Jim Walsh's weekly mix of 20 (or so) downloadable tunes (10/31)

1."Paint The White House Black," George Clinton; "Dressing Up For The Indictment," Rye Coalition; "Scooter and Jinx," Sonic Youth; "Leak In The Media," DARYL; "Judy Is A Punk," Ramones; "C.I.A.," Caesar; "Corruption," Iggy Pop; "That's All, Karl," Mike Lane; "Criminal Minded," Boogie Down Productions; "Mosh," Eminem; "The Watergate Blues," Howlin' Wolf; "Peace In Our Time," Elvis Costello & the Attractions; "Christ For President," Billy Bragg and Wilco; "A Floater Left With Pleasure In The Executive Washroom," Dillinger Four; "Christmas In Washington," Steve Earle; "Iraq," Vic Chesnutt; "Impeach Me, Baby," Beverly "Guitar" Watson. A medley.

2. "Somebody To Shove," Soul Asylum. The roaring highlight of an odd night of passage at First Avenue (Oct. 24th); a night when Tommy Stinson and Dave Pirner needed and got somebody to shove, and the spirit of Karl Mueller recalled what Joe Strummer said at the end of Westway To The World, something like, "When you've got four or five people committed to one thing, it's a band, and that's rare, and it shouldn't be taken for granted. We learned that bitterly. Bitterly." Few are learning as much more bittersweetly these days than Soul Asylum and its fans.

3. "Since U Been Gone," Kelly Clarkson. A riff that would make Ric Ocasek swoon, a snare-blast that would do Metric proud, an "uh-huh," that would make the Divinyls touch themselves, a chorus tailor-made for glow sticks and arena ephemera, and, all in all, a perfect segue into...

4. "Awful Bliss," Guided By Voices. In which a lover gets the hell out of his and her way so as not to upset the accepted order of things. Call this the anti-"I Will Dare."

5. "My Maker," The Heartless Bastards. One of my favorite new bands, singing (I think) about a god that looks the other way when we fuck up, leaving the evolutional/spiritual shifts to us and us alone. It somehow recalls a bumpersticker I love ("Jesus loves you, but I'm his favorite") and the epitaph I've decided I want on my tombstone: "He made the easy ones look hard, and the hard ones look easy."

6. "Mars Loves Venus," The Brunettes. A duet! Like Shane-Sinead doing "Haunted"! Or Donny and Marie doing "I'm A Little Bit Country"! But better! A truce in the war of the sexes! Testify! A whole lotta girly-boy and boyly-girl in all of us!

7. "Tiny Dancer," Elton John. Almost the only reason to ever see Almost Famous, and the only reason I mention it here is a so I can mention Chris Hewitt's hilarious no-out-of-four-stars rip of Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown.

8. "Something In You," Orange Peels. Aztec Camera-ian in execution; Advil Sinus (Day)-methadone-ian in elevation.

9. "Ear, Nose, Throat," Troubled Hubble. On the way to the Paul McCartney concert the other night, my wife and I drove past the candlelight peace vigil on the Marshall-Lake Street bridge. Peopled honked and flashed the peace sign at the couple hundred (not the "25 or 50" that the Star Tribune reported) so-called '60s relics and their progeny, bundled up and wrapped in blankets and American flags and holding signs that read, "No More Dead."

A few minutes later, we walked into the Xcel Center, past stretch Hummer limos and semi-trucks embossed with that dorky photo from McCartney's current Happy Days period and words proclaiming "Paul McCartney presented by Lexus," and "Gas 'n' Electricity and Rock 'n' Roll." We left after being treated to an hour of McCartney's MOR self-mythologizing, and only this Mark Wheat-played tune later that night, which roundaboutly skewers the Boomer comfort trap with eyes wry open ("wealthy equals healthy"), could get the bland taste out of my ears.

10. "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got," Bettye LaVette. With age comes wisdom, and on this early-morning confession, a wise blues singer for the ages trades hunger for some sort of self-satisfaction.

11. "Not So Much To Be Loved As To Love," Jonathan Richman. Ricky Martin's got a new album out, fraught with songs about the need to be loved. But this more nourishing, because as JoJo and any true lover will tell you, unconditionally loving others is what fills you up--whether the others love you back or not.

12. "Gone Are The Days," The Magic Numbers. Everybody's favorite new band, and on this love confection, it's easy to hear why.

13. "I Am a Sunflower," Ben Lee. Been thinking about the fact--and you can look it up--that 80 percent of this country equates internal power with money, status, material, and titles, while the other 20 equates power with the inner life and spirituality, and what coroner/near-death experience storyteller Dr. Janis Amatuzio told me last week:

"I've begun to think that we as a society are evolving. I think we're on the edge of something great. I mean, I would hope it would be the fabled 'thousand years of peace.' I can't go home and turn on anything on TV and not see anything that doesn't have a forensic twist to it, and I'm starting to wonder if this isn't a metaphor, a subconscious searching, where, perhaps instead of us saying, 'What happened?,' we're starting to say, 'What happens?' "

If any part of that is true, if we indeed are on the cusp of some sort of spiritual revolution, then it might be time for the ones who have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the other shoe to drop to step up. This could be somebody's campaign tune: "And everybody feels it, and everybody knows: there are those who have the flame and then there's those who just wanna get close."

