lcrelyea
rebeccapatrick
ce.
Tommy Wilson
stephenkillion
amsettineriFiled under: Inspirational Anthems, Songs to listen to with the windows down, Sunny Dispositions | Tags: Jens Lekman, You put your arms around me, you're so silent jens
On days that I drink Earl Grey tea, I have a tendency to listen to Jens Lekman. Perhaps it’s the warming sensation they both provide. It’s chilly and raining here in Atlanta, a pattern that won’t seem to break (I left Muncie, didn’t I?), and the frequent chilly draft of the office leaves me craving sunshine and spring flowers. A good Earl Grey can half-unearth these things, I can feel the tulip bulbs begin to burst through the weary seams of earth with each sip I take. But the bulbs need a leg up, a voice to guide them along.
We would probably find ourselves in a perpetual state of spring if Jens Lekman would just travel the earth singing with a marching band. Remember in Ferngully, when Magi Lune would put her hand to a tree, and new life would spring underneath it? Jens Lekman’s voice might have that power, at least in our hearts it should. Tell me “Maple Leaves” doesn’t make you think sunshine. Listen to “A Sweet Summer Night on Hammer Hill” and try to convince me you don’t feel half drunk on Dandelion Wine.
My favorite lately, although they vary month to month, is “Put your Arms Around Me.” Because it captures the innocent feeling of fresh love. I’m not talking about Hallmark card Love, the kind you let other people articulate for you. What I’m referring to is the kind of love that makes you want to try everything, ever. The kind that makes you feel most alive. You’ll skydive, you’ll jump in puddles, stay up all night, shoot fireworks, make ridiculous art projects, drive anywhere, drive everywhere, all for one other person. In this case, a rare case, I say ignore the lyrics (about Jens cutting off his finger while slicing an Avacado). Somewhere in there is an odd form of what I’m talking about. Springtime can make you reckless.
-Laura
If you could choose one artist to sing you one song to sleep, just once, what would it be? Mine would be “Our Way to Fall,” by Yo La Tengo, because that song is falling in love to me. What a wonderful thing to hear as you’re drifting into dreams.
I remember a summer’s day
I remember walking up to you
I remember my face turned red
I remember staring at my feet
I remember before we met
I remember sitting next to you
I remember pretending I wasn’t looking
….
I remember the way you made me feel
We’ll try and try even if it lasts an hour
with all our might we’ll try and make it ours
cause we’re on our way we’re on our way to fall in love
Toodles,
Rebecca
Filed under: sing like no one is listening
Every now and then, when I need a little zing in my life, when I need a reason to dance while I clean the house or cook a meal, I listen to R&B. The old stuff, of course. The Faces do a pretty good R&B/Rock sound that gives me methamphetaminic energy levels. And I can wash the dishes to the sounds of Marvin Gaye, or shovel the driveway to Aretha Franklin’s best with all the joy and rhythm of a Stomp performance. Minus the fluidity of motion and general talent, of course.
Yesterday, while stirring a pot of fettucine, I needed a little pick-me-up. I went through my record collection and found, tucked behind two Willie Nelson collections and a kaleidoscopically-colored Chuck Berry’s Greatest Hits, I found Joan Armatrading’s eponymous third album. I had bought the record about four years ago at Half Price books, drawn in for some reason by the cover, a shot of Joan standing behind her guitar, looking just a little serious. I’d never heard of her before, and if I can say this without sounding stupid, I’ve never really heard of her since, despite the fact that she has recorded steadily ever since 1972, releasing at least three albums every decade, with her latest album set for release at the end of next month.
Her sound, or at least her sound on Joan Armatrading, is a very folksy R&B. Or maybe Soul would be a better tag, though I’m not sure I’ve been exposed enough to know the difference. She’s got a killer voice. I put the record on the turntable, digitally cranked the volume up so that I could hear it from every room in the house, and stirred my noodles with Love and Affection.
Filed under: Songs to listen to with the windows down, Songs to start your day, Sunny Dispositions | Tags: A Tune for Jack, Driving, Lemon Jelly, Lemon Jelly.ky
If you want to go on vacation, and find yourself faced with a lack of funding, planning, and the general bravery to just get up and go…turn up the heat as high as possible on a sunny morning, roll down your windows, and listen to “A Tune For Jack.” You will instantly be transported to a solar flared photograph of yourself laughing on the beach: tan, freckled, and completely at ease.
There are many things I miss about the various places I’ve lived, for example, cafes in Paris. They just don’t exist here. Barbecue from Georgia – not any of this Indiana sauce smothered nonsense. That just doesn’t exist here. But I cannot see good reason why people cannot wave as they pass each other on the road here.
When I visit family in Georgia and we drive somewhere, except for on the highway, and a car comes near each driver lifts a hand up from the steering wheel just a tad to wave.
