Willis Earl Beal’s Circular Victory

Turn.  Circle.  Sun.  Moon.

These are the four words that comprise the title of the latest collection of songs by Willis Earl Beal.  The title is not only succinct–it also could not be more apt.

(the album doesn’t have a physical release yet but can be purchased for download at this link.)

All four of the words imply a kind of motion, an orbital, cyclical, or circuital movement (in the case of sun and moon, these motions are dependent on the motions of others).  Beal–who professionally wishes you’d call him Nobody–doesn’t choose words (or melodies, or masks) carelessly.

Sonically, these songs–like much of his recent material–consist of rising and falling keyboard dirges that weave in and out of prominence, often cycling back to where they started, but just as often running like a steady current behind Beal’s  plaintive vocals.  Within the framework of this wide-open musical canvas, Beal still manages to find unexpected nooks and crannies to place his vocal rhythms–he’s suddenly jumping out at you from a corner you didn’t even see–or he’s hiding in it.  Add to this a production value of lo-fi immediacy (I often felt like I could hear him change positions in a chair) and the cumulative effect is one of urgency, despite the modest tempo of the tunes, each song still manages to make you feel as though you are in the grip of strong stuff that is racing to an end.

But to “review” this album in any typical way would be like trying to review a cloud, or dirt.  That statement sounds preposterous, I know, but there it is, just the same.  As he continues to evolve as a songwriter and musician, Beal keeps mining material that gets closer and closer to the elemental; this is art like wind, or the subliminal functioning of a gland.  One feels these songs pass through you like quarks.

Beal has often layered the vocals one on top of another, giving the impression that they rotate around one another (like, for instance, the moon around the Earth and the Earth around the Sun); it’s like Beal orbiting Beal, at first the words just one more sonic tool, one more instrument, but eventually the words start to coagulate and meaning attaches to the dirge.

They are songs of loneliness, and love, and helplessness, and yearning.  From the opening song “Stroll”, where we are taken on a midnight constitutional with our narrator contemplating the greater meanings of the universe, to the closing number “Sun & Moon” with it’s sad binary truth (“I am night/ And you are day”), I felt connected to every song; ultimately, they are deeply human.  We experience the resignation to hopelessness, but also perfect hope (again in “Sun & Moon”: ‘But I will see you tomorrow”).  As we continue orbiting and turning, we experience the push and pull of our contrary desires: to be alone, but to be loved.  To be anonymous, but to be great.  When I invested myself in these songs, I felt understood, but also complex.

In “Cowboy”, we are presented with lyrics so brazen, bold, and current as to warrant presenting some without comment: “Passing places through the mall/ Empty faces filling all/ Hear the laughter off the walls/ Birthday presents for you all/ Know resistance while you can/ Avoid incessant clapping hands/ Put your face in garbage cans/ Take the trash do what you can/Recycle all your wasted shit/ There are people trying to quit/ (You’re a cowwwwwwwwboy/Roping all your bulls.)”

In “Release” we are presented with the lyric “You must let go of all the linear victories”, which is a boy-howdy of a line; you could chew on that line for days.  What is a linear victory?  How do we let go of it?  Like the best art, the songs offer some answers, but not all of them.  However, who knows? If you let these quark-songs flow through you enough, maybe the answers will find you.

The art of Willis Earl Beal–Nobody–has been an undercurrent in my life for years now, and this album more than any others before is like a chameleon, a changeling.  As I listen to it it darts away into my peripheral vision and changes shape, form.  It’s hard to hold onto.

Currently, “Turn, Circle, Sun & Moon” does not have a physical release, but can be purchased for download by clicking this link.  If you buy it, it will almost certainly be a linear victory for you–but at the moment, that’s still the only kind I know how to get.

Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes
by Sun Kil Moon

Richard Ramirez died today of natural causes. He got amped up on speed and broke into houses, bludgeoned people to death, wrote shit on their skin and left them. They finally got him and he went to San Quentin. His last murder was south of San Francisco. A guy named Peter Pan, from the town of San Mateo. The little girl in the tenderloin was his first, and in the laundry room he took a dollar from her fist. His last free days were at the Bristol Hotel. I was reading “Nightstalker” when I went and rang the bell. The doorman buzzed, said, “You’re just like them all.” He gave me a key and a black cat led me down the hall. I had a flight today from Boston to Cleveland. Got a death in the family, gotta do some grieving. Lost my baby cousin and it’s eating me up. And I’m achin’ real bad and I need a little love. Richard Ramirez died today of natural causes. These things mark time and make us pause and think about when we were kids, scared of taps on the window, what’s under the bed and what’s under the pillow. And the Jim Jones massacre got in our heads and the TV headlines, “Elvis Presley’s Dead”, and the Ayatollah Khomenei hostages and Ronald Reagan dodging bullets. One day I’m gonna stroll through the old neighborhood. Rick Stan’s my age, he still lives with his mom when he’s not in jail from menacing and stalking, writing bad checks and cocaine charges. Mark Denton had such a beautiful smile, always sat on the porch passing the time, and drinking a beer and smoking a pack until one day poor Mark had a heart attack. My friend Ben’s got a good job as an electrician, his sister married the pool shark Jim Evans. And my next door neighbors whom I love so, and they love me too, but they passed long ago. And if you walk just a few blocks down Stahl there’s a house that was the scariest of them all, a cute little palm with a sign “For Sale”. For those Sexton’s kids, life was Hell, and I’m telling the truth and if you don’t believe it, pick up Lowell Cauffiel’s “House of Secrets”. Had to fly from Cleveland to SFO. I got 3 months off until my next show. Gonna spend time with my girl, make a record this summer, fix my kitchen up and hire a plumber. The headlines change so rapidly. Today I came to the studio to work on something pretty, then I saw the news on James Gandolfini while I was eating ramen and drinking green tea. The “Sopranos” guy died at 51. That’s the same age as the guy who’s coming to play drums. I don’t like this getting older stuff, havin’ to pee 50 times a day is bad enough. I got a naggin’ prostate and I got a bad back, and when I fuck too much I feel like I’m gonna have a heart attack. I woke up today, I saw the headlines, an airline crashed and 2 people died, and I’m at a barbecue in San Rafael, and everybody’s drunk and feelin’ pretty well. At 53 years Richard Ramirez died but in ‘83 he was very much alive. He was the scariest killer in the band. He had a pentagram in the center of his hand. And everybody remembers the paranoia when he stalked the suburbs of Southern California and everybody will remember where they were when they finally caught the Night Stalker. And I remember just where I was when Richard Ramirez died of natural causes.

 

Days of Something

Philadelphia is a great city, but there’s nothing special about it in the winter. It becomes winter just like every place else becomes the winter: slowly, and then all at once. My first winter in the city was also the first winter I’d spent anywhere without a car. During the summer I had learned to get around by riding my bike and walking, and was just getting pretty good at it when the gradual winter hit all of a sudden. It was cold and it was windy, but didn’t snow for the first few months, and then one day, a day that I also happened to have off work, the sky opened up and dumped down about eight inches. It was a very different experience than my previous winters elsewhere, where you might go outside and walk around, do some shoveling, maybe go see a few of the local landmarks covered in the fluffy cliches. In a densely packed urban area that stretches out for miles and miles in any direction, and where local landmarks are a dime a dozen but breathtaking beauty might be a little scarce, I wasn’t sure exactly what to do with myself, other than sit on my couch and watch Netflix. Eventually I decided to just bundle up, put on some heavy shoes (since I never really am in the habit of keeping boots around) and venture out into the snow and see what happened. I started walking through the streets of my South Philly neighborhood, unplowed, unshoveled, the houses squished up against each other like sandwich bread, snow building up in the trashy pedestrian alleys between them, choking the tops of open the trash cans, pawprints sometimes the only sign anyone had been down a sidewalk.  And I kept walking and walking, taking note how it was different than my previous experience, and also ways in which it was similar, compare and contrast, compare and contrast, that is essentially how I Live every moment of my life. One experience must always be similar or different from previous ones; otherwise, how do you measure anything?  Eventually the neighborhood started to change as I kept walking, buildings got farther apart, the roads got wider, the streets were starting to be plowed, cars started moving around, the city seemed to wake up. I started passing people on the street and there was an air of conviviality, of shared experience. Everyone was saying hello, commenting on the snow, and it wasn’t just what people were saying, but the attitude, the feeling, like we were all finally together, not that we were undergoing any major hardship, but just that the presence of something so different, something so sudden, almost held us together like a web. Connection.  Eventually I realized I was closer to Independence Mall, which is the cluster of extremely significant historical sites in the city, than I was to home, so I just kept on walking. I arrived behind Independence Hall probably an hour and a half after leaving my house, still trudging through almost a foot of snow, surprised to see that there were a few people milling around, but only a few, much less than the hundreds and hundreds that crammed into this park in the summer months. I circled the building, taking note of what the roof looked like covered in snow, imagining it would have looked the same to George Washington or Thomas Jefferson when it snowed in the late 1700s. I crossed Chestnut Street, which is directly in front of Independence Hall, my feet not quite hitting the cobblestones, but still feeling the unevenness of the walk, as the snow impacted into the cracks around the cobblestones, as it surely has done to other foot travelers for centuries. I trudged across the open space in front of Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell to my left, taking note that it was still open, the Park Service still there and operating, but I didn’t see a soul in line to see the famed bell. I kept on going, heading towards the visitor center, with its bright glass interiors, newly built restrooms, shiny gift shop and concession stand. I often used to stop at the visitor center in the summer, as I was riding my bike around the city, for its quick and easy access to a restroom and bottled water.  As I swung open the heavy glass and stainless steel doors, it was clear to me that everyone inside the visitor center was surprised to see me, not because of anything about me, but simply because I was a human being. I was literally the only non-employee in this entire visitor center. It’s amazing what snow does to history tourism. Despite the fact that it was winter and snowing, I was sweating greatly, and was glad of the opportunity to take my coat off, breathe a little bit, stomp the snow out of every crease and crevice. I was thirsty and hungry, as I didn’t leave the house with the intention to walk halfway across the city, so I went straight to the concession stand, got me a bottle of water, a hot coffee, and some sort of breakfast sandwich.  I sat alone in the bright, metal cafeteria, my belly growing content as I fed it.  I took note that outside, it had begun snowing again, and heavier this time.  It was quiet in the visitor center.  I was far from home.

