Whilst cleaning out the legendary PF database I stumbled across this post. It was written in the year 2000, when apparently I didn’t know how to use capital letters, and when I apparently “blogged.” The shame!! Some of it surprised me but most of it is still valid, seven years later.
these are songs i can’t stop listening to.
the requirements for a lot of these selections is that i would rather hear it play than eat.
1. wilco “shot in the arm”
the queen of broken-heart breaking-up songs. nothing like desperation and loss wrapped up tight in a pop package to make me fall in love with a tune.
2. wheat “girl singer”
“you’re the kind of girl i like/a girl singer/that can really rock like a boy.” what else is there to say? oh yeah, “you’re a little on the tentative side” and “even when i’m fucking you/can’t believe i’m touching you.” low self-esteem buffs lo-fidellity into a crystal clean pop sheen.
3. sleater-kinney “you’re no rock and roll fun”
although their full-length all hands on the bad one wasn’t the masterpiece i was hoping for, this jump-up-and-down non-anthem never stops making me smile. bonus: a wonderful single design (“yrnrnrf”) and a video that’s straight of out yummytown, U.S.A.
4. john black attack “pretty”
i was at parties this year where whole groups of boys would sling their beer-soaked arms over each other and shout out “another straight guy/might treat you all right/but you won’t find,” or however the hell it goes. like a lot of my favorite rock and roll, i can’t figure out half the lyrics but i’m too busy jumping around to care. i do know i hum it when i’m not paying attention.
5. billy bragg/the turn offs “a new england”
i might have heard this song before, but the spare and yearning original was lifted to crashing new heights with the turn-offs’ first show. “i’m not looking for a new england/i’m just looking for another girl.” the turn-offs may scream and shout themselves hoarse trying to convice us that it can’t be that hard to find the perfect girl—or even the next one—but we all know they’re lying. it sure is a great-sounding lie, though.
6. the sundays “here’s where the story ends”
a friend gave me a caseless cassette of reading, writing, and arithmetic earlier this year and i picked up a pristine copy on tape a week or so ago for seventy-five cents. this lilting, slightly bitter song goes down like a sugar pill laced with a bit of cyanide. i can sing along when it’s playing but right now all i can hear is transcendent pop.
7. the talking heads “psycho killer”
both the studio and the live version. either one has the pumping, throbbing, desperate, hunter-on-the-trail bassline that sticks in your head for days. and they both have mister david byrne’s staccato french twist. dark and deep as a cave.
8. spirit of the west “political”
jangling, shimmering pop about how the girl you loved (and love) hates your friends, fucks you up, kicks your ass all around town, and makes you think it’s all your fault. a one-year-relationship relegated, perfectly and without loss of detail or heartache, to a three-and-a-half-minute pop song.
9. beulah “if we can land a man on the moon, surely i can win your heart”
notable for the title alone. i’ve got the whole record, but i’m still in love with the daughter, not the family.
10. 10,000 maniacs/the pretenders “everyday is like sunday”
sometimes you just can’t talk about a song anymore, like a pretty girl you’ve had a crush on forever that finally comes up and talks to you. you’ve played the scene out so many times you ain’t got nothin’ left to say, only the way she makes you feel.
11. elliott smith “some song”
the king of sad at the height of frowning silliness. i remember when i first heard this, alone and drunk in a hotel room on the mississippi coast, working for a job i hated. and it stuck on me like gum i just spit out to my own damn shoe.
12. the germs “richie dagger’s crime”
screaming, confusion, eyes squinted shut. poor darby, but this one’s a keeper. if the germs were so shitty then how come kids hum their songs twenty years later?
13. yo la tengo “tom courtenay”
the beatles, love, rock and roll, wanting, needing, a little needle here, a little needle there, still the best fucking song in the world. maybe i shouldn’t count this but i’m up to thirteen anyway and i know i bought the 45 for the first time this year, and i can’t stop playing it, either.
Oooh, deliciousness! Maybe you should revert back to your lowercase days and give us more lists like these! #5 kills me.
damn, Gorjus, ...those were the days…Starkville hot nites, foulin’ up the census, Red Ryder marksmanship, Southpaw six-packs, abandoned bar tabs, hidin’ from your landlord, emotional breakdowns, emergencey room visits…whew
I still have that “wheat” cd you made me in high rotation. 2000 was a great year. Long live the weekend cd comps/mixes!
I heard a Beulah song in a Target ad the other day. But it didn’t make me sad or anything.
or was that 1999?