Category: playlist

Rules are not necessarily “meant to be broken,” as the odd saying goes; but, sometimes, a rule might be meaningfully circumvented. And so this month, I give you two songs from one artist as we open and close with Steely Dan, in honor of the recently departed Walter Becker. A hat tip along the way to obscure soul songs resuscitated by the internet, to the unhinged and brilliant “Twin Peaks” revival, and to a handful of well-known artists who wandered into the list this month with some lesser-known material. I should note that the Skip Drake song is as of yet unplaceable chronologically–it surely sounds like the ’60s but nowhere can I find confirmation. What year is this, indeed?

Full playlist below the widget.

“Kid Charlemagne” – Steely Dan (The Royal Scam, 1976)
“Nvr Surrender” – Rumble (Rumble ep.1, 2015)
“Wrapped Around Your Finger” – Skip Drake (Eccentric Soul: The Cash Label, 2014; originally 196_?)
“Laura” – Billy Joel (The Nylon Curtain, 1982)
“Hot Blood” – Lucinda Williams (Sweet Old World, 1992)
“Maybe After He’s Gone” – The Zombies (Odessey and Oracle, 1968)
“Blood and Chalk” – EMA (Exile in the Outer Ring, 2017)
“Slow Motion” – Blondie (Eat to the Beat, 1979)
“Felicidade” – Astrud Gilberto (Look to the Rainbow, 1966)
“Understanding Jane” – The Icicle Works (If You Want to Defeat Your Enemy, Sing His Song, 1986)
“I Have Laid in the Darkness of Doubt” – Mazes (Mazes, 2009)
“Water Song” – Hot Tuna (Burgers, 1972)
“Shiny” – The Decemberists (Five Songs EP, 2003)
“Falling” – Julee Cruise (Floating Into The Night, 1990)
“Can’t Live Without Your Love” – Janelle Monáe (The Electric Lady, 2013)
“L’Accord Parfait” – Autour de Lucie (L’Échappée belle, 1994)
“Southern Girls” – Cheap Trick (In Color, 1977)
“You Got Me” – The Roots (Things Fall Apart, 2004)
“The Hymn of Acxiom” – Vienna Teng (Aims, 2013)
“Third World Man” – Steely Dan (Gaucho, 1980)

Veal was a Canadian band that hung around off and on for nearly 10 years as the ’90s bled into the 21st century. “Judy Garland” comes from their third and final album, and is as accidentally great a song as I can think of, dropped in the middle of an obscure album by a forgotten band. Front man Luke Doucet remains active in Canada as a solo musician. “Judy Garland” was an early Fingertips find and all these years later I love this song to pieces.

“Kellyanne” is sadly self-explanatory. Juliana Hatfield sounds like an old friend calling out of the blue.

What a beautiful and unexpected little song is “I Fall Down,” still.

“Shilo” is way better than a song about an imaginary friend should be as well as better than I tend to think a Neil Diamond song is going to be (but I’m often wrong about that; he had some serious chops back in the day).

I could feature the Kinks every month and not run out of amazing songs; it’s only my self-imposed “no artist more than once a year” rule that keeps them away. We’ll get back to them in 2018, provided we’re all still around.

And Kirsty MacColl. Sigh.

A couple of outside credits this month. “Girls Girls Girls” came to my attention via the amazing Emma on the ever-engaging Said the Gramophone blog. It comes from a 2008 compilation of recordings put together around 1967 in East St. Louis by the veteran musician and producer Allen Merry, who at that point was working with young men at a community center, aiming to keep them off the streets and out of gangs. You can read more about the project, and listen to the whole album, here.

Secondly, the wonderful Mexican singer/songwriter Carla Morrison floated into my inbox via “Off Your Radar,” a newsletter featuring one weekly album recommendation, accompanied by a dozen or so reviews of that one album from their stable of music writers. OYR had recently recommended Morrison’s 2012 album Déjenme Llorar, which led me to dive into her catalog. She’s a terrific singer and an engaging personality; I’m happy to know of her work and will continue to familiarize myself with her catalog in the coming weeks.