**********************************************************************

This day started very early. I woke up around 4am not knowing what I was going to do with the day, but knowing that I wanted to wake up early enough to have a really thorough day, if you know what I mean. I was living by myself in Erie Pennsylvania, in an apartment, one bedroom, on the second level of an old house that was nearing dilapidation, but still teetering on the edge of respectability. It was smack-dab in the middle of summer, and waking up at 4am, the whole apartment was already laden with a heat, an oppressive second floor apartment kind of heat; a thin layer of sweat somehow on everything you looked at. I rolled out of bed, made myself a latte on my proudly-acquired home espresso machine, and set about pondering what to do with such a lengthy, summery kind of day all to myself.  I took a long, overly hot shower while the local morning news played on the television which I had crammed into my tiny bathroom. I stayed in the shower for the whole newscast, mind mostly blank. After the shower, while air drying mostly to cool off, I randomly selected a DVD from my bloated collection, and came up with “The 40 Year Old Virgin”, a movie that I don’t know how it ended up in my collection and no longer resides there, but at the time, a mindless comedy seemed just the ticket. I laid on my couch and let the Steve Carell comedy wash over me. Having gotten up so early that an immense amount of day still laid stretched out before me, even after my lengthy ablutions. What to do? Living by one’s self for so long, and so far from everyone you know, turns days and mornings into quiet studies of one’s inner mechanics, and if you linger too long without plans, your cogs and belts begin to make a lot of noise. Suddenly it hit me: Niagara Falls. I’d been living relatively close to Niagara Falls for almost a year at this point, and it was always something bouncing around the periphery of what I wanted to do, but I never quite made it there, never quite made that my actual plan. Almost the moment that it struck me, I bounded off the couch, went to my computer to MapQuest the directions, threw on some clothes and some essentials into a backpack, and I was out the door.  I don’t remember much about the drive, although certainly there had to be a drive. It was close but not incredibly close, probably something like an hour and 15 minutes. A decent trip, but then again, much closer than almost anyone else in the world lives to such landmark. I remember having trouble figuring out where to park when I got close to it, the town itself surrounding it not exactly being incredibly helpful with instructions.  Finally I did get my car parked, and walked across a large grassy mall, the sound of the falls quite distinct, just like you expect the sound of Niagara Falls to be: thunderous, droning, like a white noise that comes from within.  I remember hearing the falls, I remember a large grassy area you had to walk across to get to it, but I don’t remember actually arriving at the falls.  In fact, the order of what I did that day and the specifics of how I did it, are lost in the labyrinth of my brain. I did the touristy things, I rode the boat, I walked up and down the path alongside the falls, I wore the poncho they provide you. I took selfies on the boat, all by myself, surrounded by revelers and families and church groups. After doing the requisite attractions, I found myself walking around the grounds, reading the historical markers, interpreting the interpretive maps. I noticed that there was a small landmass called Goat Island, out of the middle of the river, one of the features that gives the Falls that look, where it is divided occasionally, not one big solid Falls. It was accessible quite easily via a pedestrian bridge across the river, so I went out there, reading the Wikipedia entry on my phone as I went, the long and somewhat interesting history of the island, its ownership and various names. I arrived on the island to find a sweltering patch of grass, the heat dense with liquid, the roar of the falls now like a white noise outside myself, like a curtain descending. The island itself was no larger than a small park, and trees lined the northern edge, so that one couldn’t actually see the land fall away at the end.  I had the island entirely to myself. Of course the only thing to do on an island like that is to walk toward the edge. Walking through the grass I was assaulted by bugs everywhere, insects nipping at my legs, bouncing off my knees like miniature Kamikazes. The closer and closer I got to the river, the more amazed I was that there were no protections of any kind in place. One expects to find some sort of railing here, some warning signs, maybe even Park Rangers or something. But no, the island just walks right up to the river, and right up to the falls, anyone with dark designs would be in no way dissuaded.  The design of the island makes it

A photo I took from Goat Island that day.

challenging to walk right up to the falls, but instead it is very easy to sit at a clearing about twenty yards away from the actual precipice. I took my backpack off and sat in the grass, and looked out across the Niagara River, just beginning to get a real good head of steam up, just beginning to get its little whitecaps and wavelets, the water not knowing it was about to fly.  The heat washed over me, the insect buzzing began to mesh with the white noise of the falls, it all became a hot buzzing constant, I laid my head on the grass and sunk in, sunk down into the dirt, I was so far from home, and for a moment, I had no idea where I was, or maybe even who I was.

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“Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for something or someone to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run. You missed the starting gun!”

‘Time’, by Pink Floyd

We’re the Sexiest of All Primates!

Like many people, I have many favorite bands that come into and out of prominence over time.  I’m not shy about blasting my opinions about these bands online, so many of you are probably at least slightly tuned into my current obsessions. There are some bands that have what I would call themes; they don’t just write songs, but their entire body of work represents a specific worldview or thought process; others bands just sort of write songs.  I like plenty of both kinds of bands.  For instance, I love My Morning Jacket, and while I could say quite a bit about their musical themes, I’d be hard pressed to make a statement about what the whole of their songs say about a specific worldview.

 

My favorite band, Hey Rosetta!, has a very distinct worldview that is expressed in nearly every song: they believe in the lifting-up of humanity–of rising above our base and dreadful selves into a state of grace, be it secular or otherwise.  I believe in this worldview and embrace it.  I’m an unashamed atheist and I don’t think this concept is anathema to atheism; joy, redemption, and existential victory are just as (if not more) possible secularly as they are with religion.  As such, the content of the songs of Hey Rosetta! speak to me greatly.

 

However, there is a flip side, and that side is Modest Mouse.  Modest Mouse also has a worldview, and I believe in theirs, too, despite how different it is from Hey Rosetta!’s.  Modest Mouse’s worldview is that the world is a painful, pointless collection of atoms; we spring into existence and consciousness by accident and then after a short time, we stop existing.  Their music explores what it’s like to be trying to make sense of the damned mess during the brief period that your carbon gains awareness.  I find this worldview to be unassailably true; however, when coupled with Hey Rosetta’s philosophy, it meshes into my own cohesive idea of the world: we’ve sprung from nothing and we end up as nothing, but it can be beautiful and inspiring while you’re here.

 

Modest Mouse (which nowadays really just means Isaac Brock, the main lyricist and songwriter) have just released an album that I think could not possibly better encapsulate their theme.  The album, Strangers to Ourselves, digs deep into not just the whole “everything is pointless” concept but examines more closely American problems like urban sprawl, screen addiction, gun control, anhedonia, climate change;  the things that serve to separate us from our experiences, rob us of our individuality, and kill us early–in a universe where there are no second chances. The music on the album is completely immersive: huge, sweeping, danceable yet dirty, like Death come to visit for a playdate, or like a syphilitic disco ball.

