Turn Of The Century Revisited
A few years ago (eight to be exact), long before the advent of music blogs, I put together a website to go along with my annual Christmas card. I guess it was like the online version of a Christmas letter, except that it centered almost entirely around music. As part of it, I put together a soundtrack for the year, which I explained as such...
So why am I revisiting this today? Because I heard two of these songs last night. One, "Why Does It Always Rain On Me," was performed by the acoustic duo that apparently performs every Tuesday at the Flying Saucer after trivia is over. It was actually pretty cool, except that they promptly ruined any goodwill I had towards them by playing John Waite's "Missing You" right after. Bastards. This was actually my favorite song of 2000 by far (Travis I mean, not John Waite). I wrote about that on my Christmas website too, but I'm not going to repost that bit. I went through a bit of a sad bastard phase in 2000, and I'd rather not get into all that crap. It's still a great song though.
Travis - "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?" (mp3) from The Man Who
The other song I heard at Kroger when I stopped to pick up some pop on the way home. I caught quite a bit of shit from my friends for my unabashed love of this song back in the day. It wasn't even a guilty pleasure... I honest to god loved this song. And frankly I still do. I remember getting an email from my friend Joe chastising me for only liking it because it had a reference to Sinatra in the chorus. I replied that I hadn't even realized that the "Like Frankie said I did it my way" line was a reference to Ol' Blue Eyes until he brought it up (probably because "My Way" is without a doubt my least favorite Sinatra song). I'm pretty sure he threatened to never speak to me again after that. I've listened to it about twenty times while writing this, and it's easy to remember why I liked it so much... it fucking rocks. The talk box intro, the anthemic chorus, the key change at the end... it's like aural crack. You know it's probably not good for you, but you can't help yourself.
Bon Jovi - "It's My Life" (mp3) from Crush
Sometime this spring, I sent out an e-mail to some pallies having everyone make a soundtrack for their lives. The rules were pick 12 songs that would serve as a killer soundtrack album, should they ever make the movie of your life. It was so much fun, I thought I'd do one for this year. So here it is, in no particular order, the songs that will be forever etched in my brain as reminders of the turn of the century...
Why Does It Always Rain On Me - Travis
Accelerator - Primal Scream
Time Machines - Lexo and the Leapers
When I Fall In Love - Nat King Cole
We're Going To Miss You - James
Pumping On Your Stereo - Supergrass
To Find What's Waiting For - Sixteen Deluxe
It's My Life - Bon Jovi
In Love With A View - Mojave 3
Drive On To Me - Elliott
Sunshine - Samiam
The Bends - Radiohead
So why am I revisiting this today? Because I heard two of these songs last night. One, "Why Does It Always Rain On Me," was performed by the acoustic duo that apparently performs every Tuesday at the Flying Saucer after trivia is over. It was actually pretty cool, except that they promptly ruined any goodwill I had towards them by playing John Waite's "Missing You" right after. Bastards. This was actually my favorite song of 2000 by far (Travis I mean, not John Waite). I wrote about that on my Christmas website too, but I'm not going to repost that bit. I went through a bit of a sad bastard phase in 2000, and I'd rather not get into all that crap. It's still a great song though.
The other song I heard at Kroger when I stopped to pick up some pop on the way home. I caught quite a bit of shit from my friends for my unabashed love of this song back in the day. It wasn't even a guilty pleasure... I honest to god loved this song. And frankly I still do. I remember getting an email from my friend Joe chastising me for only liking it because it had a reference to Sinatra in the chorus. I replied that I hadn't even realized that the "Like Frankie said I did it my way" line was a reference to Ol' Blue Eyes until he brought it up (probably because "My Way" is without a doubt my least favorite Sinatra song). I'm pretty sure he threatened to never speak to me again after that. I've listened to it about twenty times while writing this, and it's easy to remember why I liked it so much... it fucking rocks. The talk box intro, the anthemic chorus, the key change at the end... it's like aural crack. You know it's probably not good for you, but you can't help yourself.
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Song Of The Day
This song has been stuck in my head since about 9:15 this morning, for reasons that will go mostly unmentioned, except to say that a reading of the lyrics would be fairly literal. Unfortunately I didn't have this album loaded on my ipod (that has now been corrected), so I could only hear it in my head until about fifteen minutes ago.
The Stone Roses - "She Bangs The Drums" (mp3) from The Stone Roses
This is the most awesome song on one of the greatest debut albums ever. About a year ago I was searching around youtube, and stumbled on videos of both John Squire and Ian Brown performing it on recent solo tours. They're both... well, terrible. How did two tuneless wonders create one of the most perfect pop singles ever? Were Reni's backing vocals that important?