And yes Kate Bush’s cover of “Sexual Healing” is odd in a number of ways but something about it charms me and moves me as it develops. Maybe when all is said and done it’s nothing more or less than the ineffable profundity of her singing voice. Her version of Marvin Gaye’s final classic was originally recorded in 1994 and intended for an album by the Irish musician Davey Spillane (whose uillean pipes are featured throughout), but it ultimately was left off. Bush finally released it as a b-side to “King of the Mountain,” the first and only single from her 2005 double-album Aerial.

Full playlist below the widget.

“Judy Garland” – Veal (The Embattled Hearts, 2003)
“Kellyanne” – Juliana Hatfield (Pussycat, 2017)
“Tainted Love” – Gloria Jones (single, 1964)
“Novocaine for the Soul” – Eels (Beautiful Freak, 1996)
“Wives and Lovers” – Cécile McLorin Salvant (For One to Love, 2015)
“I Fall Down” – U2 (October, 1981)
“Back to Black” – Amy Winehouse (Back to Black, 2007)
“Second Hand Store” – Joe Walsh (But Seriously, Folks…, 1978)
“Girls Girls Girls” – The Young Disciples Co. (single, 1967?)
“You Don’t Know What You’ve Got” – Joan Jett & The Blackhearts (Bad Reputation, 1981)
“H>A>K” – Jane Weaver (Modern Kosmology, 2017)
“Another Girl, Another Planet” – The Only Ones (The Only Ones, 1978)
“Shilo” – Neil Diamond (Just For You, 1967)
“All I Ever Wanted” – Kirsty MacColl (Electric Landlady, 1991)
“Nutty” – Thelonious Monk Quartet (Misterioso, 1958)
“Un Beso” – Carla Morrison (Amor Supremo, 2015)
“Strangers” – The Kinks (Lola Vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround, 1970)
“Beating of Hearts” – XTC (Mummer, 1983)
“Hello” – Poe (Hello, 1995)
“Sexual Healing” – Kate Bush (b-side, 2005)

A lot of big names slipped into this month’s playlist. It’s a summertime thing. Speaking of which, I find “Girls In Their Summer Clothes” to be as majestic and beautiful a song as Bruce Springsteen has ever written, and in my mind the one absolute classic he’s recorded in the 30 some-odd years that have passed since Born in the USA made him a stadium star. (Note: while I appreciate it emotionally, I found The Rising kind of ponderous and self-derivative musically speaking.) It came out on the 2007’s generally underrated Magic album and is a must-have on any summer playlist; if you happen to have never heard it before, you’re welcome.

One you almost certainly have not heard before is the odd little Patti LaSalle nugget, “How Many Times,” which was made available this month on an intriguing compilation that just came out last week called Mid-Century Sounds: Deep Cuts From the Desert, via Fervor Records. Given that I am a sucker for anything that says either “mid-century” or “deep cuts,” I could not pass this one by. The overall quality is erratic but the story, which you can read about here, is interesting, and there are a few goodies buried in here for those willing to dig into the hot desert sand.

And talk about buried goodies, how awesome is “I Stand Accused (Of Loving You),” from the The Glories, a criminally overlooked trio fronted by Frances Yvonne (Frankie) Gearing? This was the only song of theirs to crack the Billboard charts (for a mere two weeks); their other seven singles disappeared without a trace, at least until Goldenlane Records put them all out on a CD called The Glories: Soul Legend, in 2011. Many of them, now, sound good enough to have been hits, and have been embraced by Northern Soul fans, this one perhaps most fondly of all. But, sheesh, The Glories have slipped through the internet’s cracks for sure—they don’t even have a Wikipedia page, probably because there’s no reliable source material otherwise online.

Meanwhile, I finally found a place for Todd Rundgren on one of these playlists, and “Long Flowing Robe” is a terrific example of a lead track that was not a single, the kind of thing FM radio loved to play back in the day (there were no notable hit singles from Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren; maybe because they never released this one?). And let’s not overlook the glory that is Dean Friedman’s “Ariel,” which was in fact something of a hit in 1977, coming in at number 87 for the year on the American Top 40 year-end chart. Although long since faded from the mainstream scene in the U.S., Friedman has all these years been recording and touring, and released the album 12 Songs just last month, as luck would have it. Take that as a reminder that luck does, sometimes, against the odds, have it.