 

But the real accomplishment here are the words. Isaac Brock has always written wholly unique lyrics; only a man with such a sideways twist on conventional rock lyrics could successfully tackle the topics he has (I hesitate to say he is the best current rock lyricist; I don’t know who is but their name probably rhymes with Gibbard).  But on Strangers to Ourselves, Brock’s goal has finally become crystalline, his thesis fully formed.  This album is his doctoral dissertation.  And like any great work of art, it is so bold and cunning that the flashes of brilliance are accompanied by other moments that seem daft or even silly.  This is the nature of a rock and roll record that aims, ultimately, to tell us big truths about the entire universe. Here now, a selection of some of my favorite (or more interesting) lyrics from Modest Mouse’s Strangers to Ourselves:

 

“Well the Earth doesn’t care, and we hardly even matter–we’re just a bit more piss to push out its full bladder.  And as our bodies break down into all their rocky little bits, piled up under mountains of dirt and silt: still the world, it don’t give a shit!”

 

“How lucky we are, that we are so easy to forget.”

 

“Well fear makes us really, really run around.”

 

“Pack up again, head to the next place, where we’ll make the same mistakes.  Burn it up or just chop it down; this one’s done, so where to now?”

 

“The world’s an inventor and we’re the dirtiest thing it’s thought about, and we really don’t mind.”

 

“This rock of ours is just some big mistake and we will never know just where we go or where we have came from.  These veins of mine are now some sort of fuse and when they light up and my mind blows up my heart is amused.  So this heart of mine is just some sort of map that doesn’t care at all or worry about where the hell you’re at, but you’re right there.”

 

“We don’t belong here, we were just born here.”

 

“We get dressed as ghosts with sheets taken from the bed, inside our socks we hide Traveler’s Checks, we are tourists of the dead.  So let’s pack up, let’s go!”

 

“Pack a lunch, wander ’round, toss the map on the ground, it is inaccurate anyway.  We’ve been getting away (we’ve been getting away), we are strangers to ourselves.  We sneak out, drip-by-drip, through papercuts on our hands.  Day by day, nothing’s quite the same, we are tourists in our own heads.”

 

“These Western concerns: hold my place in line while I take your turn.”

 

“We all led the charge, till we ran aground in our party barge, and every little gift was just one more part of their grift.  Oh yeah we know it.  The best news that we got was just some dumb hokum we’d all bought.  Let’s go reckless feeling great, we’re the sexist of all primates, let’s let loose with our charms, shake our ass and wave our arms, all going apeshit!”

Winter Songs, #4

Not only does “White Winter Hymnal” by Fleet Foxes remind me of winter, it is about winter; or at the very least, it involves a memory that takes place in winter.

I listened to this song, and the album it is on, very frequently during the first winter I spent in Erie (a very unique time for me, here are lots of entries about it).  This song will always evoke, in my mind, the images, smells, and feel of driving the pot-hole filled Erie streets in the dead of winter, with ice and snow filling my wheel wells, and a particular afternoon where I drove to a cemetery which sidles a bluff overlooking Lake Erie, and while this song played in the background, I looked out over the vast, frozen lake, and felt sorrow as well as joy.

The song’s simple lyrics go thusly:

“I was following the pack
all swallowed in their coats
with scarves of red tied round their throats
to keep their little heads
from falling in the snow,
and I turned round and there you go!
And, Michael, you would fall,
and turn the white snow red as
strawberries in the summertime.”

 

Winter Songs #1

As winter nears, I being to again turn to the songs that I most associate with this most dreadful of seasons.  We all have different ways we experience music, and our own unique ways we have them tied to specific sensory sensations or memories from our own pasts.  Many of “my winter songs” have little to do with winter; I was just listening to them heavily during winters, or maybe even just once during a very winter-specific moment.  Of course, the same goes for “summer songs”, etc.  Over the next few weeks I’m going to post a few of the more prominent of my own winter songs; usually without personal commentary, but sometimes with.  In the process, I’d love to hear about some of your own “winter songs”!

This first one is one I listened to a lot during a winter, but is also thematically about winter.  “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” by Arcade Fire is an almost wholly unique song in the rock world, at least lyrically.  It tells the story of two kids (who are next door neighbors) whose town is subjected to an enormous, almost apocalyptic snow storm.  They dig a tunnel from one bedroom to the other, and then escape to the surface (supposedly their houses are actually buried) and they begin a life by themselves in this new winter world, eventually almost forgetting the details of their past, and their “skin gets thicker/ from living out in the snow”.  Using very few words, lyricist Win Butler has crafted a song with layers of intense meaning and emotion that I can only begin to write about in this space.  Interspersed with this tale is the love story of these two kids…and perhaps your love story, with the person you love.  Perhaps YOU are the couple living alone in the barren white world.  For my money, you don’t get a more romantic line than

“You change all the lead
sleepin’ in my head to gold.
As the day grows dim
I hear you sing a golden hymn:
the song I’ve been trying to sing!”

If you watch the video below and really like the song, there is a BADASS live version if you click  here.

 

 

 

And if the snow buries my neighborhood,
and if my parents are crying
then I’ll dig a tunnel from my window to yours.
Yeah, a tunnel from my window to yours.

You climb out the chimney
and meet me in the middle of the town,
and since there’s no one else around
we let our hair grow long and forget all we used to know.
Then our skin gets thicker from living out in the snow!

You change all the lead
sleepin’ in my head.
As the day grows dim
I hear you sing a golden hymn.

Then we tried to name our babies
but we forgot all the names that,
the names we used to know.
But sometimes we remember our bedrooms
and our parent’s bedrooms and the bedrooms of our friends.
Then we think of our parents.
Well, what ever happened to them?

You change all the lead
sleepin’ in my head to gold.
As the day grows dim
I hear you sing a golden hymn:
the song I’ve been trying to sing!

Purify colors. Purify my mind.
Purify colors. Purify my mind.
Spread the ashes of the colors
in this heart of mine.

 

 

My 10th Favorite Song of All-Time

First, let’s recap everything that has come before:

100.  “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something
99.  “Jack & Diane” by John Mellencamp
98.  “Hotel California” by The Eagles
97.  “American Pie” by Don McLean
96.  “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” by Michael Jackson
95.  “Nuthin’ but a G Thang” by Dr. Dre
94.  “Bushwick Blues” by Delta Spirit
93.  “For the Workforce, Drowning” by Thursday
92.  “Fish Heads” by Barnes and Barnes
91.  “Shimmer” by Fuel
90.  “Rubber Biscuit” by the Blues Brothers
89.  “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals
88.  “Asleep at the Wheel” by Working For a Nuclear-Free City
87.  “There’s an Arc” by Hey Rosetta!
86.  “Steam Engine” by My Morning Jacket
85.  “Scenario” by A Tribe Called Quest
84.  “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane
83.  “Fits” by Stone Gossard
82.  “Spring Flight to the Land of Fire” by The Cape May
81. “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” by The Postal Service
80.  “Sober” by Tool
79.  “Dream is Collapsing” by Hans Zimmer
78.  “Why Don’t We Do it in the Road?” by The Beatles
77.  “In This Light and on This Evening” by Editors
76.  “Lemonworld” by The National
75.  “Twin Peaks Theme” by Angelo Badalamente
74.  “A Comet Appears” by The Sins
73.  “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” by The Decemberists
72.  “Pepper” by Butthole Surfers
71.  “Life Wasted” by Pearl Jam
70.  “Jetstream” by Doves
69.  “Trieste” by Gifts From Enola
68.  “Oh My God” by Kaiser Chiefs
67.  “The Righteous Path” by Drive-By Truckers
66.  “Innocence” by The Airborne Toxic Event
65.  “There, There” by Radiohead
64.  “Ants Marching” by Dave Matthews Band
63.  “Symphony 1: In the Barrel of a Gun” by Emily Wells
62.  “The Best of What’s Around” by Dave Matthews Band
61.  “Old Man” by Neil Young
60.  “Cumbersome” by Seven Mary Three
59.  “Knocked Up” by Kings of Leon
58.  “Machine Head” by Bush
57.  “Peaches” by Presidents of the United States of America
56.  “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones
55.  “Fell on Black Days” by Soundgarden
54.  “The New Year” by Death Cab for Cutie
53.  “Call Me Al” by Paul Simon
52.  “Real Muthaphuckin’ Gs” by Eazy E
51..  “Evening Kitchen” by Band of Horses
50.  “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand” by Primitive Radio Gods
49.  “Top Drawer” by Man Man
48.  “Locomotive Breath” by Jethro Tull
47.  “We Used to Vacation” by Cold War Kids
46.  “Easy Money” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
45.  “Two-fifty” by Chris Walla
44.  “I’ve Got a Feeling” by The Beatles
43.  “Another Pilot” by Hey Rosetta!
42.  “Revelate” by The Frames
41.  “Wise Up” by Aimee Mann
40.  “Sample in a Jar” by Phish
39.  “Spitting Venom” by Modest Mouse
38.  “Sometimes I Rhyme Slow” by Nice & Smooth
37.  “I Shall Be Released” by The Band
36.  “When I Fall” by Barenaked Ladies
35.  “East Hastings” by Godspeed You! Black Emperor
34.  “Terrible Love” by The National
33.  “Jolene” by Dolly Parton
32.  “Sometime Around Midnight” by The Airborne Toxic Event
31.  “This Train Revised” by Indigo Girls
30.  “Mad World” by Gary Jules
29.  “White Winter Hymnal” by Fleet Foxes
28.  “Once in a Lifetime” by The Talking Heads
27.  “Growing Old is Getting Old” by Silversun Pickups
26.  “Brian and Robert” by Phish
25.  “Is There a Ghost?” by Band of Horses
24.  “Be Safe” by The Cribs
23.  “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Judy Garland
22.  “Ashes in the Fall” by Rage Against the Machine
21.  “We Laugh Indoors” by Death Cab For Cutie
20.  “Dondante” by My Morning Jacket