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The Voice
Ten years ago I was woken up in the middle of the night by the phone ringing. I rolled over, looked at the clock, and silently cussed out whatever idiot was calling a wrong number at three in the morning. I wasn't in the practice of answering at that hour of the day, and I wasn't about to start. A minute later the phone rang again. This time my cussing wasn't so silent, but I still didn't answer. It took two more calls before I finally decided that maybe it wasn't a wrong number, and I stumbled downstairs to find out what was so important that it necessitated calling when most rational people were sleeping. It was my best friend calling from the west coast to tell me that Frank Sinatra had died two hours prior. He figured I'd rather hear it from someone I know than be caught off guard finding out at work that morning. I thanked him for calling, hung up the phone, and as weird as it sounds, I cried.
I've been obsessed with music since I was old enough to walk. I started making weekly trips to the local record store to buy 45s when I was eight. I probably owned more albums by the end of high school than most adults own at age 40. Of all the artists in all the genres that I've been a huge fan of in my life, I've never connected with anyone's music the way I connected with Francis Albert Sinatra. I'm definitely not an overly emotional person. It takes a lot to get me to tear up. But Frank's death really did feel like losing a friend.
I've often wondered if I'd have become such a huge Sinatra fan if the timing had been different. As I've mentioned before, the first thing of his I owned was a Christmas album. After listening to that for a year or two, I decided in 1994 that I dug it so much that I'd pick up a couple of the other albums he did with arranger Gordon Jenkins. Those ended up being No One Cares and Where Are You, two albums of torch songs recording during his golden age in 1950s. At the time I was recovering from a fairly devastating breakup, and hearing these albums was either just what the doctor ordered, or the worst thing that could have happened at the time. Inspired by Sinatra's doomed relationship with Ava Gardner, the songs were chalk full of heartbreak and despair. Finding solace in those, I moved onto harder stuff... the "suicide songs" of Only The Lonely. Frank Sinatra Jr. once described that album as being so bleak and emotionally draining that it should be sold by prescription only. It's an apt description. After a couple of months of wallowing in self pity, I decided it was time to cheer up, so I broke from the ballads and bought Come Dance With Me, an album upbeat swing under the baton of Billy May. From that point on I was hooked. Every time Tower Records had a catalog sale, I picked a couple more Sinatra CDs. Within five years, I owned every album Sinatra had ever commercially released. And considering the guy's career stretched over seven decades, that's a lot of CDs (I quit counting several years ago after I passed 250).
What made me love the guy so much? He had a lot of nicknames over the years. Ol' Blue Eyes. The Chairman of the Board. Dago Wop. But I think the one that describes him the best was the one he had first... The Voice. The guy had a way with words like no other singer in recorded history. Most of my favorite artists are songwriters as well as singers. Sinatra only had a handful of songwriting credits in his career, and his actual contributions to those songs is debatable. But his performances could get to the essence of song like no one else. Somebody else may have written most of his material, but I wouldn't even say he made the songs his own. They were his songs. He lived them. From the moment the words fell out of his mouth, he owned them.
So here are my second and third favorite Sinatra songs of all time (the number one spot is occupied by a Christmas song). In both of these cases, I think it's one specific moment in the song that makes me love it so much. For the downer, it's the last line, which even after hearing it roughly a thousand times still sends shivers down my spine. For the upbeat one, it's the pause before the first chorus. There's just something about that break that makes me smile every time.
Frank Sinatra - "Angel Eyes" (mp3) from Only The Lonely
Frank Sinatra - "Let's Fall In Love" (mp3) from Ring-A-Ding-Ding!
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Blue Is The Color Of Hope
Several of my friends have those playlist.com players on their myspace profiles. Most of the time, they (the players, not the friends) bug the shit out of me, because I'm usually listening to music of my own choosing when I check out their page, and I have to immediately track down the player and stop it so I'm not hearing two songs at once. I honestly believe that webpages that automatically play music when you visit them ought to be illegal.
Tonite however was one of the very rare occasions when I enjoyed a myspace playlist. My friend Shannon has one on his profile dedicated to songs with "Blue Sky" in the title. I get the feeling that the song selection was kind of random, but it really makes for a great half hour of listening. You can hear it for yourself here. Then when you're done with that, you can listen to my favorite song that fits Shannon's theme...