Full playlist below the widget.

“Long Flowing Robe” – Todd Rundgren (Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren, 1971)
“Almost” – Sarah Harmer (All Of Our Names, 2004)
“Strange Relationship” – Prince (Sign O’ the Times, 1988)
“Contessa” – Mice Parade (Candela, 2012)
“Tell Me When the Whistle Blows” – Elton John (Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, 1975)
“Maricela” – Los Lobos (Colossal Head, 1996)
“Thrasher” – Casey Dienel (Imitation of a Woman to Love, 2017)
“I Stand Accused (Of Loving You)” – The Glories (single, 1967)
“London Rain (Nothing Heals Me Like You Do)” – Heather Nova (Siren, 1998)
“Gates of Steel” – Devo (Freedom of Choice, 1980)
“Ariel” – Dean Friedman (Dean Friedman, 1977)
“Start a Little Late” – Annie Hayden (The Rub, 2001)
“Everything Now” – Arcade Fire (pre-release, Everything Now, 2017)
“How Many Times” – Patti LaSalle (single, 1960)
“Fast Buck Freddie” – Jefferson Starship (Red Octopus, 1975)
“Black Sails in the Sunset” – Elvis Costello (originally unreleased, 1980)
“Couldn’t Love You More” – Sade (Love Deluxe, 1992)
“Girls In Their Summer Clothes” – Bruce Springsteen (Magic, 2007)
“The Magic Touch” – Melba Moore (single, 1966)
“Over There” – The Connells (Boylan Heights, 1987)

There’s a meandering quality to some of these songs. Some may make you smile. Smiling is good. Of the 20 artists represented, 16 had yet to be featured on a playlist here. And we made it back to the ’50s for the first time in a while. Also good. Less good: Samsa the band seems no longer to exist, but “Throw My Weight” remains one of the early great finds on Fingertips, back from the retrospectively innocent mid-aughts. Then there are all those amazing soul numbers, still aching to be discovered, some so elusive there is no telling when they were actually recorded. (“I’ll Never Stop Loving You” may not have been released in 1967, but it sounds like it.) “The Wild Places” is as evocative a song from my young adulthood as I can call to mind. I did not visit many wild places at the time, and received no consolation prize. Life goes on, with or without revolutions. We are led on, we are let go of. Are you with me now? You’re a bit early, but I know how you feel.

Full playlist below the widget.

“Throw My Weight” – Samsa (First, The Lights EP 2005)
“I’ll Never Stop Loving You” – Carla Thomas (single, 1967?)
“Lights Are Changing” – Mary Lou Lord (Got No Shadow, 1998)
“Don’t Dictate” – Penetration (single, 1977)
“Driving Through” – Jennifer O’Connor (The Color and the Light, 2005)
“She Took Off My Romeos” – David Lindley (El Rayo-X, 1981)
“Where’s the Revolution” – Depeche Mode (Spirit, 2017)
“Etude No. 2” – Philip Glass (Etudes For Piano, Vol. 1, 2003)
“I Only Have Eyes For You” – The Flamingos (single, 1959)
“The Wild Places” – Duncan Browne (The Wild Places, 1978)
“Est-Ce Que Tu” – Dusty Trails (Dusty Trails, 2000)
“I”ll Feel a Whole Lot Better” – The Byrds (Mr. Tambourine Man, 1965)
“Consolation Prize” – The Ocean Blue (Davy Jones’ Locker, 1999)
“Pendulum” – FKA twigs (LP1, 2014)
“Let Me Go” – Heaven 17 (The Luxury Gap, 1983)
“Powerhouse” – Don Byron (Bug Music, 1996)
“Lead Me On” – Gwen McCrae (single, 1970)
“Are You With Me Now?” – Cate Le Bon (Mug Museum, 2011)
“Cigarette of a Single Man” – Squeeze (Babylon and On, 1987)
“At The Beginning Of Time” – Jane Siberry (When I Was a Boy, 1993)

A certain number of big names and kinda-big names made their way onto this month’s list, and yet it still feels quirky and off-center to me somehow. And just so it’s clear: I have nothing against big, “popular” names; I just feel they should arrive in sprinkles rather than floods. I would have little interest in listening to a playlist that was all Led Zeppelin but getting one well-chosen Led Zep song in a multi-decade mix? That’s what I’m here for. You too?