19.  “We Used to Wait” by Arcade Fire

18.  “Oceans of Envy” by Seven Mary Three

17.  “This is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan

16.  “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman

15.  “What a Good Boy” by Barenaked Ladies

14.  “Styrofoam Plates” by Death Cab For Cutie

13.  “Hard to Imagine” by Pearl Jam

12.  “Everything In Its Right Place” by Radiohead

11.  “A Day in the Life” by The Beatles

…and my tenth favorite song of all-time is:

“Rattlesnake” by LIVE

I have written extensively already here on this blog about the song “Rattlesnake”.  I talk about it a lot in this blog entry about why you should love LIVE, and then I posted a lot of pictures inspired by the song, here and here and here.  If you don’t feel like clicking on all that shit, let me sum it up for you: LIVE is from the same place, roughly, that I am from (and that place, roughly, is this).  This song directly addresses being from this area, but feeling a disconnect with the general culture here.  It also happens to address these things during the band’s creative peak.  Musically and lyrically it is as artful, un-obvious, non-cliche as a rock band of their stature is going to get.  A lot of people I know actually make fun of this particular song’s lyrics; they might seem truly random, silly, or meaningless to some.  But I beg to differ, and think he’s working on on higher level than just about any songwriter ever, on this song, and the whole Secret Samadhi album (for a more detailed breakdown of my opinion of the lyrics to “Rattlesnake”, click the link above about why you should love LIVE).

And there is just some very special feeling, upon hearing those foreboding, badass few chords, and the slow rock creep that starts out the song, in knowing that sound is designed to thematically represent the life we live here in Central PA, and the thoughts and feelings of not being a hunter or truck driver, and not “skinning hunted deer”.  In another place, in another time…

Do yourself a favor, Chachi, and watch the live performance video after the studio version I’ve embedded here.

“Rattlesnake” by LIVE

Let’s go hang out at a mall,
or a morgue, a smorgasbord.
Let’s go hang out in a church,
we’ll go find Lurch,
and we’ll haul ass down to the abbey.
Is it money, is it fame?
What’s in a name? Shame?
Is it money, is it fame
or were they always this lame?

It’s a crazy, crazy mixed up town,
but it’s the rattlesnake I fear.
In another place, in another time,
I’d be drivin’ trucks, my dear.

Let’s go hang out in a bar.
It’s not too far.
We’ll take my car.
We’ll lay flowers at the grave
of Jesco White, the sinner’s saint.
The rack is full, and so are we
of laughing gas and ennui.

It’s a crazy, crazy mixed up town
but it’s the rattlesnake I fear.
In another place, in another time,
I’d be drivin’ trucks my dear
I’d be skinning hunted deer.

 

 

 

My 12th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Everything In Its Right Place” by Radiohead

A song whose tone and tenor will forever be, to me, about early recovery, the first snow of the year, smoking delicious cigarettes in freezing cold cars, and the hottest sex imaginable.

“Everything In Its Right Place”
by Radiohead.

Everything in its right place.
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon.
Everything in it’s right place.
There are two colors in my head;
what was that you tried to say?
Everything in its right place.

My 13th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Hard to Imagine” by Pearl Jam

I formed my long-held adoration of Pearl Jam during my most serious drinking years.  They were years filled with mostly sorrow, self-doubt, regret, and love-sickness.  The music and lyrics of Pearl Jam meshed perfectly with this era of my life, and fewer songs left such an impression as “Hard to Imagine”.

I am far from alone in feeling such an intense connection to this song.  It never appeared on an official Pearl Jam album, but is certainly one of their more famous “b-sides”.  Until the mid-2000s, it had only been played live a handful of times, and it became notorious for it’s absence from the band’s live sets as more and more fans expressed their intense emotional connection to the song.  Eventually, around 2007, the band started putting it in setlists to wide acclaim (I knew I’d seen the band too many times when I actually started to feel annoyed by them opening with ‘Hard to Imagine’ again).

What’s interesting about the song is the completely interpretable lyrics.  Sure, Eddie Vedder doesn’t always write the world’s most straight-forward lyrics, but “Hard to Imagine” tells a story that can be viewed from about a hundred angles.  That’s part of what lends itself so well to a wide emotional connection, as well as it’s universal chorus of “Things were different then.  All is different now.  I try to explain…somehow.”  I mean, who doesn’t feel that in your GUT, no matter what you’re going through in life?

Below are the (very short, so read them!) lyrics, and then the studio version of the song, and then the best live version I could find.  I highly encourage everyone to watch and listen to this (everyone!).  I promise—promise!–you will be emotionally affected.

Hard to Imagine
by Pearl Jam

Paint a picture using only grey.
Light your pillow. Lay back. Watch the flames.
I’ll tell a story but no one
would listen that long.

It’s hard to imagine.

Tear into yourself, count days on your arm.
Ah the beating ticking like a bomb.
After having seen all that they saw,
it’s hard to imagine.

Things were different then. All is different now.
I tried to explain, somehow.

Things were different then. All is different now.
I tried to explain. I hope this works somehow.

My 14th Favorite Song of All-Time

“Styrofoam Plates”
by Death Cab For Cutie

There’s a saltwater film on the jar of your ashes;
I threw them to the sea,
but a gust blew them backwards
and now the sting in my eyes—
that you then inflicted—
was par for the course
just as when you were living.

It’s no stretch to say you were not quite a father
but the donor of seeds to a poor single mother
that would raise us alone—
we never saw the money—
that went down your throat
through the hole in your belly.

Thirteen years old in the suburbs of Denver,
standing in line for Thanksgiving dinner
at the Catholic church
(the servers wore crosses
to shield from the sufferance
plaguing the others).
Styrofoam plates, cafeteria tables,
charity reeks of cheap wine and pity
and I’m thinking of you,
I do every year when we count all our blessings
and wonder what we’re doing here.

You’re a disgrace to the concept of family.
The priest won’t divulge that fact in his homily
and I’ll stand up and scream
(the mourning remain quiet)
you can deck out a lie in a suit,
but I won’t buy it.
I won’t join the procession that’s speaking their piece,
using five dollar words while praising his integrity.
Just ’cause he’s gone, it doesn’t change that fact:
he was bastard in life, thus a bastard in death!

 

My 22nd Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Ashes in the Fall” by Rage Against the Machine

Rage Against the Machine are surely one of the smartest, most socially-aware bands that has ever existed. Their songbook is brimming with examples of subject matter and lyrics that would make Woody Guthrie proud, coupled with a gnarled, modern, harsh rock sound that turns the gentle acoustic strumming of the original folk artists on its head.  It is angry music for angry words.

Zack de la Rocha, the vocalist and lyricist, has very high amibitions for every song he writes, which often results in brilliance, but just as often gets too academic or wordsy for his own good.  In my opinion, “Ashes in the Fall”, from the band’s final album The Battle of Los Angeles, is the absolute height of de la Rocha’s power as a lyricist, and a rowsing endorsement of the band’s musical prowess.

The beginning of the song is a rambling, free-associative rant about the viscious cycles that perpetuate our “haves” and “have-nots” society.  de la Rocha doesn’t explain more than he has to.  He creates images, tells half-stories, trusting careful listeners to go back over these things and picture them, contemplate them, figure them out.  This is not “easy” music.  The song opens “A mass of hands press/ on the market window/ Ghosts of progress/ dressed in slow death”…the owners of these hands are “glaring through the promise/ upon the food that rots slowly in the aisle”.  What exactly is he talking about?  What does this supermarket have to do with anything?  Careful repeat listens reveal simple meanings.

In something that passes for a chorus, de la Rocha seems to evoke a kinship with the folk or protest songwriters of old, “This is the new sound/ just like the old sound./ Just like the noose wound/ over new ground.”  Interesting because, of course, the actual sound is very different but the tenor seems the same.  And the “noose wound/ over new ground”?  We might be a different country now than we were then, says de la Rocha, but they’re still lynching us.

