Tag: 2009 January

  • Five Feet High and Rising – Johnny Cash – 1959

    Five Feet High and Rising MP3 I credit my father with my earliest exposure to Johnny Cash.  And whenever I hear this song, I end up thinking of him and wrestling with how I feel about him.  Because this song makes me feel a genuine affection for him that I don’t normally feel.  And something […]

  • Why Can’t I Be You – The Cure – 1987

    Why Can’t I Be You MP3 In April of 1987, I went to treatment for depression and drug addiction.  I spent a few months in psychiatric intensive care, which was enlightening.  Let’s just say I needed to be there.  Then when I was no longer a huge risk, they sent me over to the adult […]

  • Le Kick – American Fangs – 2009

    Le Kick on MySpace There was a flop house for a punk band on Houston’s east side in like 1985.  Depending on the day, you would find any number of people there.  Because of lifestyle concerns (meaning most of the residents were up all night and slept all day), the windows were rigged to keep […]

  • Prophets – A.C. Newman – 2009

    Prophets MP3 There’s a feeling in this song that I can’t quite get to.  And I can hardly understand what’s he’s saying, but I don’t think not knowing what he is saying is the thing that is keeping me from knowing what this song means to me.  The feeling is just too abstract and it […]

  • Third Rail – Aaron Trumm – 2006

    Third Rail MP3 I worked at a large medical insurance company in Quincy, MA for a couple years of my 20’s.  I did several stints at this company for different reasons and under different circumstances.  (They made me interview every single time to make sure I could act like I cared.)  Mostly around school breaks.  […]

  • Interview – Simon Bookish – 2006?

    Interview MP3 I was unable to find this MP3 for sale.  I just keep listening to it on the Simon Bookish MySpace music site.  If anyone knows where to find it, let me know. In my 20’s, I probably had somewhere around 50 or more jobs.  I really was always just trying to make enough […]

  • Believe – The Bravery – 2007

    Believe MP3 They sat in a one bedroom apartment in Houston off of Gessner watching a movie on the VCR and eating frozen pizza.  Only one of them had a job at any given time.  None of them were in school.  The movie ended.  Dan went off to the mattress in the bedroom to sleep.  […]

  • Help I’m Alive – Metric – 2009

    Help I’m Alive on Myspace There’s something I keep trying to capture with all of this writing.  I am still not satisfied that I have come anywhere close to it.  I guess part of this is that I am trying to quantify what it is that makes a song good.  There is an abstract truth […]

  • Everything is Everything – Lauryn Hill – 1998

    Everything is Everything MP3 I am always changing my mind about redemption.  I am conflicted.  On the one hand, I appreciate the concept and have to admit that it is a selfish appreciation.  My life has been filled with mistakes.  Not to get mistakes mixed up with accidents.  Some of the mistakes I am talking […]

  • Viva La Vida – Coldplay – 2008

    Viva La Vida MP3 I feel like an asshole writing about Viva La Vida. Yesterday I wrote about A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum. A Whiter Shade of Pale deserves a couple of gigabytes of criticism, interpretation and commentary. With this in mind, I plan on writing about that song again some time […]

  • A Whiter Shade of Pale – Procol Harum – 1967

    A Whiter Shade of Pale MP3 Another reason I started my blog was this song.  I looked on the internet for any sort of essays or blog entries about personal impressions or meanings around it.  Nothing.  I was incredulous.  How is it that one of the most haunting songs of the classic rock genre has […]

  • Broken In All The Right Places – i am jen – 2005

    Broken In All The Right Places I used to go to this club on Lansdowne in Boston called Axis.  I went there enough that I usually just walked in without paying.  I knew the bouncers, the cashiers and the bartenders.  I look at pictures of myself from this period of time and wonder how that […]

  • What’s the Frequency Kenneth – R.E.M. – 1994

    What’s the Frequency Kenneth MP3 It is so easy to get caught up in your impressions of a song by what is being said in the lyrics.  It’s also an unreliable way of interpreting a song.  I think there is no greater example of this than What’s the Frequency Kenneth.  You can plug “What’s the […]

  • Zwei Streifen Im Blau – Couch – 2006

    Zwei Streifen Im Blau MP3 In any sort of music critique, it is so easy to rely on the narrative provided by the vocalist.  But it is a complete misconception that there is no narrative in instrumental music.  Our ears have fallen deaf to music that provides no literal vocal narrative.  The narrative is, nonetheless, […]

  • Kiss It Off – Little Feat – 1973

    Kiss It Off MP3 Here is a completely obscure piece of 70’s rock. And in this song is every feeling or memory of the late 60’s through the 80’s that everyone who lived this version of that era would like to quietly sweep under the rug.  Or maybe anyone who lived through a period of […]

  • PDA – Interpol – 2002

    PDA MP3 On March 26 of 2003, me and my wife got in the car and started driving to St. Luke’s Hospital in the medical center in Houston.  She was in labor with our son.  Or more accurately her water broke and he was coming out one way or another.  The Interpol CD had been […]

  • The Conductor – Ume – 2009

    The Conductor MP3 I have no idea what band I saw first at the Cabaret Voltaire in Houston.  It was the early 80’s and it was likely to be something like Bark Hard, Stark Raving Mad or Blind Ignorants.  But I do remember that it was a revelation.  What an amazing thing it is to […]

  • Everybody’s Talkin – Harry Nilsson – 1969

    written by Fred Neil Everbody’s Talkin MP3 I find the hardest thing to do when writing, especially about music, is catching myself when I am trying to be cool.  It’s quite obvious to most people when someone is trying to be cool.  I don’t think that people put it like that.  It just generally comes […]

  • I Lost My Color Vision – Burning Hearts – February 2009

    I Lost My Color Vision – Burning Hearts MySpace I love music that has a sadness that burns with this kind of optimistic intensity.  But Burning Hearts does it for me. I used to walk up and down Clay Road.  Do you need a map?  I don’t know how many times I made this trip.  […]

  • Wild Is the Wind – Nina Simone – 1966

    written by Dimitri Tiomkin, Ned Washington 1957 Wild Is the Wind MP3 I hate that when I am listening to something like this, and I feel like I have to go back to look everything up.  “Who is playing the piano there?  Who is on the bass?  How did she feel about this song?  Who […]