Jim Walsh's weekly (Monday) mix of 20 (or so) must-have tunes (11/14)

1. "When It Began," The Replacements. Spent the weekend writing the liner notes for the forthcoming Warners re-release of All Shook Down; can't stop playing this one, an ode to simpler selves, a swan song to a band that once was young and ready for the world, and/or a sad end to the once-limitless promise of a new love. Sure, they stole it from the Neglecters' "It's So Exciting At The Start," but who's counting?

2. "Sunken Treasure," Wilco. Capo on the second fret. Tweedy on stage at First Avenue, plucking the E string, methodically, pin-droppingly, whispering the first song of the night (Nov. 6), to a world/lover/bandmate/colleague who so obviously does not listen to music, "I am so out of tune with you." And, for all who do, all who gathered in its name this night, "Music is my savior... I was maimed by rock 'n' roll... I was tamed by rock 'n' roll... I was saved by rock 'n' roll... got my name from rock 'n' roll."

3. "Always Love," Nada Surf. Best new song and/or potential tattoo I heard all week: "Love always/hate will get you every time." That is, when the finites and ceilings get you down, remember that love of all shades and stripes is the one thing that can make the world feel unfinished.

4. "President Kennedy," Son House. My brother has this thing he does with his iPod. He asks it a question, and lets the shuffle play God, giving him his answer with the next song. I did it for this mix, asking my iTune library, "What should follow this 1964 song, sung by a black bluesman about his fallen American white hero?" The shuffle landed on...

5. "Beware (Jay-Z Remix)," Panjabi MC. An Indian rapper, bumped by tablas and sitars and Bollywood beats, going off about amore and Amerikkka. Perfect.

6. "Pavlov's Daughter," Regina Spektor. Probably the most original vocal performance on this list; as scat-happy as the opening drum intro it mimics, and more earthy than Fiona Apple's comparatively lightweight jazzercises.

7. "Pour Me Another," Atmosphere. Like all great drinking songs-say, Ike Reilly's "My Wasted Friends," A.C. Newman's "Then Drink To Me Babe," Ottoman Empire's "This Is It," the 'Mats' "Treatment Bound," Wilco's "Passenger Side," Gear Daddies' "Drank So Much Tonight (Just Feel Stupid)," etc. etc.-there is a wistfulness at the heart of the frivolity here, and you can hear it in Slug's strained voice: a gut-feeling that there's something more to life, on the other side of the bar.

7. "In The Sun," Joseph Arthur. This is the first song I put on a mix for my friend, Father Jim Debruckyer, who leaves the tiny St. Leonard's Of Port Maurice parish today and starts at the massive St. Joan of Arc this week. This guy is "my priest," the mere saying of which is something of a miracle, given my Catholic-skeptic roots.

But I believe in, as Arthur sings, "May God's love be with you"��"meaning the far-reaching, all-inclusive, big love that so few get a taste of.

That's what Father Jim has been about, ever since I heard him "preach" the first time: love each other and look out for each other. As he wrote in his stream-of-consciousness column in yesterday's church bulletin: "The Gospel today is really about risk. God challenges us to grow. See what you can do with your life. Of course as Sartre said not so long ago, 'People are hell.' But the corollary often forgotten is 'the problem they are also heaven.' The great challenge of our life is to let go of ourselves long enough to love another, to trust our person with their person, to be vulnerable enough to learn and change."

9. "Stout Hearted Men," Shooby Taylor. Speaking of God-like, God bless Burl Gilyard for laying this one on me. Incredible. The lyrics, in their entirety:

SHOOBY TAYLOR - "STOUT-HEARTED MEN"

Whee, shoo soo sah, shoo soo swah, shoo voo plah, doo doo rah, doo doo sah, doo doo rah
Soo-da-li-twee-daht, soo-da-li-doo-ton-plee-blah

Dwee, dah dah shrah, plah plah sah, dah dah rah, plav da shree, loh ku pah, dav du sah!
Soo-da-li dwee-daht, soo-da-li doo-ton plah-blah

Ray, shah-dah-hah, shah-plah-vrah, sah-vlah-sah, shah-plah-rah, sah-vlah-nah, shah-vlah-hah
Soo-day-li doom-bop, doo-dwee-bee-oo-ton-dwee-bee