But the real marvel comes at the end (please, I implore you, if you haven’t heard this song before, listen until the end), when de la Rocha lays the point of the song out for us, and the point is this:if you keep us poor and out of work, you can put us in jail and control us, which of course comes down to the folks in power using fear to control us.  Here is how de la Rocha lays that argument out:

Ain’t it funny how the factory doors close
round the time that the school doors close?
Round the time that the doors of the jail cells
open up to
greet you like the reaper?
Ain’t its funny how the factory doors close
round the time that the school doors close?
Round the time that a
hundred thousand jail cells
open up to greet you like the reaper?

And then (after saying a few times “This is no oasis!”, which is a sweet one-off line in itself) he hits us with this hum-dinger:  quietly, he repeats a few times “Just like ashes in the fall.”  This is certainly one of the great metaphors in rock lyric history.  Like the rest of the song, it is not easy.  It requires some processing.  What would it mean if you saw ashes drifting past you in the fall, or if you had some hot ashes in your backyard next to a pile of leaves? How does this image system inform the meaning of Rage’s song?

I used to get disappointed that, musically, Rage trails off after their big build-up during the “reaper” lyrics and gets quiet for the “Ashes” lyrics.  But they don’t just want to give us a music release. But they’re not just making music for our pleasure; they want us to hear and ponder this metaphor.

Here is the song, with the lyrics embedded in the video.

My 23rd Favorite Song of All-Time

…and my 23rd favorite song of all-time is:

“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” as sung by Judy Garland and written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane

I don’t just love this song around Christmas time.  I love it all year, and yes, I listen to it at many points throughout the year.  This is some fucking song!  Let me tell you all about it.

“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” started its life as just another song in a musical film called “Meet Me in St. Louis”, from 1944.  The movie is not a Christmas movie, there just happens to be a scene around Christmas time where Judy Garland–the film’s star–sings this song in a heartbreaking scene while staring out a window.  The song wouldn’t become a holiday staple until many years after the film’s release.

It is an incredibly sad song.  Most people don’t realize it.  You may never really stop to think about the lyrics, and on top of that, the lyrics that are positive are almost certainly meant ironically.  The tone of the song is practically unmistakable in its sadness.

So why do I like a song so much that I think is so sad?  Well, on one level, it is just an immense appreciation for the songcraft going on.  But on another level, the song speaks to me and affects me for reasons, and at a depth, that I’m almost afraid to explore.  I think it appeals to portions of my personality that are unattractive, or at the very least, not the most loving-cuddly parts of me.

The song is honest in its appraisal of the holidays.  Listen, I love Christmas and everything surrounding it, but the cynical core of me tends to waver toward the weary conclusions of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”.  I seriously cannot count how many times this song has made my cry.

Other versions of the song—notably a true stinker by Sinatra that is pretty much more famous now than the original—change a few key lyrics to make things more positive, but at the expense of losing all emotional punch and creating a little bit of holiday hodgepodge nonsense, most notably changing the line “until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow” to “hang a shining star upon the highest bough”…it may seem small to many, but I am far from alone in thinking this is a beastly, juvenile butcher job that serves only to appeal to the happy masses.

(starting right from the start, calling the holiday a “merry little Christmas” belittles its importance.  In light of small cues like this throughout, standard holiday treacle like “next year, all our troubles will be out of sight” has to be seen as a joke, a kind of satire of our culture’s over-senimentalization of the holidays…yes, this was already something that was happening in 1944. However, the song is not all piss and vinegar; it yearns for these ideas to be true, and is drenched in—thanks to Garland’s perfect delivery— a deep love for “faithful friends who were dear to us.”…but notice even there, the songwriters used the past tense…the friends were dear to us; here we can’t help but confront the inevitable breaking-down and fracturing of life)

Read the (original) lyrics below and then watch Judy Garland sing it in the video I’ve included, from “Meet Me in St. Louis”.  Don’t just think about the lyrics, but about Garland’s delivery and the tone of the music.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Let your heart be light.
Next year,
all our troubles will be out of sight.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Make the Yuletide gay.
Next year,
all our troubles will be miles away.

Once again as in olden days,
happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who were dear to us
will be near to us once more.

Someday soon, we all will be together
if the fates allow.
Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow.
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

My 24th Favorite Song of All-Time

Click here to see all previous entries in this list.

…and my 24th favorite song of all time is:

“Be Safe” by The Cribs

The Cribs are a weird band, which you might have guessed, since their name is The Cribs.  They are virtually unheard of in the US, but they are one of the more popular bands in England (where they are from) because, as usual, England has a higher tolerance for outside-the-box kind of stuff.  Granted, a large portion of their music is very straight-forward indie rock, but they often veer into Avant Garde.  The song that got me into them is a piece of pure pop perfection called “We Were Aborted”.  Go figure.

Their best song, and a song that affects me highly every time I listen to it, is “Be Safe”.  It is unlike anything you have ever heard.  It is a long poem (a terrific poem) being read not by a member of the band, but by legendary rock innovator Lee Ranaldo of the band Sonic Youth, who is a kind of mentor to the members of The Cribs.  Underneath this poem is some sonic-boom style grunge rock, and some moaning, dirge-like choruses sung by all the members of The Cribs.  This song can come very close to literally changing your life.

There was not a satisfactory rendition of this song for streaming online, so I made one specifically for this blog entry.  Please watch it below.  The lyrics stream along with the song in the video.  Trust me folks, this was not easy to make, so do this blogger a favor and watch it.  I don’t ask for much.  If  it doesn’t blow your mind, I’ll refund your money.

My 36th Favorite Song of All-Time

Click here to see all previous entries on this list.

…and my 36th favorite song of all-time is:

“When I Fall” by Barenaked Ladies

BNL have a very unfounded reputation as solely a goofy, jokey band.  And they DO have some funny, cute songs.  But the lion’s share of their material is very contemplative, dare I say important music.  And while I’m sure you’re all sick of me prattling on about how amazing certain lyrics are, you really do have to take a look at what Ed Robertson (one of the band’s two lead singers and lyricists, until Steven Page left the band in 2009.  Robertson wrote and sings “When I Fall”) does in this song.

“When I Fall” is a song about a window-washer on a scaffolding on a sky-scraper who is contemplating suicide.  The song is touching and bitterly sad, but also chock-a-block full of some lines that would make a Yale literature professor stop and take notice.  Note, for instance, how the window washer says “my hands clench the squeegee: my secular rosary”….I mean holy shit.  Or how about when he claims the businessmen in the boardroom are only frightened to jump “in case they survive”.  And then there’s this whole stanza, which has always blown me away and you could write a whole term paper on (the mirror is the glass of the window):  “Look straight in the mirror.  Watch it come clearer. I look like a painter, behind all the grease. The painting’s creating, and I’m just erasing.  A crystal-clear canvas is my masterpiece.”  Oh, and if you’re not a science whiz, the line “it’s nine-point-eight straight down” refers to terminal velocity (9.8 miles per hour squared is how fast objects fall).  The version I’ve included below is the live version I first heard, from the band’s live album, which is still my favorite version:

I look straight in the window,
try not to look below.
Pretend I’m not up here,
or try counting sheep.
But the sheep seem to shower
off this office tower.
It’s nine-point-eight straight down.
I can’t stop my knees

I wish I could fly
from this building
from this wall.
And if I should try
would you catch me if I fall?

My hands clench the squeegee,
my secular rosary.
Hang on to your wallet,
hang on to your rings.
Can’t look below me,
or something might throw me.
Curse at the windstorms that October brings.
I look in the boardroom;
a modern Pharaoh’s tomb.
I’d gladly swap places, if they care to dive.
They’re lined up at the window,
peer down into limbo.
They’re frightened of jumping,
in case they survive
I wish I could step from this scaffold
onto soft green pastures, shopping malls, or bed
with my family and my pastor and my grandfather who’s dead.
Look straight in the mirror,
watch it come clearer.
I look like a painter, behind all the grease.
The paintings creating, and I’m just erasing.
A crystal-clear canvas is my masterpiece.

My 39th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Education” by Pearl Jam

A b-side that didn’t see the light of day until Pearl Jam released an album of b-sides and rarities, “Education” has a funkiness and swagger that is atypical of the band.  Lyrically, it is straight-forward while also containing vast, simplistic wisdom and insight into human nature.  While Eddie Vedder is a tremendous lyricist, “Education” doesn’t approach the subject matter in his usual style.  In many ways, “Education” is wholly unique in the Pearl Jam canon.  I highly encourage you to check out the lyrics after the video.

