Merry Christmas, Baby

I feel mighty fine y'all, I got music on my radio...

Otis Redding - Merry Christmas, Baby

E-I-E-I-O

A modern day Old McDonald Had a Farm:

King Khan & BBQ Show - Animal Party


Count the animals and play along with your children...

FYI, other select song titles from this duo: "Suck It and Smell," "Blow My Top," and "Treat Me Like a Dog." Fun for the whole family!

(Just) One More (Time)

The connection between these songs is kind of neat, if a bit generalized. First, we've got the great Rev. Johnny L. Jones (a.k.a. Johnny Hurricane Jones) known for his fiery preaching and soulful singing at his Baptist church in Atlanta. The good reverend is getting on in years now, but he knows that the time is coming soon. One more time, I'm assuming, refers to Jesus's return. Right?

Rev. Johnny L. Jones - One More Time


The next song is a postmodern indie gospel tune, courtesy of Canadian hipster Jon-Rae Fletcher and his old band, The River. His father was a preacher in the rural West, and you can hear the influence. God and Jesus and his teachings have become love and sex and its lessons. It's raw, raunchy, and oozing with passion:

Jon-Rae and the River - Just One More


The parallels here are in the strong undertow: the gospel. Things you don't know empirically, things that just are because they are. They are indescribable and intangible and you feel it somewhere so deep you can't show it, you can only sing about it. The gap between the second coming and a second cumming has never been so narrow.

Sometimes, when everything else has been stripped away, there's still this feeling -- soul, you might call it -- and the gospel, a belief in what you can only take as His word.

Aches and pains

I've had some pretty awful back pain for the last five or so days. It starts in my back, but it goes through my ribs and all the way around to the front side. Maybe it's really just a heartache.

The Flirtations - Nothing But a Heartache


Paul Butterfield Blues Band - One More Heartache

Somebody Fix Me

Feeling a little low tonight and thought I could use a little Grace. When she says, "I have no idea how I got so mean," I know that feeling.

Grace Potter - Somebody Fix Me

Bloggadocio: recent song obsessions

Recent song obsessions, presented without comment:

Lucero - What Are You Willing to Lose


Almighty Defenders - Bow Down And Die


Black Lips - Short Fuse


Amadou & Mariam - Masiteladi


Joel Plaskett Emergency - Nowhere With You

Audience of One

Could any song title capture this blog more effectively?

Cold War Kids - Audience of One

Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion, Upset Stomach, Diarrhea!

Hey Pepto Bismol!

Survived dinner with Judy? Check. Saw a relatively enjoyable movie? Check. Raptors won in exciting fashion? Yep, that too. The night was going along swimmingly until I woke up with terrible nausea at 3 am -- and proceeded to spend the next two hours shaking and sweating and trying to induce burps. This was among the worst nausea I've ever had -- and I've lived through lots of bad stuff. I'm an upset stomach kind of person. It got so bad I started to hallucinate that the toilet was a big jelly-filled rock in the Arabian desert. Ha.

The ordeal lasted two hours and it didn't kill me, but I don't feel any stronger. A wild night.

Van Morrison - Wild Night


Dave Van Ronk - Midnight Hours Blues

I'm Sick Y'all

Finally finding my way back to health. I don't exactly know what I've been sick with, but it has required lots of sleep and I've had virtually no energy for a couple days. Otis Redding, in his classic style, wrote this song to be a kind of meta-fabric of previous songs: it's a blend of Try a Little Tenderness (the "got to, got to, got to" part) and Pain in My Heart (the "pain in my heart" part). I don't really know where this was recorded, but it has the feel of an off the cuff live performance. It arrives here courtesty of disc two of the sublime Otis! The Definitive Otis Redding anthology. This is Otis, y'all, and he kills it. A must listen.

Otis Redding - I'm Sick Y'all


I'm sure I missed some more meta-references. If you hear one or eight, comment it.

Road Songs

I'm on the bus to Syracuse, where Myles will pick me up and the action ensues. Funny to say that it has been nearly a year since I had my own GOTV.

Free WiFi on the bus sort of changes the meaning of classic road songs, don't you think? The beauty of being on the road was it's solitude. You are cut off from everything else -- just you, maybe some friends, great tunes, and the landscape.