Bim, soo-dee-lee dee-dah-lah-bay oo-dayt, dayt, dwee-bay-doo
Shrah, soo, shah, nah, rah, sah, pah, dah, hah
Soo-duh-lay dee daht, soo-duh-lay doh-ton twee-bop

Bim, soo-di-lee dee-buh-lah-bay diddle-ay doat-und vee-bah
Bim, doodle-ay deedle-lah-bay, soodle-ay doo-dah-laht-nn
Dwin-shoodle-ay-doo-goo-la, dwin-shoodle-ay-doo-goo-la
Bim, doo-bah-lah-odel-doo-bah-lah-bah-doo-buh-luh-buh-doo-bah-lah-bah

Bim, zhoo-doo-lay doo-goo-lah-bay doodle-ay doat-un dwee-bee, dah
Soo doo-zhoo-lah doo-goo-lah-bay doodle-ay doat-un dwee-bee
Poppy, poppy, poppy, poppy, poppy, poppy, poppy, poppy!
Soo shoo-doo-lay doo-goo-lah-bay doodle-ay doat-un dwee-bah

Bih-mm doo-goo-lah öh-ay-nn doodle-ay hooh-ay-nn doo-goo-lah öh-ay-nn doo-doo-ay
Bih-nn doo-goo-lah öh-ay-nn doo-goo-lah dooh-ay-nn doo-goo-lay oon-da-da-duh

Ooh oopy poopy, poppy poppy, poppy poppy da shra! Poppy da rah! Soo doo-ba-lay doo-dah!
Bim, soo-da-lee doo-goo-lah-bay doodle-ay doat-un dwee-bee doo drah!
Dah dah dah sah, buh doo hah rah!
Ho, ho, ho, ho! So, ho, ro, ho!
Do-o-oh, ho, ho droh, foo-dah-lay-pah
Bim, soo-da-lee dee-dah-lah-bay doodle-ay doat-un dwee-bay doo-ton
Dway, zhoo-da-lee doo-goo-lah-bay doodle-ay doat-un dwee-bee
Dun, zhoo-da-lee doo-goo-lah-bay doodle-ay doat-un dwee-bee
Hoppy poppy poppy poppy doppy doppy dop shra!

Bim, shoo-di-lah deedle-ah-bay doodle-ay doat-un dwee-bee
Bim soo-da-li duh-dah-lah-shree, soo-duh-lay doo-goo-lah-bay
Oodle-ay doat-un dwee-bee, dum shoo-doo shrah-dah,
Bim duh doh doh doh doh duh doh, bay-ton-doh-bul-ah-oodly-shoo-doo-lay!

Dim, zoo-duh-lay doo-dah-lah-bay doodle-ay doat-un dwee-bee oo-ton
Dwen zhoo-doo-lay doo-goo-lah-bay doodle-ay doat-un dwee-bee
Zschrun, zhoo-duh-lay doo-goo-lah-bah doodle-ay doat-un doh-bay
Peepy, poppy, peepy, poppy, doppy dop-ah foo-di-ah bah

Bim, zoo-duh-lay dee-dah-lah-bay doodle-ay doat-un dwee-bee
Skim, soo-doo-lay doo-goo-lah-bay doodle-ay doat-un dwee-bee
Vwin, shoo-doo-lay doo-goo-lah-bay oodle-ay doat-un dwee-bee
Dopey dopey dopey dopey driv-duh-doo shpla-a-a-ah!
Tra

10. "Daylight Savings Time," Rank Strangers. Aloha Taylor is the new weather hottie on WCCO. She has never been through a Minnesota winter. We will hear much about this, starting with tomorrow's six-to-eight inches, and it will come to us without us even trying to hear about it, without us even wanting to hear about it; it will come to us through media-osmosis and people will tell us about the new weather gal on Channel 4 and how pretty she is and how she doesn't know what she's gotten herself into and we will try to stop them, but it will be too late, they will talk to us about this like it matters, like it is something we would like to know, and we will not be able to escape hearing about it, we will be told how that gal from the West Coast is doing and how her co-workers rib her about her first winter all the time and we will hear about it and we will all be so much worse for it. Fuck, is it dark out.