I’m questioning my education.
Is my education all I am now?
While you’re deciding, I’ve been finding,
Looking around in the here and now.

If I’d been taught from the beginning,
Would my fears now be winning?

I’m questioning my own equation.
Is my own equation relevant somehow?
The flags will wave and the news is breaking.
See the man who can’t pick out his own tie?

If I’d been taught from the beginning
Would my fears now be winning?
A wide world, figured out the answers.
I’ll be in my own, dancing out.

I’m questioning my education.
Rewind it, what does it show?
Could be, the truth, it becomes you.
I’m a seed wondering why it grows.

“It’s not the dream that makes you weak/ It’s not the night that makes you sleep.”

The concert last night was AMAZING.  Partly because it featured two bands that I’m pretty much at the apex of liking right now, and it’s been a long time since my concert-going career was so in tune with what I’m currently digging (which is why you may have noticed a significantly higher rate of commentary about this concert on social media than I normally indulge in), and partly because I really have slowed my concert going frequency in the past year, so now when I do go to a concert, the experience is starting to have some of that oomph that it had in the beginning, oh-so-many years ago.

The Band of Horses show destroyed me emotionally, while the My Morning Jacket show ripped my face off, in the good way.  I won’t bother you with specifics, but it was wholly satisfying.  Although, one specific: I finally got a “Steam Engine” from My Morning Jacket, after seeing them 7 times now.  “Steam Engine” is my white whale with this band.  I’ve just thought up that term for this purpose, but it’s perfect.  I seem to have a “white whale”” with just about every band I see frequently.  My sister and I shared one with LIVE (it was “White, Discussion”) and we finally got it on their farewell tour.  With Pearl Jam it was “Hard to Imagine”, which at one point seemed unthinkable I’d ever hear…and by the end of the 2008 tour, I was actually annoyed when they kept opening with it!  haha.  Anyway.  Aside from those two, I think I have yet to see any of my other “white whales”.  Oh, and of course, I got “Steam Engine” last night, and I definitely fucking cried.

Of my opener/ closer predictions, I got one out of four correct (“The Funeral” to close BoH’s set)…which was by far the easiest guess, but was no gimme!  I got one from each band’s wishlist that I had made.  Not too shabby.

The inside of the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, before the crowd arrived. I had a seat in the balcony.

Band of Horses during “Infinite Arms”.

Band of Horses setlist

1.  For Annabelle
2.  NW Apartment
3.  Knock Knock
4.  No One’s Gonna Love You More Than I Do
5.  Detlef Schrempf
6.  Infinite Arms
7.  The Great Salt Lake
8.  Cigarettes, Wedding Bands
9.  Older
10. Ode to LRC
11.  The First Song
12.  Laredo
13.  The General Specific
14.  Is There a Ghost?
15.  The Funeral

My Morning Jacket during “It Makes No Difference”

My Morning Jacket setlist
1. X-Mas Curtain   <—this is an incredibly abnormal opener
2. First Light
3. Outta My System
4. Holdin’ On To Black Metal
5. Tyrone (Erykah Badu cover)
6. Mahgeetah
7. Into The Woods
8. Evelyn Is Not Real
9. Gideon
10. Rocket Man  (Elton John cover)
11. The Bear
12. Strangulation
13. It Beats 4 U
14. Steam Engine
15. Victory Dance
16. Circuital
17. Touch Me I’m Going To Scream pt. 2
18. Touch Me I’m Going To Scream pt. 1
19. Highly Suspicious
20. Wordless Chorus
21. Run Thru
22. Smokin’ From Shootin’

Encore One:
1. Wonderful (The Way I Feel)  [with Ben Bridwell of Band of Horses]
2. I’m Amazed
3. It Makes No Difference  (The Band cover)

Encore 2:

1. Off The Record
2. One Big Holiday

In case you’re even mildly interested, I recorded MMJ coming onto stage and the first few minutes of “Xmas Curtain” (which has some incredibly interesting lyrics)…for me, one of the most interesting things to see from shows I wasn’t at is how the bands start the performance…the entrance music, the first few chords, the audience response…and MMJ never disappoint in this regard. (notice the red and green lights for “Xmas Curtain”, which, as far as I can tell, may or may not be about having sex with a prostitute on Christmas).   This also gives you a good idea of how far away I was :(

My 45th Favorite Song of All-Time

Click here to read about this list, or click here to see all previous entires on the list.

And my 45th favorite song of all-time is:

“Two-Fifty” by Chris Walla

Chris Walla is the absolute genius guitar player and indie rock producer who is the lead guitarist for Death Cab for Cutie, and who produces such heavy hitters as The Decemberists and Tegan & Sara.  He has released one solo album, Field Manual, and “Two-Fifty” is the standout track on it.  It is a song about how the Industrial Revolution has altered the role of the individual in society.  That’s right.  That’s what it’s about.  But it is a tender, reflective, subtle song, that more mourns for a loss of what once was, than is enraged by the inevitability of what has become.  The video below is a video I made and put on YouTube because it wasn’t on there any other way (and still isn’t)…the video includes the lyrics, which are crucial.  PS aren’t I clever, using the famous photo of a child worker in the Industrial Revolution before child labor laws, as the background for my video?  PSS I realize this song, which uses a video I put on YouTube myself, comes right after “Easy Money”, another video I put on YouTube myself, but it is just coincidence.

My 49th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Top Drawer” by Man Man

Man Man is a strange, quirky, totally badass Philadelphia band that is somewhat difficult to describe. (I wrote all these entries in a fevered marathon about 6 months ago.  I don’t mention the Philly thing because I just moved here; they’re just one of those band’s whose city of origin factors greatly in their mythos, like Silversun Pickups from San Diego, Death Cab For Cutie from Seattle, Bruce Springsteen from Jersey, etc) I highly encourage you to read their Wikipedia entry, which describes them better than I’d possibly be able to.

Although they are not my favorite band, the concert I attended of theirs remains (by a small margin) my favorite concert-going experience ever. I implore you to read my blog entry about that experience here; for some reason the embedded YouTube videos have disappeared from that entry, but fear not, for here is a live version (studio Man Man is just kind of unnecessary) of my favorite song of theirs, “Top Drawer”:

You need a haircut. You need a shoeshine. You need aristocratic glow-in-the dark erotic magnet.

I know!

You need a moped. Half-boy half-horse head. You need a black Cadillac so death can drive him or ride in the back

I know!

I am a smoke fire, scared of holy water! People claim I’m possessed by the devil, but Mama, I know, I’m possessed by your daughter.

I know! I’ve been told! I am dancing through.

I am the top dog, top dog. Hot dog, hot dog.

You need a new body. You need a latte. You need the lingering scent of holiday men doing hot Pilates.

I know!

You cry wet cement. You lost accidents. You wonder where true love went cause the breeder in your bed don’t butter your bread.

I know!

I am a smoke fire, scared of holy water! People claim I’m possessed by your daughter, but Mama, I know I’m possessed by a problem!

I know! I’ve been told! I’m passing through.

I’m the top dog, top dog. Hot dog, hot dog.

My 71st Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Life Wasted” by Pearl Jam

One of my main “recovery anthems” (and the only one released after I got sober), “Life Wasted” as well as the band Pearl Jam in general, have played a major role in defining who I am today and how I live.  I once wrote this blog entry about how it has affected my life.

You’re always saying that there’s something wrong,
I’m starting to believe it was your plan all along.
Death came around, forced to hear its song,
and know tomorrow can’t be depended on.
I seen the home inside your head,
all locked doors and unmade beds,
open sores unattended.
Let me say just once that
I have faced it,
a life wasted.
I’m never going back again.
I escaped it,
a life wasted.
I’m never going back again.
Having tasted,
a life wasted,
I’m never going back again.

The world awaits just up the stairs.
Leave the pain for someone else.
Nothing back there for you to find,
or was it you, you left behind?
You’re always saying you’re too weak to be strong.
You’re harder on yourself than just about anyone…

Why swim the channel just to get this far?
Halfway there, why would you turn around?
Darkness comes in waves,
tell me, why invite it to stay?
You’re warm with negativity, yes, comfort is an energy,
but why let the sad song play?
I have faced it,…  A life wasted,… I’m never going back again.
Oh I escaped it,…  A life wasted,… I’m never going back again.
Having tasted,…  A life wasted,… I’m never going back again.
Oh I erased it,…  A life wasted,… I’m never going back again.

My 100 Favorite Songs of All Time

Yes, that’s right.  I have created another mind-blowing, completely useless personal list (to go along with this one and this one and this one).  However, I will be posting them one at a time.  But wait!  I hear what you’re saying!  Seth, didn’t you do a complete “overhaul” on your blog just a short while ago to do away with crap like this, make your blog more personal, more artistic, more (let’s just say it) pretentious?