There is no shortage of classic road songs. I humbly submit these to you:

Canned Heat - On The Road Again



Neil Young - Roll Another Number (For the Road)

To Maria, I give everything that was good

This not a song about the heartbreakee, it's a dedication to the heartbreaker. I don't spend a lot of time musing about my own breakup from last year -- whatever "situation" there was has ironed itself out, as appropriate -- but I can't help but think this is the best breakup song there is. It's like Jon-Rae is saying, Oh, Maria, where do I start?

Relationship history is full of baggage. Does it represent my own? Sort of, but if only from the feeling in JRF's voice. Being a great song by Jon-Rae, whom we would listen to at the right moments... that might have something to do with it. I'm not wistful at all, and since moving on I've been happy -- probably happier than I've let on. She's worth it.

Enjoy this one, please, it's top notch.

Jon-Rae Fletcher - Oh, Maria

Saturday night special

Another special twosome! Well, it's Saturday night, and not a particularly unique one, so here goes:

Bon Jovi - Someday I'll Be Saturday Night


Somehow that Bon Jovi song hasn't aged as well as this one:

The Grateful Dead - One More Saturday Night

Early to bed twofer

I just might be asleep before 11:10 -- which would mean a whopping nine hours of sleep! A couple of sleep-themed tunes for tonight, albeit with completely different meanings:

Semisonic - Singing in My Sleep


The Vines - I'm Only Sleeping

Don't Eat the Yellow Snow (Brand)

Another late night, doing something that isn't very hard that I should have done hours ago. It's about the Japanese milk producer, Snow Brand, and just how freakin' terrible they were in handling a food safety crisis about a decade ago. Corporate communications, or lack thereof, was among the problems. Neat case study, actually, and there's some really good stuff on the web about it.

It turns out some valves in the plant had been contaminated and that made about 13,000 people sick. Frank Zappa has some advice on the matter:
Frank Zappa - Don't Eat the Yellow Snow

A Democratic Manifesto: Like a Bob Dylan protest song

REP. GRAYSON: Comparing what Joe Wilson did to what I did -- it's not the same. What I did is like a Bob Dylan protest song. What Joe Wilson did is like a belch.

[Crooks and Liars Videocafe]

---

One would have thought that more of today's leaders—if they're somewhere between age 50 and 65, and almost all of them are—grew up in a time of social upheaval and change. You would think there would be lawmakers whose political senses were sparked by Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger and Sly Stone and maybe even Bruce Springsteen. Most young liberals, including me, derive inspiration in protest songs, songs of change, songs that confront what's wrong with the world we live in. If we are reaching back and finding meaning in these songs, shouldn't the youth of that era be doubly influenced?

Working late into the night

Sam Cooke - Wonderful World

Chocolate barrel politics?

Not money-filled briefcases. Not lobbyists and corporate contributions. Not influence peddlers and CEOs. Why, the way to a Senator's heart is chocolate! Quick, someone alert the movers and shakers in DC! Capitol Hill newsrag The Hill dropped this bombshell:

...Democrats have practiced small random acts of kindness toward Rockefeller, though it’s not entirely clear if they have any ulterior motives. For example, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), a member of Finance, gave Rockefeller his chocolate dessert at a lunch meeting last week.

Lisa Says

Sometimes I wonder if I would have been a Velvet Underground fan at the time they were recording. I seriously doubt it, it was probably too outside the mainstream, especially if I had been living somewhere other than New York at the time (and I have absolutely no reason to believe I would have been living in NYC). What other bands do you like that you might not have appreciated when they were still active?

The Velvet Underground - Lisa Says

Goodnight

Still testing out this embedding thing, but I think I've got it down. You can download the song, or you can listen with the flash player (or both!).

A little goodnight from Etta James. Her advice is real.
Etta James - Do Right Woman, Do Right Man

More bloggadocio

Heartless Bastards - Hold Your Head High

Snobbery with a side of that icky, emo-loving feeling

I find myself enjoying a Bright Eyes song. This feels horrible. How many times did I dismiss him as a poseurish emo fraud? Ugh, that's before you add in the fact he was a child prodigy -- and I hate child prodigies. But the song, Four Winds, from the Cassadaga album, well... it's good. Love the fiddlin'.

My seventeenth attempt at sharing/embedding media is below:

Bright Eyes - Four Winds

My first post

Hereby welcoming myself to the blogging world.