beat and the somewhat incongruous rap sequence toward the end make it even more of a win. (FAIL= everyone on the internets thinking that the lyrics have something to do with “sequins” not being done yet, rather than the actual, sense-making lyrics of “The sequence still isn’t done yet.”)
10. Fischerspooner – Never Win
    God damn, do I love this song. This regular version and the remixed version of it. The lyrics and the brain-numbing beat, the repressed anger, the everything. Just go listen to it. Favorite lyric “I don’t need to need you. Tell me what to do. Tell me what to say.“
11. The Weepies – Take It From MeDon’t know how this one made it on here, it’s far from my favorite Weepies track, although it’s a good one. It’s the first track on the “say I am you” album, so maybe it’s oft-listened only for that reason.
12. The New Pornographers – Challengers
    This song is another one from the Savannah drive this summer, and somehow captures the cold longing for connection of two people getting ready to cheat on their partners — not only with the lyrics, but with the music too. An empty, hollow song. And the lyric (as I hear it, anyway) “Whatever the mess you are, you’re mine, okay?” says a lot of things that make me want to hug someone. No, not you. Fuck off.
13. Teddybears STHLM – Different Sound
    

    A disturbing, de-humanizing album cover.

    Love this song. Every time I listen to it, it makes me feel way cooler than I am. I like to imagine myself as that girl who moves to a different sound. But in a way that  is intriguing, not retarded.

14. Paris, Texas – Bombs Away (Danny Saber remix)
    Another song that makes me feel way cooler than I am, from the Blade Trinity soundtrack. The lyrics are way, way tastier than you’d expect from a garden variety hard-dancing, clubby type of song. And you know I  can’t resist the sound of someone saying “I’ve got a static aesthetic.” over and over.
15. The Weepies – Gotta Have You
    I think this one is left over from last year’s most loved, actually. But it’s worth it. This is the song that first introduced me to The Weepies, and I think it may still be my favorite. It’s another song from the long, lonely winter, and as such it still makes me cry whenever I hear it. And the way that Deb Talan breaks the “no whiskey/no wine” line in the third instance of the chorus is just genius, and I deny you to say otherwise.

There were a few surprises for me this year, namely that no Decemberists’ songs made the top 15 list, although that group remains my top-listened one. I suppose because I have  – oh holy crap – 74 tracks of theirs, and listen to them pretty much equally, no one song can make it to the top. I also thought I listened to The Killers “Read my Mind (Steve Bays Remix)” way more this year, but I guess that must have been last year.

...until you compare it with this one.

I guess the most personally impactful song of the year that didn’t make this list was Laura Veir’s “Cast a Hook in Me” —which at some point this summer I just had to stop listening to because it was too emotional for me. But it’s still amazing and noteworthy.

And that’s what this year sounded like. An eclectic mix of music that’s an accurate reflection of how roller-coastery a year it’s been in my head. For this next year, you must forgive me hoping for all of the highs and none of the lows—and much, much more great music.

Here’s a link to my top 2008 songs playlist – since last.fm won’t let you have any playlist less than 45 songs, it’s much longer than this.