Why yes, dear reader, I did make such an overhaul, but who cares?  You’re not going to care about this list anyway, so stop pestering me.  Once I thought of the idea of coming up with and ordering a list of my 100 favorite songs, the idea would not go away.  I just had to do it, even if I knew just about nobody was even going to look at it.  It just seemed fun to me, so I’m doing it.  I like doing things that I find fun.

As usual with things like this, I’m about to over-explain it to you.  I utilized the same “desert island” criteria to rank these as I did with my other similar lists; that criteria can be read here.  Also it will be of import to bear in mind that I have tried as hard as possible to consider all songs I have loved throughout my life (and whether or not I still love them), instead of just considering all the bands and songs that I am into at this point of my life.  So this list may not look like the shoe-gazing hipster-fest you might expect (although it certainly will, at points).

Whereas the other lists I’ve linked to above were posted all at once, individual songs seem to beg to have their own posts.  While I realize one hundred individual posts about songs may seem like it will bog things down, it’s just my blog, so don’t worry about it.  I’ll be posting them irregularly, whenever I feel like it.  It might take a year, it might take a hundred days; who knows?

I won’t be linking every post to Facebook or Twitter, so if you have an interest in seeing them all, I encourage you to get e-mail updates when I post; just click on the “follow” icon in the upper right of the blog’s home page.

The list is already made and complete, so the final list will be a snapshot of how I feel about the songs today; obviously any such list is a fluid and ever-changing thing, so any new additions, etc, that should happen to enter my life between now and the list’s completion will just have to sit in the corner.

OK, now, song #100 is…

“Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something

I know not everyone is in love with this song.  Some consider it a trifle, a confection.   And sure, it’s not the heaviest lifting in the world, but aside from being severely “catchy”, I’ve always thought the chorus was a little bit brilliant.  “And I said What about ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s?  She said I think I remember the film.  As I recall I think we both kind of liked it.  And I said, well that’s the one thing we’ve got.”

Some folks think the back-and-forth quoting is kind of clunky for a song, but I think it’s a wonderful examination of two people desperate to find any reason to be happy with one another, when they obviously have no reason to be.  Aside from the simple premise that the only thing they have in common is the enjoyment of a film, the word choice here makes it even more pitiful; not only is the only thing they have in common a movie, but they’re barely even sure of that.  The narrator says As I recall, it seems to me…and they didn’t even “love” the movie but we both kinda liked it.  And then instead of throwing themselves into this deception full-bore, they settle for a I guess that’s the one thing they’ve got.

Obviously the couple won’t be together much longer, and anyone who’s been in the final stages of a relationship that they can see is ending, but they’re not quite ready for it, should be able to appreciate the perfection of how this unique moment in a relationship is expressed here.

(a deeper, academic interpretation might surmise the song encapsulates the fragility of all human relationships, and the futility of ever attempting to connect romantically).

Listen to the chorus on last.fm

Rattlesnake

Faithful blog readers may recall a year or two ago, I was kinda sorta obsessed with the song “Rattlesnake” by the band LIVE, and specifically, taking photos to set to this song. Nobody gave a shit then, so I won’t be offended or surprised by your complete lack of interest now, either.

LIVE is (was) from the area I am from.  Not simply the same state, but the very specific same part of that state.  And they write music about this area.  Now, this is nothing incredibly new; plenty of songs have been written about “south central PA” and/ or Pennsylvania’s Appalachia, however, most of those songs contain fiddles, ukuleles, and the word “yonder”.  Don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of that music (mostly what is known as Bluegrass) and it is representative of this area.  But what draws me to LIVE’s renderings of the area is their markedly different approach.  (here is their first song about the area, Shit Town, about York, a city I once ran a restaurant in).  But nothing, as far as I’m concerned, matches “Rattlesnake”.

“Rattlesnake” is actually one of LIVE’s most derided songs.  Critics of Ed Kowalzcyk’s lyrics accuse him of putting actual nonsense into “Rattlesnake”—and they may be right.  Even I don’t know what “we’ll go find Lurch/ and we’ll haul ass down through the abbey” is talking about.  But to me, a lot of the lyrics here are meant as mood-setters.  The true purpose and triumph of “Rattlesnake” is to view this area through a new lens; one of mysticism, danger, and brooding darkness;  because there are definitely elements to living in Appalachia that are sinister and where the light—metaphorically—never shines.  Ed doesn’t ever really sing about this in the song, but it sure sounds like he is.  Musically, the song could not be much more different than most of the songs written about the area; hear that humming, suggestive, supernatural guitar underlining everything; hear that thwap-thwap-thwap rock thump that seems so juxtaposed to the humming guitar that the two seem to battle each other; hear that drumming that is practically March Militaire during the verses and practically Keith Moon on the choruses; “Rattlesnake” threatens to take you to a witch’s coven in the mountains, make you drink snake blood and have sex with a shadow-drenched moon-goddess. (and don’t get me started on the majesty of Kowalzcyk’s line “the rack is full and so are we/ or laughing gas, and ennui”…I have had hours of fun pondering it. Is the rack this or this or this?  How does the meaning change each time?  How does it not?)

I mention all this now not because I’m re-obsessed (it never really went away), but because now that I’ve discovered Windows MovieMaker, I can finally set my “Rattlesnake” pictures to the song in the way that I always wanted to.  I present to you here the first of a few slideshows of pictures I took in south central PA set to the song “Rattlesnake”.  First, in case you’re an outsider or dumb, a few things that might make the song more enlightening about this area for you (these are all links):

1.  Rattlesnakes in Pennsylvania

2.  Skinning Hunted Deer

3.  Jesco White

4.  Ennui

And now, my slideshow:

Monday’s Song: Seven Mary Three, “Oceans of Envy”

Oceans of Envy
by Seven Mary Three

I’ve got a photo booth picture
reminding me of something you said to me:
“If everything you want is so far out of reach,
move a little closer to me.”

I held my breath as the water rushed in.
I was drowning in the man I’d never be,
a castaway…but you were there for me.

I did a perfect imitation of someone who’s alive
before I met you.
Now colors seem to have a taste and a temperature
and everything doesn’t seem so far away…
forever seems like it’s never gonna be enough

I held my breath as the water rushed in.
I was falling through a faded memory,
a castaway…but you were there for me.

Believe it or not!

1.  I almost forgot to mention, about my recent trip home:  I had more fun riding around aimlessly in a car with my momma for two hours than I would have had on a round-the-world cruise.  Pure bliss. 

2.  I stopped for dinner at this small town of Zelienople for dinner yesterday.  I Facebook’d and Tweeted it just because I thought it was a cool town name and a rather adorable tiny, town-that-time-forgot kinda place.  And of course 6 of my FB friends replied that they knew the town, and it led me eventually to IMDB and finding out that it was one of the filming locations of the original “Night of the Living Dead” (and a few other movies)…kinda crazy!  Now I’ll have to go back sometime on purpose to sightsee the filming locations!

3.  I love this line from a song by The Band:  “Life is a carnival, believe it or not.”  Ha!  That shit is funny.

4.  I am very annoyed that my buddy Kyle mentioned Tim Allen’s ubiquitous voice-over presence in a blog entry before I could.  I’ve been bitching about it IRL for months!

5.  Just about every day lately, I am reminded of this great line from one of Kurt Vonnegut’s most famous short stoires, “Harrison Bergeron”, which is set in the year 2081:  “April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not quite being spring-time.”  Good to know this was a problem in the fifties, when the story was written, and will continue to plague folks well into the 2080s.

In an effort to make the “You Would Not Survive a Vacation Like This” blog post a little shorter, I did not include the photos that I took in the countryside around my dad’s house in Newville.  So now here some of them are:

 

 

 

Monday’s Song: LIVE, “Rattlesnake”

 

Rattlesnake
by LIVE

Let’s go hang out in a mall,
or a morgue,
a smorgasbord.
Let’s go hang out in a church,
we’ll go find Lurch
and  we’ll haul ass down through the abbey.
Is it money?
Is it fame?
What’s in a name?
Shame?
Is it money, is it fame?
Or were they always this lame?

It’s a crazy, crazy mixed up town.
It’s the rattlesnake I fear.
In another place, in another time
I’d be driving trucks, my dear.

Let’s go hang out in a bar.
It’s not too far.
We’ll take my car.
We’ll lay flowers at the grave of Jesco White,
the sinner’s saint.
The rack is full, and so are we:
of laughing gas and ennui.

It’s a crazy, crazy mixed up town.
It’s the rattlesnake I fear.
In another place, in another time,
I’d be driving trucks, my dear.
I’d be skinning hunted deer.