At the very beginning of the summer I registered for a kayak clinic at the Nantahala Outdoor Center in North Carolina. Kyle drove me down so that he could take that week to go kayaking with some old friends, and take advantage of all the recent rainfall. As we got closer, especially after Highway 129 (an 11 mile stretch of road taking you from Tennessee to North Carolina with 303 hairpin turns, known as the Tail of the Dragon to motorcyclists) we saw more and more cars with kayaks on their car racks. Now waving at 55 mph is kind of hard, which is why I’ve usually just done it in neighborhoods or city streets, but every time we passed a car with a kayak, Kyle and the other person waved.
We passed a Jeep with two kayaks – they waved.
There was a Suburban on the side of the road with people outside getting ready to put in to the river. They all waved.
Even though we don’t live in the same city, or the same neighborhood, we all love the same wonderful thing. Just wave.
Toodles,
Rebecca
Filed under: Dance like no one is watching, Songs to listen to with the windows down, songs that make you feel cool in uncool moments
Quite frequently, via facebook, I get invited to events and shows in Indiana. It’s great that my friends still want to include me in things, but simultaneously reminds me of cool things I’m missing out on. One such invitation was for an Everything, NOW!/Pomegranates show that occurred last weekend. Everything, NOW! is a great band, full of friends, and it would have been really great to be there. I had never heard of Pomegranates.
But I had been eating a lot of them recently (being a superfood and all).
So, because I love the fruit so much I bought their newest album, “Everybody! Come Outside” without even listening to a preview.
The title track sounds like jumping through a sprinkler. Not in a Vampire Weekend kind of way (they sound more like playful romping on a Caribbean beach). It’s just genuine joy and playfulness, the kind of lawlessness that most people lose when they get their driver’s permit. It’s beautiful.
But the track that made me fall in love is “Svatsi Uutsi.” The initial clapping and playful guitar melodies have a youthful charm that make me want to run barefoot grass in a white eyelet dress and do cartwheels. A montage swims through my mind, hands outside of windows, warm breezes, sunburnt cheeks, and bike rides. What’s not to like about this?
-Laura Celeste
Filed under: Songs for Contemplation | Tags: Vicky Cristina Barcelona, El Noi de La Mare, Classical guitar, spanish guitar, hawaii, haiku, Jean-Felix Lalanne & Muriel Anderson
I’ve had a lot of great moments in my life, but I can count the number of perfect moments on one hand.
The most perfect moment of my life was in Hawaii. [of course it was, you say].
Let me back track a bit. You need to know that I have never felt completely at home anywhere. So those rare moments where I’m in complete unity with my surroundings are the most cherished ones.
The summer of 2004 l I was fortunate to stay with one of my all-time best friends, Jake, and his parents at their home in Haiku, Hawaii. Not once did I feel transplanted there. It was home from the second I stepped foot off of the plane.
One of those mornings I woke up before everyone else and took a shower (which was outdoors, and their was rain on the breeze that ruffled the shower curtain). I dried off, poured myself some coffee, and went to their swinging front porch bench (pictured to the left). Sitting there, listening to the rain was an overwhelming peace. The deepest breath.
I was so happy I cried.
“El Noi de La Mare” off of the Vicky Cristina Barcelona soundtrack, is the only song in the world that can take me back to that place.
-Laura Celeste
Filed under: Inspirational Anthems, Night Drive Tunes, Songs for Contemplation, Songs of Triumph
I possess only five mix tapes. They were all made by the same person, because nobody else has ever made me a mix good enough to keep. Now that I’ve been back for a little while, and am in possession of the necessary technologies, I am jonesing to reciprocate with a mix tape melangé by my very own bibliographically-oriented brain.
A good mix should, in my opinion, be concise, varied, terse, demonstrative more of what the mixer believes than what the listener expects, and compact (I’m really strict on the length of a mix; I recommend no more than fourteen tracks because after that it takes a real time investment to listen to the whole thing at once, which I usually like to do; this time investment sounds nice in theory, but is inefficient and burdensome in practice). A mix tape, as I’m sure all you loyal readers know, is not only a snapshot of a person’s aesthetic taste, but also a guide to said person’s world view, illuminating, whether implicitly or explicitly, the mixer’s stance on issues ranging from politics to desirable careers to beliefs on the requitability/existence of true love. It is inherently vain to make a mix, and we should not shy from that, because it is a vanity fused with pure and joyful generosity.
While whittling and arranging the current mix, I’ve encountered a problem I’m sure many mixers are familiar with: conscious but unintentional artist repetition.
Depending on what theme or motif you want to emphasize in your mix, it’s easy to find many songs from the same artist/group that satisfy that theme, for obvious reasons. For this current mix the motif is origin/rebirth. Thus I am finding quite a few tracks on my first draft list by two artists at the base of my music appreciation: Willie Nelson and Lucinda Williams.
Willie and I go way back. I’ve seen him in concert five times, and when I was a child his name was among my first words. Mom says I used to run around the house while “On the Road Again” played, shouting “Nillie Wilson” (close enough). The man is too legendary to be properly discussed here, at least concisely, so I’ll just say this: it is un-American to dislike Willie Nelson.