And I have to say, while I obviously have no objective perspective at all here, this playlist makes me particularly happy in some elusive way. A few of the segues are inadvertently awesome (Snider to Radiohead, Ace Spectrum to Poliça, to name two), and it always seems to be a bit special when They Might Be Giants show up, especially the disconcertingly metaphysical “Where Your Eyes Don’t Go,” a perennial personal favorite.

But what do I know? I keep making these very humanly curated lists, and if a few of you kind folks show up and listen, I’m happy. In some elusive way.

Other random notes:

* “The Lotus Eaters”: As gorgeous and effecting an amalgam of contemporary classical and non-classical music as I have heard.

* “Pyramid Song”: Forget all the internet explanations as to this song’s time signature. My ears tell me there is precisely no time signature at all for this song, which adds to its subtle miraculousness.

* “Don’t Send Nobody Else”: The half a hit from the one-half-hit wonder Ace Spectrum, this song was written by Ashford and Simpson, for those keeping score at home. Never all that popular during their recorded lifespan (1974-1976), Ace Spectrum have had a second life in the world of Northern Soul, which has rescued untold numbers of great songs from semi- and/or complete obscurity.

* “Troubles Won’t Stay”: The great Sam Phillips remains great.

* “St Agnes and the Burning Train”: This is a Sting song, so allow me briefly to defend Sting against his many and varied detractors. Whatever his personal and interpersonal flaws might (or might not) be, there is a talented musician and composer at least sometimes alive in this man. I think he has often let lazy Sting do the work but when he’s on his game he can be brilliant. Thanks to Radio Paradise for alerting me to this particular version, which isn’t that different from the original, but the strings add some oomph, and the cover version will allow me to offer up the Stingster himself later in the year here if I so choose.

Full playlist below the widget.

“Quick Painless and Easy” – Ivy (Apartment Life, 1997)
“I Surrender” – Eddie Holman (b-side, 1969)
“Both Ends Burning” – Roxy Music (Siren, 1975)
“She Turns to Flowers” – The Salvation Army (The Salvation Army, 1982)
“The Lotus Eaters” – Sarah Kirkland Snider feat. Shara Worden (Penelope, 2010)
“Pyramid Song” – Radiohead (Amnesiac, 2001)
“La Dolce Vita” – Sparks (No. 1 in Heaven, 1979)
“Speed the Collapse” – Metric (Synthetica, 2012)
“See a Little Light” – Bob Mould (Workbook, 1989)
“Amanhã” – Luciana Souza (Brazilian Duos, 2002)
“Don’t Send Nobody Else” – Ace Spectrum (Inner Spectrum, 1974)
“Lime Habit” – Poliça (United Crushers, 2016)
“Where Your Eyes Don’t Go” – They Might Be Giants (Lincoln, 1988)
“Hard Lesson” – Suddenly, Tammy! (We Get There When We Do, 1995)
“I Got Love” – Viola Wills (single, 1966)
“All These Things That I’ve Done” – The Killers (Hot Fuss, 2004)
“Troubles Won’t Stay” – Sam Phillips (Human Contact is Never Easy EP, 2016)
“St Agnes and the Burning Train” – Soweto String Quartet (Zebra Crossing, 1994)
“D’yer Mak’er” – Led Zeppelin (Houses of the Holy, 1973)
“Tres Cosas” – Juana Molina (Tres Cosas, 2004)

The Sara Bareilles composition, “Seriously,” written at the behest of the formidable public radio show This American Life, imagines the thoughts Barack Obama might have been thinking as the 2016 presidential campaign came to a climax. Hamilton star Leslie Odom, Jr. sings. It speaks for itself, and demands to be heard, maybe even more so now than in October.

But hey everything feels political right now, doesn’t it? Seeking the meaning of life, trying to stay grounded in love, honoring a rock’n’roll icon, even just grooving to a retro beat, anything done mindfully feels like a defiant gesture when the occupant of the White House is so willfully ignorant, so apparently devoid of empathy, so blind to both beauty and mercy. The world doesn’t owe us a thing but each individual human being owes any other human being a recognition of their inherent dignity. Well, what goes up must come down. I have no idea what becomes of us collectively with this awful specimen of human being daily defacing the office he holds, but I know that in the end, he will personally fail, and fall, hard. Gravity is an implacable mistress; may we all fly forward into the light, sooner than later.