Monday’s Song: Arctic Monkeys, “This House is a Circus”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQhBoR_Jv-U

This House ia a Circus
by Arctic Monkeys

This house is a circus, berserk as fuck.
We tend to see that as a perk though.
Look what it’s done to your friends.
Their memories are pretend,
and the last thing they want is for the feeling to end.

There’s a room full of trouble and there’s lovers to be had.
Those ones who make sinners out of such lovely lads,
scaling the corridors for maidens in the maze
and the anomaly is slipping into familiar ways.
And we’re forever unfulfilled
and can’t think why,
like a search for murder clues
in dead man’s eyes.

The more you open your mouth
the more you’re forcing performance.
All the attention is leading me to feel important
(completely obnoxious).
Now that we’re here, we may as well go too far.

Wriggling around just so that you won’t forget,
there’s certainly some venom in the looks that you collect.
Aimlessly gazing at the blazers in the queue,
struggling with the notion that it’s life, not film.

This house is a circus, berserk as fuck.
We tend to see that as a perk though.
Look what it’s done to your friends.
Their memories are pretend
and the last thing they want is for the feeling to end.

Monday’s song: Editors, “In This Light and On This Evening”

In This Light and on This Evening
by Editors

I swear to God
I heard the earth inhale
moments before
it spat it’s rain down on me.

I swear to God,
in this light and on this evening,
London’s become
the most beautiful thing I’ve seen.

Monday’s Song: Dave Matthews Band, “The Best of What’s Around”

 

The Best of What’s Around
by Dave Matthews Band

Hey, my friend,
it seems your eyes are troubled…
care to share your time with me?
Would you say you’re feeling low and so
a good idea would be to get it off of your mind?

See, you and me
have a better time than most can dream,
have it better than the best,
and so can pull on through.
Whatever tears at us,
whatever holds us down,
and if nothing can be done
we’ll make the best of what’s around.

Turns out not where, but who you’re with
that really matters.
And hurts not much when you’re around.

And if you hold on tight
to what you think is your thing
you may find you’re missing all the rest.
She ran up into the light surprised,
her arms are open,
her mind’s eye is
seeing things from a
better side than most can dream,
on a clearer road I feel,
oh you could say she’s safe.
Whatever tears at her,
whatever holds her down
and if nothing can be done
she’ll make the best of what’s around.

Turns out not where but what you think
that really matters.

Hey life, hold on.

Monday’s Song: Kings of Leon, “Knocked Up”

Knocked Up
by Kings of Leon

I don’t care what nobody says,
we gonna have a baby.
Takin’ off in a Coupe de Ville,
She’s bundled up, Old Navy.
She don’t care what her mama said, no,
she’s gonna have my baby.
I’m taking all I have to take,
this taking’s gonna shake me.

People call us renegade
cause we like livin’ crazy.
We like taking on the town
cause people gettin’ lazy.
I don’t care what nobody says, no,
I wanna be her lover.
Always mad and usually drunk
but I love her like no other.

And the doc say, say he don’t know.
I’m a ghost, and I don’t think if I know
where we’re gonna go.

People call us renegades
cause we like livin’ crazy.
We like taking on this town
cause people gettin’ lazy.
I don’t care what nobody says, no,
I’m gonna be her lover.
Always mad and usually drunk
but I love her like no other.

And her daddy say, say he don’t know
where we’re gonna go.
I’m a ghost and I don’t think if I know
where we’re gonna go.

I don’t care if you don’t care.

 

Monday’s Song: Arcade Fire, “We Used to Wait”

I may have officially decided on Grinderman’s album as my album of the year, but Arcade Fire’s “We Used to Wait” is undoubtedly my song of the year (their album, The Suburbs, was prevented from being #1 simply by having too much filler, but the good parts of the album are so good as to be timelessly classic rock and roll).  “We Used to Wait” is about as great as a rock song can get: it’s about big but real human stuff (how is technology changing basic human emotional experience?), discussed in unique, innovative ways (lyricist Win Butler never feels the need to over-explain, while not being overly daft or dense), on top of layered sound which is not too-produced but is obviously passionate.  Please enjoy this live version of the song (and in a nod to Dellinger family heritgae, notice the images of U.S. mail the band uses on a screen on the stage, mostly toward the end of the song.  And seriously, how rad is that to use this as the main propulsion of the concept of the song, that we don’t have to wait to recieve our discourse in the mail anymore?  Writers of any ilk—let alone wongwriters—would be extremely fortunate to find such a creative and effective linguistic device!)  And there is very little triumph of rock and roll more succinct and powerful than the ending crescendo of this song, with Butler belting out “Wait for it!”

Three more things right quick:

may I plead with you to re-familiarize yourself with this blog post of mine, about Arcade Fire’s truly incredible online experience centered around “We Used to Wait”, and if you decide to do it, I encourage you to go through the experience a few times, using different addresses from your past.

It has also come to my attention that embedded YouTube on my blog is best when viewed using Firefox or Chrome, but is often quite bad through Internet Explorer.

And in case you missed it, click here for my top 15 albums of 2010.

We Used to Wait
by Arcade Fire

I used to write letters,
I used to sign my name.
I used to sleep at night,
before the flashing lights
settled deep in my brain.

But by the time we met–
by the time we met
the times had already changed.
So I never wrote a letter,
I never took my true heart,
I never wrote it down
So when the lights cut out
I was lost standing in the wilderness downtown.

Now our lives are changing fast;
hope that something pure can last. 

It may seem strange 
how we used to wait
for letters to arrive,
but what’s stranger still
is how something so small
can keep you alive.
(We used to wait.)
We used to waste hours
just walking around.
(We used to wait.)
All those wasted lives
in the wilderness downtown.

(We used to wait.)
Sometimes it never came.
(We used to wait.)
Still moving through the pain.

So I’m gonna write a letter
to my true love,
I’m gonna sign my name.
Like a patient on a table,
I wanna walk again,
wanna move through the pain.

We used to wait for it,
now we’re screaming,
sing the chorus again!

I used to wait for it,
hear my voice scream
and sing the chorus again.

Wait for it!

No more air planes, or speed trains, or freeways.

I’m gonna put my cynic hat on here and say that I just really don’t *get* what is often referred to as “New Years” (despite there only being one of them).

You may be saying to yourself something like, This is probably because you’re a recovering alcoholic and New Years is all about drinking, and I say to you that even as a drinker, I didn’t *get* New Years.  In fact, I never really understood any of the “drinking” holidays, a la St. Patty’s, Cinco de Mayo, etc.  That may be because I was drunk every day, but still.  I don’t get them.

In addition, the New Year’s Eve parties I have been to were exactly like every other party I had ever been to, begging the question, what makes this a New Year’s Eve party?  And that ball dropping in Times Square?  The same every year, and those people crammed into that cold place always look like they’re trying really hard to deny they’re bored.  And cold.

I suppose the main point here is that folks use “New Years”—which I suppose encompasses New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day—as a marker of time’s movement, and as a way to metaphorically “wipe the slate clean” with a fresh start, as well as reflecting on the passing year.  And I suppose that any such heady material undertaken on a mass basis is probably a good thing.  But that’s just not the way I personally function.  I think the idea of a (basically) arbitrary date being used to reflect, start anew, celebrate and generally ponder the state of your life is, well…arbitrary.  I don’t know about you, but I do these things more frequently than once a year.  They happen organically, and I take keen note of them as they happen. “New beginnings” happen when…well, when things begin, not with some date.  I reflect on the passing markers of time in my life when…well, when they pass.  Reflection, introspection, and the subsequent celebrations of the positive or changes to correct the negatives are an ongoing part of my life (don’t get me started on the phony uselessness of New Years Resolutions).  I suspect that most people are like me, like I just described.  Yet we continue to pretend that turning over this new calendar is somehow a useful, important, symbolic moment for us.  And I’m sorry to sound cynical, but it just isn’t.

I do not see the need to be nudged into contemplation and celebration by a date.

(I guess I must be a tad cynical to type out such a blog, but I thought…why not actually type what I’m thinking?  I never claimed to be an over-the-top optimist.  Sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I’m sad.  As the great Walt Whitman said, “I contain multitudes.” )

Also, here is an amazing song by Death Cab For Cutie called “The New Year”, which contains both my cynical feelings about the day itself, and my feelings that life, in general, is completely amazing:

The New Year
by Death Cab For Cutie

So this is the new year,
and i don’t feel any different.
The clanking of crystal,
explosions off in the distance.

So this is the new year
and I have no resolutions.
No self-assigned penance
for problems with easy solutions.

So everybody put your best suit or dress on.
Let’s make believe that we are wealthy for just this once.
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
as thirty dialogs bleed into one.

I wish the world was flat like the old days,
and I could travel just by folding a map.
No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways.
There’d be no distance that could hold us back.