And but so Lucinda. I did some research and found out that her first album came out in 1979, but that despite critical acclaim and a small cult following, she didn’t really blow up until 1998, with the album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. I was thirteen when it came out, and trying very hard to avoid my musical destiny by listening to a lot of that Rap music all those kids were crazy about. My mom had around this time turned away from the Ray Charles, Rod Stewart, and Linda Rondstadt she’d been slamming and gotten religiously back into country music (she must have been having an origin/rebirth moment as well). Willie’s back catalog began to flood our household music collection, as well as Car Wheels. We’d never heard or heard of Lucinda Williams, but we took that chance. It must have been kismet. It was the album that put me back on track.
It’s an incredible album. Her electric guitars are dirty and loud, her vocals are gritty as the gravel road she drives down, with the occasional smooth patch. The album rocks, sways, and stops twirling in the middle of the night to gaze inwardly at a personal waning moon. “I Lost It” is my favorite of the rockers. I listen and I see Lucinda singing full throated, slightly distraught, but too goddamn stubborn to let it get her down. “Jackson” could inspire a break-up road trip as the best medicine. “Greenville” may be the prettiest country song of all time. She opens picking on the acoustic, her vocals subdued, cool, like a rock under clear water. Then the tambourine drops a small, spaced beat as another voice provides harmony. The bass is perfect. A shaker comes in. Then my favorite drum sound ever, the simple clean snick of the stick against the metal rim of the snare, just as she shifts the lyrics into second gear.
The relevance to the mix thing is now that I want to put these three songs on the mix I also want to put every great song from every great album she’s made since. “Lonely Girls” from her 2001 effort Essence. “Are You Alright?” from 2007’s West, which kind of ups the melancholy that “Greenville” hints at. And of course, “Real Love” from ’08’s Little Honey, a logical extension of “I Lost It,” the extension being that now, well, she’s found it.
Like the Ryan Adams that still gives me the warm feeling of tending the fire at a corn roast, Lucinda’s music is just so purely American I can’t help but to love it. It’s where I started, and it’s what kept me grounded when I was so far away. It’s a baseball game and a hot dog, an apple pie and The Wave. And I hope, of course, that the recipient of this wonderfully under-construction mix will be moved by it just as I am.
-a.s
Filed under: Songs for Contemplation, Songs to listen to with the windows down, Songs to start your day, Sunny Dispositions | Tags: being there, either way, sky blue sky, songsforyourday, summer teeth, summerteeth, wilco, yankee hotel foxtrot
When Wilco released “Sky Blue Sky” it was welcomed by mixed reviews and my loving ears/arms. For me, who was mildly familiar with the band before becoming a true fan only a few years ago, it was their first album that I could enjoy from its release date forward. I think that’s why it got a special place in my heart. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was groundbreaking, and the first disc of “Being There” always makes my heart go a flutter, but Sky Blue Sky is the album that makes its way through my headphones most frequently.
Someone along the way called it “Dad rock,” A term that was brought to discussion with one of my English professors once, himself a devout Wilco fan. Initially we both acknowledged the phrase’s derogatory intent, but by the end of our analyzation were left to wonder, “What’s wrong with that?”
Personally, I could listen to “Either Way” or “Sky Blue Sky” on repeat all day. It’s alright that Tweedy and the band stepped aside from their edginess, they’re evolving as people in life, it only makes sense that their sound would evolve as well. This progression doesn’t mean that their songs are any less catchy. I frequently get the guitar solo of “Either Way” stuck in my head, and unlike a lot of songs, I’m alright with it remaining stuck there. It’s a song you can wake up to while the sun sneaks through the blinds in lazy blue and white hues. The whole album is great to write to [as I am currently] or daydream to, or sing to yourself while you make dinner, even while you drive on back country roads to the place that you call home. – Laura Celeste
Filed under: Night Drive Tunes, Songs of Triumph, Songs to listen to with the windows down, Songs to start your day, songs that make you feel cool in uncool moments
A few weeks ago I bought The Rolling Stones’ 1967 foray into psychedelia, Their Satanic Majesties Request. I bought the record for one reason: “She’s a Rainbow.” Bruce Eder of allmusic.com calls it the “prettiest and most uncharacteristic song” the Rolling Stones ever wrote for themselves. I’ve always been a Stones fan, but only in the past two.5 years, beginning with the upload of the BSU library copy of Exile on Main Street to my iPod, have I become, as my friend Jake would say, “a fucking fan of the fucking Rolling Stones!” and this song has made its way into my top five.
The past several nights, while driving to the gym, I’ve been turning the volume as high as my little ears can handle and playing–on single track repeat–”She’s a Rainbow.” Sure, there are other good songs on the album, but nothing that pulls the atoms of my flesh together quite like this one. Charlie Watts drums like he needs to save a life. I feel like I could lift the car above my head.
Sony Bravia (who have done a sweet commercial with “Heartbeats” by José González) have done a sweet commercial with “She’s a Rainbow”:
