Jim Walsh's weekly (Monday) mix of 20 (or so) must-have (or get 'em whenever you get time) tunes. And yes, I really do make these mixes and listen to 'em as I write. This week's mix (12/06):
1. "City Lights," "Hundred Dollar Bill," "Rocketship," etc., Dylan Hicks. Here begins the campaign to draft this ace songwriter-slash-writer up on stage to sing a couple of his much-missed tunes at First Avenue's 35th anniversary party next week. If you agree, tell him yourself at dhicks@citypages.com. A guy can dream, can't he?
2. "Sad and Beautiful World," Sparklehorse. Just got back from walking the dogs. The city is dark and quiet, under the first blanket of snow. The creek, lakes, and river are starting to ice up. Helped out at a funeral today. Coffee, cakes, wraps, penne pasta, coats, scarves. An old friend sent a crate of mandarin oranges from an organic farm in California. The sticker on the box reads "Protect From Freezing," but doesn't say how.
3. "Dignity and Shame," Crooked Fingers. I read somewhere that when you're in your teens, change is like putting on a new pair of jeans; as you get older, change is like turning a big ship. This is the sound of the creak of the vast vessel, cutting through the waves.
4. "Change," Tracy Chapman. A song about turning points that turns into a turning point itself. For the listener to be in its presence and ignore its lessons, is to not even hear the fucking song, not even be of the same species as her, and to thine own true self be untrue.
5. "I Will Keep The Bad Things From You," The Damnwells. I will sleep above the covers, I will love you like no other," sings the knight in shining armor just before the fall, then he turns his notebook page-so quietly/clearly you can almost hear the studio couch and beer at his side-to a new chapter.
6. "Paradise With You," Hot Club Of Cowtown. Best durn love song I've heard in a coon's age, from the soundtrack to Four Dead Batteries.
7. "This Time Isn't One Of Those," Vigilantes Of Love. The Beatitudes (acoustic version).
8. "I Envy The Wind," Lucinda Williams. Not to mention all those lucky-ass snowflakes.
9. "Northwest Airlines," Wesley Willis. What happens to all those mechanics holding signs on the side of the freeway that read, "You're Next" when the temperature goes below zero?
10. "Hung Up," Madonna. Like Brianna said, if you can't dance to this-even on the inside, even just a little bit-you're fucking dead.
11. "You and Me," Her Space Holiday. The fetal-going chump-guy gets the worst of it in this break-up tune, but maybe that's just me: It's hard to hear him over the voice-over in my head, from Rob in High Fidelity: "What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"
12. "You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast," Buddy and Julie Miller. Keefish guitar riff + plainspoken lust + Julie moaning "c'mon baby, take me to school" = a blurry beacon that shines with the same promise as the White Stripes' "We Are Gonna Be Friends."
13. "Blank Husband Epidemic," Of Montreal. Unhappy aunts and uncles! Unsuccessful men! Restless-hearted women! A ditty! A happy ending!
14. "Living In The Moment," Mason Jennings; "Moment In The Sun," Clem Snide; "Moment," Zolof The Rock 'n' Roll Destroyer; "Be Here Now," Oasis. Eighty-six-year-old poet and City Lights bookstore founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti in the New York Times magazine: "In the 60's, there was a famous slogan, 'Be Here Now,' which in fact was a best-selling book by Ram Dass. Today, with the cell phones, the fax, the Internet, the whole schmear--the slogan you have today is 'Be Somewhere Else Now.'"
16. "In Case We Die," Amy Nelson. A carpe diem waltz that makes the most of the end-of-the-affair moment, recasts the romantic melodrama with smart-ass humor, but never can say goodbye.
17. "Guitar Strings and Foolish Things," Cash Brothers. Nostalgia as Band-aid.
18. "Apply Some Pressure," Maximo Park. What happens when you lose everything? You start over again.
19. "I Gotta Run," Everybody Else. For the full story, don't listen to the little boy-bluster that says, "I don't miss you," "I don't want to see you," and "I'm done." Listen to the guitar gently weeping, and the sing-songy break when he pep-talks himself into his new way of being, "He don't love you like I do, but I can't chase you anymore today."
20. "For Everyman," Jackson Browne. Those much-hyped "noise cancelling" headphones suck. I know; I tried 'em, and I could still hear the Bose store clerks hawking home entertainment systems. Call me crazy, but for $300 you should get a head-hermitage that takes you away with as much hush as this ode to outsiderdom/self-spirituality, from Jackson's new live one.
This week's guest Walshfilers:
Gary Louris: "Everybody's Happy Nowadays," The Buzzcocks. "Philosophical punk rock, but mainly just 'cos. It was that or 'Nothing Compares to U' by Sinead or 'Get Back In the Line' by the Kinks or 'The Kiss' by Judee Sill. Screw it. I think I will pick 'Astronomy Domine' by Pink Floyd, because I love Syd. Syd and Skip Spence should have ruled the world, let's face it."
Marc Perlman: "Let It Be," Gladys Knight & the Pips. "You may find yourself someday a prefabricated American Idol runner-up or last year's Nashville sensation. You may find even find yourself Rod Stewart. In other words, you may find yourself irrelevant. You never could or no longer can write your own songs. That's OK. But for god's sake, don't make anyone else's worse. In other words, leave the Beatles, Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Kris Kristofferson, etc. alone; stick with the Diane Warren and David Foster.
"Because you're too talentless and not fun enough to do covers like Hookers and Blow; or you're too talentless, uninnovative and soulless to interpret the great songs, like Joe Cocker used to (and with due credit to Denny Cordell, Leon Russell, The Grease Band and Jimmy Page). Don't, because you can't. Please.
"Because it takes more than talent. Cocker's defining of Traffic's "Feeling Alright" and The Lovin' Spoonful's "Darling Be Home Soon" was nothing compared to the sheer gall it took to completely hijack "With A Little Help From My Friends," "The Letter," and "Just Like A Woman".
"The art of interpreting classic songs is dead. It died with Cocker, Motown, Gamble and Huff. The soul singers. One of whom, a young lady with a voice that could rival Mavis Staples, along with her older brother and a couple cousins, took Paul McCartney's most emotionally recorded ballads and made it unlistenable. I don't mean unlistenable like how the Counting Crows made "Big Yellow Taxi" unlistenable for all time. I mean as great as The Beatles' version of "Let It Be" is, as much as I listen to The Beatles almost daily, I find myself skipping over theirs in favor of Gladys Knight and The Pips' version. Sacrilegious, yes, but hear what she does that today's "song interpreters" don't, the way she finds the thing that makes the song more than the songwriter: That "other" that ties our emotions to McCartney's and hers and everyone's.
"You can talk about how the Motown and Gamble and Huff/Philadelphia production style was more on top of the beat, more gospel; or about emotion was brought out in the arrangements and instrumentation--all of which is true. But what it boils down to is guts. Guts to take a song and make it yours. That's what she did with "Let It Be". Not for posterity, the way Cocker did with "With A Little Help From My Friends." But for that moment, when she was singing it, when the mic went to tape, it was all hers."
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