Full playlist below the widget.

“I’m Happy But You Don’t Like Me” – Asobi Seksu (Asobi Seksu, 2004)
“Seriously” – Leslie Odom, Jr. (2016)
“What Is Life” – George Harrison (All Things Must Pass, 1970)
“The Universal Song” – Kim Carnes (Café Racers, 1983)
“Tennessee” – Arrested Development (3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life of…, 1992)
“Nadine” – Chuck Berry (single, 1964)
“There Isn’t One Way” – Patty Griffin (Servant of Love, 2015)
“Oh Really” – Goldheart Assembly (single, 2009)
“United State” – Daryl Hall & John Oates (Voices, 1980)
“I Love You” – John Coltrane (Lush Life, 1957)
“Gravity” – Terri Hendrix (Wilory Farm, 1998)
“Public Image” – Public Image Ltd (Public Image, 1978)
“Aviation” – The Last Shadow Puppets (Everything You’ve Come to Expect, 2016)
“Alone Again Or” – Love (Forever Changes, 1967)
“Slave to the Rhythm” – Grace Jones (Slave to the Rhythm, 1985)
“No Need To Cry” – Neko Case (Furnace Room Lullaby, 2000)
“Hall of Tragedy” – Linnea Olsson (For Show EP, 2017)
“The World Don’t Owe You a Thing” – Freda Payne (Band of Gold, 1970)
“Miss America” – David Byrne (Feelings, 1997)
“Tomorrow on the Runway” – The Innocence Mission (Befriended, 2007)

This is the 33rd playlist in the Eclectic Playlist Series; there are only three artists in this month’s mix that have been featured here before, in one of the other 32 lists (and each has been featured only once previously). There’s really that much music out there, folks. That so much of it is squandered by the relentless reductionism of internet algorithms…well, let’s just say it’s a shame, and that if you’re reading this you’re in luck because it doesn’t happen here. This month’s playlist is another case in point, ranging reasonably far and wide in genre and decade, but also dancing through some serendipities of sound, feel, and outlook. The segues are occasionally challenging but I did my best to have the songs make sense even if they initially seem to be bumping into each other. And it’s all okay in the end because of the twin, Spector-ish culmination: the Ronettes into “Just Like Honey.” First we get an epic with as heart-rending a resolution, musically speaking, as has pretty much ever been written; then we can float off, Scarlett-Johansson-ly, to the indeterminate tones of The Jesus and Mary Chain. Everything, in the end, is lost in translation, most of all our heart’s desires. But it’s alright. Everything is everything. We make contact. The building may be burning but it’s we who are ablaze.

Full playlist below the widget.

“Around the Bend” – Martha Wainwright (Goodnight City, 2016)
“Everything is Everything” – Lauryn Hill (The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, 1998)
“Victim of Love” – The Eagles (Hotel California, 1976)
“You as You Were” – Shearwater (Animal Joy, 2012)
“Don’t Leave Me This Way” – Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes (Wake Up Everybody, 1975)
“This Is The House” – Eurythmics (Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), 1983)
“Moving to L.A.” – Art Brut (Bang Bang Rock & Roll, 2005)
“But It’s Alright” – J.J. Jackson (single, 1967)
“Ablaze” – School of Seven Bells (SVIIB, 2016)
“Girls Talk” – Dave Edmunds (Repeat When Necessary, 1979)
“Contact” – Brigitte Bardot (Show, 1968)
“Lover’s Waltz” – A.A. Bondy (American Hearts, 2007)
“Mia & Sebastian’s Theme” – Justin Hurwitz (“La La Land”: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, 2016)
“Dim” – Dada (Puzzle, 1992)
“Jerry’s Pigeons” – Genya Ravan (Urban Desire, 1978)
“Nothing Burns Like Bridges” – Penny Century (Between a Hundred Lies, 2007)
“Let X=X” – Laurie Anderson (Big Science, 1981)
“Go, Hippie” – Fountains of Wayne (Utopia Parkway, 1996)
“I Can Hear Music” – The Ronettes (single, 1966)
“Just Like Honey” – The Jesus and Mary Chain (Psychocandy, 1985)

