Well, it’s that time of year again when I look back at my favorite songs from the past year and try to make sense of it all. Five years on and I’m still blogging if for no other reason than thinking and writing helps keep back the cobwebs that come with age. So come join the Jean as we a take a meandering, musical journey through my mind and soul and see where we come out. Enjoy the trip!
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| James Brown |
01. Superchunk – “If You’re Not Dark” (2022) from “Do You Feel Like Dancing?”
There is enough pain and misery in the world- especially these days- to make any reasonable person despair. Yet, despite the setbacks, most people find a way to get up each morning and try again. The difference is in how each person deals with our broken world. Some scowl, grumble, and complain while others smile, bubble, and gush about how wonderful life is. I don’t like to be around the former and can’t stand the latter. I guess, like most people, I am somewhere in the middle. The world is both a beautiful and broken place. To state otherwise would be to miss the obvious.
For Christians, despair is not an option. We are called to help alleviate suffering, carry our individual crosses, and have faith in Jesus Christ’s (God’s) guarantee that everything is going to be okay in the end. Catholics are the ultimate realists because we do not fool ourselves with delusional thinking about life and our place in it. We call it as we see it, especially when it comes to human nature. Perhaps that is why I am drawn to fellow pilgrims who recognise and admit the darkness but do not let it control them. Kierkegaard- to whom I gravitated in college after suffering anxiety- called these people knights of faith- individuals who may appear unburned on the outside but who have been through the fire, are sensitive to existential suffering, and are strong enough to share their pain, learn from it, and help others.
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| Søren Kierkegaard |
Sounds like Superchunk has had it up to here with perpetual optimists, does not trust them, and what a refreshing message that is. The world needs more knights of faith and fewer people with their heads in the sand. “If you’re not dark, I don’t believe it!”
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
– Søren Kierkegaard
02. Supergrass – “Moving” (1999) from Playlist: Good Time Boys II
This Britpop tune has a little bit of everything to please everyone. It was big when I was living in Bulgaria at the turn of the century- unsure if it ever made a big splash in America. I doubt it.
03. The Peppermint Rainbow – “Pink Lemonade” (1969) from Playlist: In Search of Baroque Pop
This psychedelic/bubblegum/sunshine/baroque pop gem reminds me of childhood, including scary stories of wicked witches, magical forests, and houses made of candy.
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| James Brown |
In the mid to late ‘90s, I was listening to a lot of James Brown whose early ‘70s period with The JB’s (with Bootsy Collins on bass) was all too brief but gave the world the most hardcore funk music ever created. Recorded live in Paris in 1971, this opening medley is what I used to crank when I wanted to energize my soul. All these years later, it still lifts the spirit. And this is just JB and the band warming up!
05. Laura Sullivan – “Love’s River” (2013) from Whales, Wizards, and Angels
As I get older and my body begins its inevitable decline, I am becoming increasingly dependent on new age music to soothe and heal the rough edges. There are worse drugs.
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| Superchunk |
06. Superchunk – “Set It Aside” (2022) from “Do You Feel Like Dancing?”
2 Corinthians 4:16-18: Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.
One positive result of the pandemic has been the downgrading of “big” things we once thought so important, and a refocusing on the “little” things which, it turns out, mean everything.
07. David Arkenstone – “Arwen and Aragorn” (2001) from Whales, Wizards, and Angels
When it comes to new age music, I’m still a newbie. I had originally selected George Winston’s “Love Song to a Ballerina” but decided to bump and replace it with this ode to Middle Earth romance. The last thing I want is to wade into or foment any new age controversy, but one must admit Arkenstone’s melody here sounds suspiciously similar to Winston’s recorded seven years earlier. Yet I’m going with David since whereas Winston’s song is sparse, Arkenstone- ever the showman- provides listeners a more lush, imaginative, and pleasurable palette that really transports one into a fantasy world. Sorry, George.