11. "Shine Silently," Nils Lofgren. Seems like all I want to do these days is get to silence and aloneness. This sweetly-crooned gem gets at that feeling of sitting by the river, watching the water and leaves go by, kind of like a marriage between "This Little Light Of Mine" and this:

The Wildest Word
by June Robertson Beisch

The Benedictines had it, they knew
the joys of silence, the illuminating of
manuscripts, the careful diffusion of
esoteria.

The pleasures of abstinence.

Get to a point where you can deny yourself anything
and then you are halfway there, some say.
And poems are made
of love not made.

Emily Dickinson refused
the offered touch and reveled in her own
self abnegation. "The wildest word
consigned to man is No," she wrote.

"You love me best when I refuse."

"Imagined love is better than the real,
and occupies the highest branch of Eden's tree,"
wrote Edna St. Vincent Millay.

"Like fallen fruit, lived love is cheap."

12. "Forget That Girl," The Monkees. Thus begineth the crying-in-your-Tullamore Dew trilogy of the broken-hearted sap.

13. "Fix You," Coldplay. Shhh. Don't tell a soul, but every lover's dream is to fix another's battered soul. This one almost does the trick.

14. "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?," Al Green. How can a loser ever win?

15. "Mercy Now," Mary Gauthier. Message for the mess age.

16. "Highway Nine," Eliza Gilkyson. She's at the Cedar Cultural Centre Friday night with Gauthier. Here's hoping she plays this one, along with "Man Of God" and "Coast" and "Requiem" and all the others off Paradise Hotel, the best folk record of the year, along with John Prine's new one.

17. "Mushaboom," Feist. Finally, a little levity for this admittedly dour mix.

18. "Glamorous Indie Rock & Roll," The Killers. The great lost ironic rock single of the year.

19. "Let Me," Paul Revere & The Raiders. I think I used to sing this with my band back in the day-or was it "It'll Only Hurt For A Little While"? Either way, it's a great boy-beast plea, all tube amps and hollow-body guitars and minimal drum kits, and a primal palette-cleanser to the Robert Blyian father-son sex-ed retreat I found myself at last Saturday. Which I'll tell you more about later, if you're lucky.

20. "Exhilarating Sadness," Saw Doctors. One of my favorite songs from one of my favorite people's favorite bands. Here's something cool she wrote recently about her recent stay in Ireland:

My wish is her command in Dingle

Mrs. Barbara Carroll, Manager of Milestone B&B, provides exquisite hospitality on behalf of Dingle, County Kerry, Ireland. When my family visited Milestone in October 2005, she took us under her wing continuously throughout the weekend. Each morning she took every party into the living room to consult about their individual travel plans for that day, offering practical advice, local lore, and town stories about the sites in the vicinity of the Ring of Kerry.

During one of these conversations, I brought up a movie, "Into the West". The Irish film had topped my wish list for years but was not available stateside. Barbara mentioned that her only film on hand was "Ryan's Daughter", set down the road. When I returned home from my sight seeing, I found a copy of "Into the West" on her coffee table, waiting for me. Barbara had made two trips to locate the movie. She watched the feature with us and annotated the scenes. Afterwards she answered our questions about Irish society that the story raised.
The breakfast aspect of this B&B is phenomenal. The menu surpasses the traditional filling but unvaried Irish breakfast. Imagine scrambled eggs and salmon molded into local recognizable objects. Brilliant and delicious.

When we complimented the chef on the soda bread, we found a loaf ready for us to take with us on our departure.

My physical disability and my wheelchair make traveling and finding lodging a gamble. The Carrolls understood my situation perfectly as they have a nephew who also has cerebral palsy. They greeted us in the parking lot and helped us settle in to expedite the arrival and check-in process. My speech impairment did not impede any communication. The Carrolls recognized and tapped into my passion for Irish history and sustained a dialogue all weekend. I value this direct but rare learning experience.

The Carrolls have worked tirelessly for most of the year. I wish them a relaxing and well-deserved holiday season until St. Patricks Day. I'll be back then.

Johana Schwartz
Minneapolis, MN USA 11/01/2005