In 1978, John Prine released a wonderful album called Bruised Orange. According to a story he told a couple of years later, the record company, doing that record-company thing back in the day, sent him a case of oranges as part of some kind of promotional effort or another. When it came time to make his next album, he figured he would call it Storm Windows. Because he needed some. This, at least, is the story he told at the time. And I’m guessing he actually had no idea what kind of future we were going to end up in when he sang the song that closes out EPS 4.01.

This playlist, I feel compelled to report, was created in an unusual flow. I’m not sure if it’s any better or worse than my previous output but I will say that I found myself feeling no need to edit or tweak the way I normally do, even if it meant rather inexplicably returning to Bonnie Raitt after just a couple of months. Nothing against Bonnie she’s just not that close to the top of my list normally! And now I also don’t seem to feel the need to comment other than to say that the more time goes by the more I love Liz Phair. And the more David Bowie seems to represent the apotheosis of rock music.

These opinions are my own and do not represent the views of the current Administration. And never will.

p.s. “I Live My Broken Dreams” really does end that abruptly. An impossible segue.

“Opus 23” – Dustin O’Halloran (Piano Solos Vol. 2, 2006)
“No Plan” – David Bowie (No Plan EP, 2017)
“Lorelei” – Cocteau Twins (Treasure, 1984)
“So You’re Leaving” – Al Green (Let’s Stay Together, 1972)
“Silence Kid” – Pavement (Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, 1994)
“I Live My Broken Dreams” – Gramma’s Boyfriend (PERM, 2015)
“Butch and Butch” – Oliver Nelson (The Blues and the Abstract Truth, 1961)
“Alison Gross” – Steeleye Span (Parcel of Rogues, 1973)
“Run Back to You” – Marshall Crenshaw (The 9 Volt Years, 1998)
“I Just Can’t Live My Life (Without You Babe)” – Linda Jones (single, 1969)
“Birth, School, Work, Death” – The Godfathers (Birth, School, Work, Death, 1988)
“But Will Our Tears” – Soy Un Caballo (Les Heures de Raison, 2007)
“Surf’s Up” – The Beach Boys (Surf’s Up, 1971)
“Baby Mine” – Bonnie Raitt and Was (Not Was) (Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films, 1988)
“Time to Dance” – The Jezabels (The Brink, 2014)
“E-Bow the Letter” – R.E.M. (New Adventures in Hi-Fi, 1996)
“I’ll Stop At Nothing” – Sandie Shaw (single, 1965)
“When You Find Out” – The Nerves (The Nerves EP, 1976)
“My Bionic Eyes” – Liz Phair (Liz Phair, 2003)
“Living in the Future” – John Prine (Storm Windows, 1980)

So this is not really a holiday playlist, because I, like a lot of people I know, don’t feel especially festive this year. But I snuck a couple of seasonal songs in anyway, both of which I appreciate for their arrangements, however vastly different they are. This is in fact a list about differences: beautiful and jarring, old and new, angry and gentle, it’s all here. Some things you might want to know: Vegas was a one-off effort by Terry Hall (the Specials) and Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) that sank commercially but soared artistically (thanks to George from Between Two Islands for this one); Sad13 is Sadie Dupuis, front woman for the band Speedy Ortiz and “<2” (say “Less Than Two”) is from her first solo album; “Lily” is one of only a handful of stand-alone older songs Kate Bush performed at her now-legendary concerts in London in 2014, and I wasn’t there but I wish I had been, and I’m buying the new album, and she’s amazing; yes the new Bon Iver is pretty outré but oddly compelling (and note the song title is supposed to have two symbols after it but they are not translating properly here in WordPress so I left them out); yes this is the “clean” version of “We the People…” but it seemed a reasonable gesture given that by and large these playlists are safe for work and young children–I encourage you on your own to check out the whole album, in its explicit form; and yes I had just featured Leonard Cohen two playlists ago so the rules prohibited a direct homage to the great man but I really like what Christina Rosenvinge has done with “Famous Blue Raincoat,” and adore its Spanish title, “Impermeable Azul,” and like Christina Rosenvinge in any case so here you are.