08. Bob Seger – “Against the Wind” (1980) from Teenager Music to Save the Planet
It seems like yesterday
But it was long ago
Janey was lovely, she was the queen of my nights
There in the darkness with the radio playing low
And the secrets that we shared
The mountains that we moved
Caught like a wildfire out of control
‘Til there was nothing left to burn and nothing left to prove
Enough said.
09. Billy Bragg feat. Johnny Marr – “Walk Away Renee” (1986) from New Faves 04/01/2022
Finally, a cover version that improves on the Left Banke’s original.
10. Dawes – “Somewhere Along the Way (Live)” (2020) from New Faves 04/17/2022
I saw L.A.’s Dawes perform live at the Iota Club and Cafe in Arlington, Virginia back in 2010 and even then I knew these guys were not just another bar band. Now one of the biggest and most respected rock groups in America (not sure if that means anything anymore), I still keep my ears open for new Dawes material and this live L.A. rooftop jam is pretty epic. I seem to be softening up to long rock jams in my old age. So be it. Long live the spirit of Laurel Canyon!
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| Dawes |
11. Superchunk – “Digging for Something” (2010) from Playlist: What’s the Alternative?
The Chapel Hill quartet somehow blend old school and new school Superchunk sounds to forge a visceral air guitar party anthem for my generation. Mac’s vocals have the perfect growl in this one.
12. The Beatles – “The Fool on the Hill” (1967) from Playlist: Four Guys from Liverpool
“And nobody seems to like him. They can tell what he wants to do.” When I was a teacher, I used this song to teach English to my immigrant high school students.
“Paul then went back to his guitar and started to sing and play a very slow, beautiful song about a foolish man sitting on the hill. John listened to it quietly, staring blankly out of the window, almost as if he wasn’t listening. Paul sang it many times, la la-ing words he hadn’t thought of yet. When at last he finished, John said he’d better write the words down or he’d forget them. Paul said it was OK. He wouldn’t forget them. It was the first time Paul had played it for John. There was no discussion.”
– Hunter Davies, The Beatles (1968)
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| The Beatles |
13. Ween – “Object” (2007) from Playlist: What’s the Alternative? II
Ween- always good for a laugh, a tear, or a thrill during my college years- were kind of my generation's Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart. This song- from their strongest and what turned out to be final studio album, La Cucaracha- is a sort of a Ween version of the Beatles’ “The Fool on the Hill”. “I’m gonna do something wrong. Nobody’s gonna like it.”
14. James Brown – “Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine” (1970) from The Man Who Invented Funk
Want to get people out on the dance floor at your next funk party? This song will do nicely.
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| James Brown |
15. The New Christy Minstrels – “Cotton Fields” (1965) from New Faves 04/17/2022
Whoa. This is some hard-driving folk music. Move over, Creedence Clearwater Revival!
16. Bettye Swann – “Angel of the Morning” (1969) from New Faves 04/17/2022
I remember hearing the 1981 Juice Newton version as a kid but never paid attention to the adult lyrics before. “I see no need to take me home, I’m old enough to face the dawn… Maybe the sun’s light will be dim and it won’t matter anyhow. If morning’s echo says we’ve sinned, well, it was what I wanted now.” Ouch.
17. Esquivel! – “Misirlou” (1959) from The Easy Way
Whenever you are feeling burned out on music and you just need a jump-start, there is always Esquivel!
18. Book of Love – “Modigliani (Lost in Your Eyes)” (1986) from New Faves 04/01/2022
People make fun of ‘80s new wave music as silly and dehumanized, but I love how so much of it took itself seriously enough to attempt some really far out poetry:
Your glance felt like a knife
So clear, so blue
I was swimming inside
I was swimming inside
You'll always be
Real to me
Well, if you are going to take the time to make art, then you might as well go all the way (and for the jugular), right? I think this song’s title may be a tribute to Italian painter and sculptor Amaedo Modigliani who died of tuberculosis (on my birthday) in 1920.
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| Portrait of Madame Survage by Amaedo Modigliani |
Listen to the playlist on Spotify...
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