Continuing the chain, the last link being Johnny Yen
List seven songs you’re into right now … no matter what they are. BUT they must be songs you’re presently enjoying.
The New Pornographers – The Bones Of An Idol (from Twin Cinema)
Any song that Neko Case sings in the New Pornographers invariably is their best. When the instruments kick in overdrive after she sings “but something keeps turning us on” it is head-bobbin’ time.
Lou Reed – Halloween Parade (from New York)
This song from his New York album is achingly beautiful, simple and sad, and filled with lots of affection. One of my favorite songs of his, I’d also match it with any songs of the Velvet Underground. It’s that good.
Pylon – This, That (from Chain)
Man, I am digging Pylon. They were contemporaries of R.E.M. way back when in Athens, GA. Not to be confused with some recent band from the UK also calling themselves Pylon. Great guitar, singing, drumming. This just happens to be the Pylon song that is getting the most airplay these days for me.
Donovan – There Is A Mountain (from a Greatest Hits collection)
I heard this song emanating out of the PA speakers in a store called Hobo, which is basically a cheap version of Home Depot. I had never heard it before, but really, really liked it. As soon as I got home I popped some lyrics I was able to make out into a search engine. Minutes later I was grooving out to it. Fantastic song.
The Everly Brothers – Illinois (from Roots)
I really love the Everly Brothers. I immediately went for this song, ’cause I am sucker for all things Illinois. A really pretty song, with nice piano and their great, inimitable voices.
Leonard Cohen – The Captain (from Various Positions)
I love this song, it’s really bouncy. And I love the lyrics, particularly the lines:
“Complain, complain, that’s all you do
Ever since we lost
If it’s not the Crucifixion
Then it’s the Holocaust”
The Magnetic Fields – I Don’t Want To Get Over You (from 69 Love Songs, Vol. 1)
Nice synthy song. Like a lot of Stephin Merritt’s songs, the lyrics are really clever. He drops a nice lyrical bomb at the end.
“Or I could make a career of being blue
I could dress in black and read Camus
Smoke clove cigarettes and drink vermouth
like I was seventeen
that would be a scream
But I don’t want to get over you”
Consider yourself tagged if you haven’t done this yet.
Damn good list!
Neko: Have you seen the photos?
Lou: Don’t you love New York? It may be my favorite of his solo work. I’m going to pull out my copy when I get home and listen over and over and over.
PYLON! You listen to Pylon? I may love you a little bit. Their first record and R.E.M.’s first came out about the same time, and Peter Buck has always said he was bummed because Pylon’s was so much better.
Donovan: Love the trippiness of his songs. Takes me back to my little-kidness of the late 1960s.
Great Everly Brothers tune.
Leonard Cohen? How can you not like him?
Magnetic Fields: I’ve been hung up on them/him since November. can’t get enough.
Thanks for the comments, Beth!
What photos of Neko?
Regarding Pylon, I remember reading Peter Buck’s notes on Dead Letter Office about being depressed when “Crazy” came on the radio.
As Jefferson is wont to say, “A little bit of ‘uh-huh’, and a whole lot of ‘Oh yeah!'”
Why, this list doesn’t seem splotchy at all. Oh, Splotchy. Very nice.
Love Neko & Her Boyfriends a lot.
I played the bejesus out of Lou Reed’s New York when it first came out. I may have to do so again.
My word verification was
“webub”
“Halloween Parade” was in my head all day one day last week! I love that album in general– that song, though, really carries resonance with me. When that album came out (1990), I was working in the restaurant business. There are, to promote a stereotype, a lot of gay men working in that business, and at that point, I was losing a lot of friends (this was before the days of the treatment “cocktails” that have been so effective in managing AIDS). It started to really wear me down– I’d run into someone I’d worked with in the past and they were like “You heard about Reggie, didn’t you?” or “You heard about so and so,” and you’d respond yes or no, and tell them who you’d heard about. It started becoming like being in a war, losing so many people.
One of my favorite memories in my life was seeing Lou on the New York tour with my friend Mark back around when the album came out. When Mark was murdered last year (June 4), and we were helping his family clear out his house, his father told us to grab any personal things that had value to you. One of the things I took was his cd of New York.
Another song from that album I’ve been playing a lot lately is “There Is No Time.”
If you’ve ever seen the miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon,” there’s a scene in which a scientist is trying to teach an astronaut to learn the mountainscape of the moon, with Donovan’s “There is a Mountain” playing in the background. Great scene.
It’s weird how some things just intertwine with your life and really become a part of it. That Lou Reed album is really a part of you on so many levels.
I’ll keep an eye out for the miniseries with the Donovan song. I consider myself pretty knowledgable about music, but it’s always neat to be exposed to something new, and quite weird when it’s via some pop culture thing. I’m still a little embarrassed that I first learned of Nick Drake via a VW commercial, but glad that I got exposed to it nonetheless.