But then again...?
I've already been taken to task by DarkoVader for not including any Canadian content (which led my wife to wonder if he wasn't moonlighting for the CRTC). My New Testament Scholar Buddy asked if John Prine's Jesus, The Missing Years didn't rate mention (it did, and should probably have dislodged the David Lindley tune).
I'm confident I've missed others as well. There's the "comments" button: name them and claim them, folks!
P.S.: if you're late to the conversation and you'd like to catch up, it's best to start at Song #10.
5 comments:
Loved your list and especially your expository caressing of what got the 10 songs on your list. I offer the following not as substitutes but as songs to consider. In deference to your wife's suspicions, I've left out Canadian content.
Billy Bragg-“Shirley” : Wherein Bragg shouts out,” Shirley,
your sexual politics have left me all of a muddle
Shirley,
we are joined in the ideological cuddle
I'm celebrating my love for you
With a pint of beer and a new tattoo
And if you haven't noticed yet
I'm more impressionable when my cement is wet
Politics and pregnancy
Are debated as we empty our glasses”
If that’s not young love, of an ideological bent, I don’t know what is.
Little Feat – “Dixie Chicken” : Overplayed? Absolutely! The slide guitar and the tongue-in-cheek piano playing still gets me every time. And aren’t you dying to find that bar in the song where,
“..one night in the lobby of the Commodore Hotel
I chanced to meet a bartender who said he knew her well. And as he handed me a drink he began to hum a song. And all the boys there, at the bar, began to sign along....
”If you'll be my Dixie chicken….”
Louis Armstrong with Oscar Peterson-“You go to my Head”: The Canadian content entry, (Sorry!!! I had to have one Canadian connection),the esteemed Mr. Peterson, adds touch & feel on the piano. Mr. Armstrong’s version of this song by Haven Gillespie & J. Fred Coots is a mood changing classic. No matter how miserable, heart-broken, or even bereft of any human emotion you may be, just the first minute of this song is transforming. Perhaps not chuckle evoking, but there’s a wide smile planted on my puss half-way through this version.
Loudon Wainwright III-“I’d rather be lonely” : The Dark Prince of Romance has to be represented and this song will do.
“All the time I look around
for excuses to leave town.
Everybody wants somebody, but,
I'd rather be lonely.
Chorus
Loneliness is happiness,
It takes less than two.
I confess, I digress
from it when I'm with you.
I think that I need some space
Everyday you're in my face.
How can I get rid of you?
I'd rather be lonely.
(Chorus)
One more verse, a few more words.
Love is for the bees and birds.
Not for a human being like me.
I'd rather be lonely.”
Does he sound like a miserable creature? Absolutely! But his songs, aside from pedal-to-the-metal sardonicism, make you think,”Hey, better him than me.” Or, as my ever-loving wife says, “Why does this misogynous SOB have to be so damn funny?!?”
Thanks, DV - you mention some worthy inclusions, to be sure (Dixie Chicken is yet to be overplayed). And I'm not opposed to Canadian content. As you pointed out, we could argue that Loudon is Canadian by virtue of siring young Rufus. As for Oscar, the man is in a class of his own, which makes him a citizen of the world.
I'd resisted opening my yap (!?) until your list was complete and I'm glad I did -- I remember seeing the video for "New Frontier" as a kid and enjoying my first introduction to the style of melancholy-wrapped-in-bounciness that I would later wallow in as a Smiths/New Order/Pet Shop Boys fan. The tension between the lyrical content, the melody and even the video (Donald Fagen's swinging bomb-shelter shin-dig) was a new thing for me in the ultra-earnest post-disco, post-punk 1981. Obviously, I need to listen to more Steely Dan if they've had this much impact on you.
I don't have a list of my own (though you've got me mulling) but there are two that leap to mind. "Housework" by the B-52's is arguably the aggressively cute band's most aggressively silly song -- an ode to cleaning and a lament to loneliness:
"Don't need a man to treat me mean
I need a man to help me clean
Someone who's heaven-sent
Someone to help pay rent
Someone to share dreams and wishes
Someone to help me do the dishes!"
The second is from the new Morrissey album -- his unique brand of hopeful despair (or despairing hope?) is in full swing here, only his droll wit has been cranked up to full-out funny. A great surprise, especially in "I Like You":
"I like you, I like you, I like you
Because you're not right in the head
And nor am I
And this is why-y-y
This is why I like you, I like you, I like you"
As for Canadian content, that's easy: Bryan Adams' "Summer of '69" (oh please, Bryan, you were 11!)
You need Help!! CHeck the site www.guidogardens.com. Jesus can pull your head out of your Yankee arse!!!
Ah, Scott took the "Bryan Adams" bait - well done! Your B-52s mention is indeed cheerfully infectious, and puts me in mind of the Annie Lennox/Aretha Franklin cooker, I Need A Man. Similar fun, especially if you're driving in the car and mimicking Lennox's giddy "WOOOOOOOO!!" near the end (which tends to get a lot of nervous looks from fellow drivers - don't ask me how I know).
As for the anonymous encouragement, two things: my arse ain't Yankee (yet); but I followed your advice, and it has indeed left me feeling ... clear-headed.
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