And yet, that said, 2016 has come to an end and I did in fact repeat one artist this year. So much for rules. Anyone notice?

“Open Your Eyes” – The Lords of the New Church (The Lords of the New Church, 1982)
“Walk Into the Wind” – Vegas (Vegas, 1992)
“<2” – Sad13 (Slugger, 2016)
“Alchemy” – Richard Lloyd (Alchemy, 1979)
“Lily” – Kate Bush (The Red Shoes, 1993)
“I’m Gonna Git Ya” – Betty Harris (single, 1967)
“10 d E A T h b R E a s T” – Bon Iver (22, A Million, 2016)
“Evil Urges” – My Morning Jacket (Evil Urges, 2005)
“Talk of the Town” – The Pretenders (Pretenders II, 1980)
“The Catastrophe and the Cure” – Explosions in the Sky (All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone, 2006)
“Someone to Lay Down Beside Me” – Karla Bonoff (Karla Bonoff, 1977)
“We The People…” – A Tribe Called Quest (We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service, 2016)
“Philadelphia” – Magazine (The Correct Use of Soap, 1980)
“L’estasi dell’oro” – Ennio Morricone (The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Original Motion Picture     Soundtrack, 1966)
“We Three Kings” – The Roches (We Three Kings, 1990)
“Run” – Amy MacDonald (This Is The Life, 2007)
“God’s Children” – The Kinks (Percy, 1971)
“Strange Things Happening Every Day” – Sister Rosetta Tharpe (single, 1945)
“Lt. Kijé: Troika” – Caliban Quartet of Bassoons (Caliban Does Christmas, 2005)
“Impermeable Azul” – Christina Rosenvinge (According to Leonard Cohen, 2012)

How Fabrizio De Andre sounds in the song “Il Testamento di Tito” is how I want to sound right now: weary but centered, soothing and heartbroken, resigned to the wickedness of the world while standing up to it. The narrator is Titus, one of the two thieves in the New Testament said to have died on the cross with Jesus, who here slyly annotates the Ten Commandments, one by one, by relating his personal experience with each. A rich, flowing, Italian-language narrative, “Il Testamento di Tito” is a subtle miracle of texture and pacing, and is well worth further investigation (you might start here; translation of the lyrics here). The other songs this month are all in English and speak (directly or indirectly) for themselves, haunted, as has everything been since 11/9, by the the deep shadow of lunacy, bigotry, and corruption spreading across our unhappy country, and by the resilience we are called upon to embody in its wake. Sorry to get heavy here but this is heavy shit and music does, somehow, help. Be careful out there.

“Walk This World” – Heather Nova (Oyster, 1995)
“Inwards” – Big Country (The Crossing, 1983)
“The End of Our Love” – Nancy Wilson (b-side, 1968)
“I Don’t Want to Know” – Matthew Sweet (Kimi Ga Suki Raifu, 2003)
“Changes” – Stars (The Five Ghosts, 2015)
“Il Testamento di Tito” – Fabrizio De Andre (La Buona Novella, 1970)
“Flower Girl” – Joe Henry (Trampoline, 1996)
“Passerby” – Quilt (Plaza, 2016)
“Call It Something Nice” – The Small Faces (The Autumn Stone, 1969)
“Side of the Road” – Lucinda Williams (Lucinda Williams, 1988)
“Worn Me Down” – Rachael Yamagata (Happenstance, 2004)
“Play It Safe” – Iggy Pop (Soldier, 1980)
“Dawned on Me” – Wilco (The Whole Love, 2011)
“Kiss My Love Goodbye” – Bettye Swan (b-side, 1974)
“Into the Fire” – Sarah McLachlan (Solace, 1991)
“Out of the Blue” – The Band (The Last Waltz, 1978)
“My Mistakes Were Made For You” – The Last Shadow Puppets (The Age of the Understatement, 2007)
“Trouble Down Here Below” – Lou Rawls (Carryin’ On!, 1966)
“Nightingale” – The Honey Trees (Bright Fire, 2014)
“Book of Days” – Enya (Shepherd Moons, 1991)