Okay. Here we go. Ten songs. Wait, hang on, I’m going to make an iTunes playlist of the songs I have in mind, the ones I wrote down on a scrap of paper while I was on the bus today, because I take my memes very seriously. That way I can be writing about music while listening to the very same music about which I am writing! Sorry, did I just blow your mind there? Okay, I’m ready now.
Chicago by Sufjan Stevens
You know how when you listen to the Postal Service Album and you hear the first strains of “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” come on and you get this sense of relaxation, like, phew! Everything’s going to be all right. I am listening to this awesome song and “Such Great Heights” is next and everything’s going to be all right. “Chicago” is like that, sort of. I could have just as easily put “Casimir Pulaski Day” or “Decatur” or “John Wayne Gacy” from the Illinois album, I guess. Anyway, I heard this on KEXP and was struck by an immediate desire to hear this song multiple times. It is perfect in every way, I can’t even describe it. The melodies, the lyrics, the horns, the chorus, the phrase “I made a lot of mistakes” repeated over and over. Perfect in every way.
Love You Should Have Come Over by Jeff Buckley.
For some reason Jeff Buckley figured pretty heavily on the various breakup mixes people were so kind to send me last year. Man, was it really last year? Anyway, I’ve just had this hankering, past couple of days, to hear the phrase “maybe I’m too young to keep good love from going wrong.” I don’t know. Of course it’s his voice that does it, and of course it’s that you can totally imagine the person that you wanted but couldn’t, couldn’t have, telling you that you should have come over. Should you have? Jeff tells us it’s not too late. I don’t know, Jeff. With some people, obviously, it is too late and it was always too late but I guess this song lets you think otherwise, at least for six minutes and forty-four seconds.
Your Dirty Answer by Kirsten Hersh
This was on my Mystery Megamix CD, also from last year, but I haven’t heard it for a while. I love the words “encroaches” and “inscrutable” in this song. I love “your guitar’s a race car, sex is your best friend.” I love the low thrum in the chorus: RUM dum dum DA DA dum dum dum RUM dumm. I don’t know why I don’t own this entire album. I’ll get right on that.
ABC by the Jackson Five
Okay, this is possibly one of my favorite songs ever in the world, and I say that having a severe case of Michael Jackson Cognitive Dissonance, and don’t even play like you don’t know what I’m talking about because you totally do. I had the same problem when I was learning the Thriller Dance. It’s like, you know Current Michael Jackson is bad and creepy, but then you listen to Old (or, I guess, Young) Michael Jackson and the sun is shining and your hair looks really cute like that and there is nothing more perfect than ABC…Easy as 1-2-3. That’s how easy love can be, indeed, Michael. I smile every time this song comes up on shuffle and I think I just pretend that Current Michael Jackson just doesn’t exist or something.
Kiss by Prince
This just came into heavy rotation a couple of days ago too. This song reminds me very much of dear London-expatriate Key Girl Ashley, for the simple reason that Julia Roberts sings in it Pretty Woman and I sat next to Ashley the first time we both saw Pretty Woman, which was, oddly enough, not in the Miracle Center on 27th and Coral Way, but in the Dominican Republic for reasons that are too complicated to go into here. It was subtitled in Spanish and there was something about some Pirates of Penzance reference that I don’t totally remember off the top of my head being translated as “Romeo y Julieta” and we thought that was very funny. Anyway, for the rest of the time we were in the DR she’d come up to me and make kissing sounds while sliding her head back and forth the way Julia Roberts does in the hot tub and I just thought that was the best thing ever, and I can see Ashley doing that right now, fifteen years old in the Dominican Republic, pretending to be Julia Roberts pretending to be Prince. Multilayered, this song is. Also it is excellent for the elliptical machine, if you are into that sort of thing.
We Belong by Pat Benatar
I just downloaded this the other day because I was coming home from buying pants and it was a nice sunny day and I had the windows down and it turns out I know the harmony perfectly for this song. This also reminds me very much of the Key Girls, specifically the last Christmas we were all home from college for Christmas and we had a New Year’s party at the house Manya was living in (and where Marah would later move). The four of us spent most of the evening dancing around and wondering if anyone was going to show up to our party and ended up being ever so slightly disappointed when people did show up at midnight because it was so much fun just hanging out by ourselves. Even if you don’t have Key Girls in your life this is an excellent song for singing in the car, especially if you like to make dramatic hand gestures and you know the harmony. I love knowing the harmony.
L’histoire by Cheb Tarik
This is off one of those Putumayo CDs they have at Whole Foods. I haven’t really ever listened to it and am not completely sure why I own it, but I was going through it a couple of weeks ago looking for dance music, and all of a sudden I loved this song. I think most of it is sung in Arabic and it’s got a Kool and the Gang loop in there, which is awesome, and it is generally extremely dancey. You are a superhuman bastion of repression if you can hear this song and not dance, is what I’m saying. I can see it if you’re like, shackled to a chair or something, but even then I think most people would tap their toes. It’s sort of crazy but it sure makes me want to listen to more rai music…how does one go about that, does anyone know? Also I should say that since we did bhangra in bellydance last week I have been wanting to get in on that action too and I wish someone would hook me up with a bhangra primer or something.
The Sea by Morcheeba
I heard this on KEXP several months ago and have been listening to it regularly since. I don’t usually think of myself as liking trip hop stuff too much, although of course I like Massive Attack and the first Portishead album just like everyone else. Anyway, the thing about this song is that I can see tribal moves whenever I hear it. I went through this period when I listened to it every day on the bus on the way to work and there’s this one little scratch interlude where I saw all the bright skirts and shimmying shoulders, all going together at the same time, and it’s kind of breathtaking, even if it’s just in my head.
Paper Boats by Nada Surf
I saw these guys back in the “Popular” days, at some weird club in Fort Lauderdale or something, in like 1996. This song is nothing like that…it’s soft and sad and moody and it’s perfect for a certain type of morning, when you’re on the bus and looking out over the freeway and wondering if it’s going to rain and wondering how it got to be the middle of 2005 already and wondering where you’ll be this time next year, this time in five years. Where you’ll be and where you’ll go for the rest of your life. I love the ‘’What’s wrong/nothing/are your sure nothing’s wrong/yeah” part.
Drive Me Mad by Neil Finn
Now, it’s come to my attention that Neil Finn has, in fact, recorded other songs and other albums and that I should procure them forthwith. In the meantime I love this song with my whole heart and soul. I know about this song because two dear friends of mine put it on the single best wedding CD (or actually, double best wedding CDs because it was a box set sort of a deal) I have ever heard ever in my life. They’ve been married for three years and I still listen to songs from that mix pretty much every day. Anyway, if you listen to this song right after the abovementioned “Paper Boats” you will feel the world swirl around you and feel a weird feeling in your stomach that is either deep peacefulness or deep restlessness. Hard to tell. I love his voice. I love the melody here. I love this song.
My Secret by Anna Ternheim
You see how I get. For a while there I was able to go at least a day without hearing it but the last week or so I need to play it every night when I get into bed. It’s just that kind of song.
Okay, well, that’s eleven songs. I’m going to tap Sundry, who, last time I checked in, was singing Bloodhound Gang to her unborn child, and Mrs. Roboto, who has such good taste in music (and everything else) that I’m almost a little embarrassed to have her read this entry. And the rest of y’all, tell me what kind of music you like lately and what I should write my next music meme about.