I was sent a Facebook Note asking me to go into my music collection and choose one song for each letter of the alphabet. Here's what I quickly came up with:
And It Stoned Me -- Van Morrison
Brass in Pocket -- The Pretenders
Come Pick Me Up -- Ryan Adams
Don’t Forget About Me -- Dusty Springfield
Everything’s Coming Our Way -- Santana
Flume -- Bon Iver
Gone for Good -- The Shins
Helpless -- Neil Young
I Will Sing You Songs -- My Morning Jacket
Jesus, Etc. -- Wilco
Kokomo -- Bonnie Raitt
Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys -- Traffic
Maine Island Lovers -- Okkervil River
No Reply -- The Beatles
Over Time -- Lucinda Williams
Poison Cup -- M. Ward
Queen Jane Approximately -- Bob Dylan
Rita -- Los Lobos
Song for You (A) -- Whiskeytown
These Days -- Jackson Browne
Undun -- The Guess Who
Vox Humana -- Deerhunter
Whispering Pines -- The Band
X-Ray Eyes -- The Whore Moans
You’ve Got Your Troubles -- The Fortunes
Zombie -- The Cranberries
Except for X and Z (I think my collection had exactly two songs for each letter!), I can say that each of these is a song I love, and, again, except for X and Z, I could come up with another such list of songs I love again and again and again. And maybe I will. In the meantime, I think I'll make them into a playlist.
Friday
Thursday
A New Day
It's a new day, and I come late to the party in many respects. All the music blogs published their Top Ten lists weeks ago; the lists overlapped predictably, with very few surprises among them. That's not a complaint, merely an observation. 2008 was that kind of year. I'm not sure I even have a Top Ten list for 2008, to be honest. It was such a quiet year, musically, a year in which to admire releases rather than nurse one's addiction to them. What's not to love about Fleet Foxes or Vampire Weekend, for example? Admirable, both, yet neither produced a song that got under my skin.
So what did get under my skin in 2008? Bon Iver's Flume, to be sure. It haunted me by never allowing me to possess it wholly. I love a melody or a passage or even a person's face that cannot be memorized, cannot be captured by the mind. The only way to experience it is to return to it again and again. Flume is a song I have returned to again and again, and I have yet to satisfy my interest or exhaust my enjoyment.
Second would be the Constantines' Hard Feelings. What a perfect marriage of fuzzy guitar, driving rock, and Bryan Webb's guttural vocals. Love this band. One of my regrets of the year just passed is that I had tickets to see them at the Troubadour and didn't go. I'd waited two years to see them, too. It's a long story.
Other favored songs, though not necessarily in descending order:
Tyler Ramsey - A Long Dream
The French Kicks - Said So What
Wolf Parade - Call It a Ritual
KaiserCartel - Oh No
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
There are many more songs that I liked, enjoyed, or admired in 2008, but I'm confining my brief list to the ones I more than liked.
So what did get under my skin in 2008? Bon Iver's Flume, to be sure. It haunted me by never allowing me to possess it wholly. I love a melody or a passage or even a person's face that cannot be memorized, cannot be captured by the mind. The only way to experience it is to return to it again and again. Flume is a song I have returned to again and again, and I have yet to satisfy my interest or exhaust my enjoyment.
Second would be the Constantines' Hard Feelings. What a perfect marriage of fuzzy guitar, driving rock, and Bryan Webb's guttural vocals. Love this band. One of my regrets of the year just passed is that I had tickets to see them at the Troubadour and didn't go. I'd waited two years to see them, too. It's a long story.
Other favored songs, though not necessarily in descending order:
Tyler Ramsey - A Long Dream
The French Kicks - Said So What
Wolf Parade - Call It a Ritual
KaiserCartel - Oh No
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
There are many more songs that I liked, enjoyed, or admired in 2008, but I'm confining my brief list to the ones I more than liked.
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