14. "Ever So Lonely/Eyes/Ocean," Sheila Chandra. The saddest, slinkiest song on this list, from an Indian-Brit crooner, and introduced to me by my Punjabi- and Hindi-music loving friend Hannah in her apartment one night a few years ago, on one of those all-too rare mutual deejay nights.

15. "Dedication to Poets and Writers," Ornette Coleman. If it's true that "your writing will get better if you listen to great music by great musicians," as Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird has it, then this nine-minute squall of beat-crazy violin should make bards out of all us.

16. "Place Unknown," Quintron. If this NOLA organ-grinder and his pussy posse is half as much fun in the Entry this coming Wednesday as he is on this giddy ditty, batten the hatches and do the hip-shake, babe.

17."The Ballad Of Paul and Sheila," Mason Jennings. Thank God for Peter Scholtes, for reminding me of these great spirits on that sad day of October 25. My dog and I happened to visit their beautiful graves the other day in Lakewood Cemetery, which is a song-experience unto itself. Truly, anyone who's sick of all these lawyers, guns, and money owe it to their inner wretches to do likewise before the snow flies.

18. "Run Away Teddy," Mary Coughlan. Hell hath no fury like a stalker scorned, and this one, by the great Irish singer Couglan, makes Halloween a 365-day proposition: "You abandoned me like Frankenstein, now look out Teddy, I'm right behind."

19. "Open," Mike Scott. A lot of the time I look for songs penned by souls who describe mine back to me. I don't learn much from victimhood music or have much patience for phoned-in anything, and I was surprised the other night when I got absolutely nothing from Al Green on Letterman. His soul-cheerleader thing came off empty, because when he sang, "Everything's gonna be OK," his face told a different tale, as if he knew he should be singing the blues for these bluesy times, but that he'd painted himself into a corner where we expect him to be a reverend of reassurance.

On the other hand, this one, from Waterboys' leader Scott, is a slice of how I aim to be in the best of times, but so often fail at: Open to love, spirit, the changing wind, touch, nature, the world within, passion, change, adventure, the new, miracles, joy, service, risk, passion, peace, silence, and that's just the first two minutes.

20. "So What If We're Outta Tune," Marah. The most heartening thing I read in the Star Tribune this weekend was in the Business section. According to Dogpile, on a sample day (Oct. 21), Twin Citians searched the Internet for "music lyrics" (20,406) more than anything else other than "sex," and much more than the next-most searched, "poetry" (2,842) and "hurricane wilma" (1,870). And here I thought I was the only one digging for and digging stuff like:

"So What If We're Outta Tune"
(Marah)

We're desperate in common
In spite of our names
Glowing in a room of Christmas lights and candle flames
We're sick starting over
Missing our cues
If promise rings on ancient strings
Ain't no one got a clue

'Cause oooh lover
I only sing for you
So what if we're outta tune
With the rest of the world

We're humming in circles
Cleaning our plates
Dreaming out our choruses
And slow sad middle eights

A tenner between us
And nothing to lose
By leaving everyone behind us
Silent and confused

But oooh lover
They ain't me and you
So what if we're outta tune
With the rest of the world

So come on darling stay with me
Let's cut through the crowd
Make the most of being lost
In what time we're allowed

We're desperate in common
And missing the jokes
Rollin' through the eyes of snakes
And in the rings of smoke
Strainin' our voices
To no consequence
Cause maybe baby loves the cost of our irrelevance

And oooh lover
That's all I want to do
So what if we're outta tune
With the rest of the world

"14,000 Things To Be Happy About"
(Troubled Hubble)

Tell your mom you're not coming home tonight. You've got your youth, your will, and you're willing to fight. And no conscience could keep your heart in one piece, there's passion to be found, there's stress, there's release.

So into the open air to soak it all in and live your life like the world owes you something more than what you have. Like a one-way ticket or any free ride, a brand new box to put your head inside. Or a neat new monument, with your name etched in. A home to call your own, new problem-free willingly withdraw from certainty and lack of sleep on the pure and peaceful path of stupidity. Growing gets hard, waiting gets old to you. I know, that feeling's no fun, it feels like you're out, down and done too.

Oh grow up, when will you ever learn? When will you learn, that candle in the window is going to be the reason your whole house burns. And the money... It's a carrot on a string. There's a horse standing over a black hole basement after losing everything. But your car, you know, it runs like a dream, and your hair and skin are so fucking clean. Everyone looks at you, like you're an angel or something.

But we'll take the fake happy over knowing what's wrong and we'll give you the stuff that you need to belong, and hope that's what you need, by a small chance. A quick and heavy dose of acceptance. Growing gets hard, time is running out. You'll die, a young and exciting death and tell us all in your last breath, I'm done there's nothing to be happy about.

And we dance, and the flowers come up through the footstep floor mat. And now's your chance, to seize this all, you seize this all, while your smile hides what's beneath keeps the sadness a secret as we grow old, and take it all with us. Now I know there's mistakes that go along with youth, so choose to replace or take them with you and I feel so bad now that I'm so old, so angry, so broke so unhappy, tattooed and ugly.