Patty Griffin - "Blue Sky" (mp3) from Flaming Red
Oddly enough, I almost posted this song a couple of days ago, but I got distracted and didn't. But I will add the one thought I'd definitely have put in that post... the line "Be my singing lesson, be my song" is one of my favorite lyrics ever.
And if you really want to appreciate a truly gorgeous blue sky, you need to go to Montana. The most beautiful sky you've ever seen doesn't compare to the Big Sky state on a sunny day. Seriously.
photo by caselee
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My Favorite Love Song
I think I've only had three Valentine's Day dates in my life. One went down as the absolute worst date I've ever had. One was more memorable for what didn't happen than what did. And the final one (which was actually the first, this list runs in reverse chronological order), I remember absolutely nothing about. I'm sure it was very nice, it just wasn't at all memorable. So I don't have a lot of warm, fuzzy memories of the holiday to give me fond feelings for it. But I'm certainly not bitter about it, like a LOT of people are. I really don't understand the hatred some people have for today. If you don't have someone, don't celebrate. It seems pretty easy to me. I don't see how a few Hallmark commercials are a reason to be pissed off at the world... unless you're already inclined towards feeling that way.
About a year and a half ago, I decided that this was my favorite love song. It's certainly not traditional, and if you're listening to it for the first time, you might be thinking "Darrin, you're kinda weird." But listen to the lyrics... there is a real sweetness to them. What initially might seem like neediness is really just the way most of us feel in the beginning of a relationship, when feelings just start to surface, and the uncertainty makes everything a bit more intense.
The Wedding Present - "Suck" (mp3)from Seamonsters
My second favorite love song? Quite possibly this...
Cinerama - "Your Charms" (mp3) from Disco Volante
Tomorrow
James is one of those bands that I didn't really like the first time I heard them, but came to love later. At first I think it was the trumpet that kept me from embracing them, which I really can't rationalize. For a while I just had this bizarre prejudice against horn players in rock bands who weren't named Bobby Keys or Clarence Clemons. There was also the fact that Tim Booth was a little too dramatic for my tastes. I'm not sure whether he eventually toned it down, or I became more tolerant of that kind of thing, but it's something I got over. Most people jumped on the James bandwagon when Laid came out, but it took me a few more years, and the release of Whiplash before I got how great a band they are. "She's A Star" was the gateway drug that got me in the door, but the song that really hooked me was "Tomorrow." I've always loved songs that are basically one chord progression that builds into a crescendo, partly because I realize how hard it is to pull off well. Everytime I've tried to follow that pattern in writing a song, the result has either been really boring, or just really terrible (and most often some combination of the two). It's also a good example of my belief that it only takes one great line to make a great song. For most of this song, the words are pretty average, but the first couplet of the chorus is one of my all time favorite lyrics.
James - "Tomorrow" (mp3) from Whiplash
photo "borrowed" from james.wattyco.com
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Just Like Anyone
While scrounging around my collection of CD singles looking for a song that I ultimately decided not to post, I stumbled across the single of "Just Like Anyone," one of only two Soul Asylum songs I like (the other one is "Can't Even Tell" from the Clerks soundtrack). As big as I am on lyrics, it's a testament to how much I love the music of this song that it's one of my favorites, because the words kinda... well, suck. I'm pretty sure I can trace the end of my celebrity crush on Winona Ryder to the moment she started dating Dave Pirner. I mean, seriously, listen to the second chorus. The lyrics are abysmal. And yet it's still catchy as hell.
Soul Asylum - "Just Like Anyone" (mp3) from Let Your Dim Light Shine
Soul Asylum - "Just Like Anyone" (mp3) from Let Your Dim Light Shine
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Providence
For a while now, I've been meaning to start a series where I post about my all time favorite songs. And since I've mentioned this song twice in the last week, I figure it was a good one to start with.
Jack Frost was a side project formed by Grant McLennan of The Go-Betweens and Steve Kilbey from The Church. There are several great songs on their debut album, but "Providence" is hands down my favorite. The last verse is one of the most heartbreaking lyrics I've ever heard... it literally gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. I don't think I've ever heard a song that more perfectly captures that melancholy feeling of looking back on a once treasured relationship.
I've seen it played live twice now. The Church did it every night on last year's tour as a tribute to McLennan (he died in his sleep that May), and when I saw them in Atlanta it practically brought me to tears. Last week Matthew Ryan covered it during his set at Next Big Nashville, and even hearing someone else sing it, it still made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Jack Frost - "Providence" (mp3) from Jack Frost
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