Song of the Week: Introducing the "SOW Shuffle"

We're coming to you live from Otherlands in sunny Memphis, Tennessee! 

Don't believe me?  Check out this picture, here, on the right, taken just now with my camera.  I moved into Milam's Midtown HQ this past weekend and am still getting settled, which is to say: my one chair is in place, there are Fruit Roll-Ups in the kitchen, and the Internet Guy hasn't come yet.  Which means I've moved into Otherlands for the foreseeable future.  No, seriously, if you need to find me, just come here at any given time.  Or Java Cabana.  Or the Starbucks on Union.  Or the Blue Monkey or the Hi Tone or Neil's.  There are six places I'm pretty much always at when not sitting in Chair and eating Fruit Roll-Ups.  Come and find me.

I've had a little caffeine today, and I've got limited interweb access, so we're going to try something new with this week's Song of the Week!  I'm tentatively calling it, "Chris Incontinently Gushes About the First Song that Pops Up On His iTunes."  Sound good?  Great.  A few ground rules:

1) In two minutes, I'm hitting shuffle on iTunes and writing about whatever comes up.

2) I'm trusting that whatever comes up on my iTunes is something I'll want to incontinently gush about.

3) If it's Christmas music, I'll try again.

4) Otherwise, I trust the Tunes.  I trust, and I believe.

4A) Did I mention that, due to limited interwebs, this will be wholly unedited?  I'll put the number of typos over/under at 7.5.  Who wants the under?

5) I like to take Song of the Week in a lot of different directions.  Sometimes I break it down from a songwriting perspective.  Sometimes I talk about that song historically or what its popularity might mean for pop music at large, etc.  Sometimes I just talk about the way I'm hearing it and ask how you're hearing it.  But I thought it'd be fun to experience it spontaneously, as a listener, in that moment, because that's how 90% of the people I know experience 90% of their music.  They put on headphones and hit shuffle and let their mind/heart/soul go wherever that song takes them.

Ready?  Ready!  Here....we....GO!

SHUFFLE.

Frank Sinatra, "The Christmas Waltz." 

Sonofa.  Of course.  Okay, we got the Christmas mulligan out of the way.  Here we go.

SHUFFLE!

The Thrills, "Til the Tide Creeps In"

YES!  This is the last track on their album So Much For the City, which has a hidden song at the end.  In other words, we just got two Songs of the Week for the price of one. 

1) First, "Til the Tide Creeps In."  My initial thought is football-related, as I'm counting the hours until Alabama's season opener this Saturday against San Jose State/Houston High School.  The Tide creeps in all too slowly, I'm afraid.  Meanwhile...

2) This song immediately takes me back to Christmastime 2006, and the spring of 2007.  My good buddy (and producer wunderkind) Steve Martin gifted me this album then, saying "it's a bunch of Irish guys singing songs about California."  Sold!  The key-heavy production and percussive hustle-and-bustle of the record matched the holiday season.  But it really ramped up rotation for me once the warm weather came, coinciding with my trip to Southern California that spring.  It's one of those albums I find myself playing a lot, because I have only good memories attached to it.  What are some of those for y'all?

3) The song's loungy, closing-time opening and "in summation..." lyrics put a great cap on the album as a whole.  It continually builds up to an instrumental section that first appears at 1:26 (again at 3:20, et al), a gorgeously-layered riff with a melodic harmonica leading the way.  Every time I hear that riff, I want it louder.

4) Which reminds me just how loud that harmonica already is.  Combined with the already-dominant organ, it's (intentionally) a challenging sound.  I say this as someone with a very soft spot for the harmonica: it's almost too much.  It joins Dylan's "Queen Jane Approximately" on the God-that's-great-but-a-little-harsh pantheon of harmonica features. 

5) I've always had strong affection for LA, and a mild compulsion to move my career there at different points.  I always opted out, figuring it's a great place to visit but (for me, anyway) not a place conducive to work.  I had a vision of an afternoon by the pool with friends wherein I wake up years later with a great tan and no job, prospects, or aspirations.  As such, the "I was surfing this tidal wave of faded glories/a San Diego pad, and five, six years walked straight by me" opening line always jumped out at me.  Because of this song--it's emotional weight and its aesthetic success--I totally related to an experience I never even had.

Now, the Secret Song!

1) Beginning at 6:07 of the original track, it's not quite an afterthought, not quite an epilogue.  Ever see a movie that starts with one scene, follows the characters throughout the movie, then ends with a new set of characters in the same opening scene?  The implication being, "the cycle continues..."  This secret song kind of does that.  We have a bittersweet goodbye to a SoCal time and a place with "Til the Tide Creeps In," only to see someone new arriving on the scene with big dreams and time to kill.  Just as our narrator's packing his bags, his girlfriend's unloading hers off the bus. 

2) After the weight of "Til the Tide Creeps In," the secret song is really nice and thoughtful, but feels anti-climactic.  If you like the album as a whole, you'll definitely like it.  As for me...

3) I made a habit of ending the CD with "Til the Tide Creeps In" and not sticking around for the secret song.  So much so, in fact, that I forgot it existed until just now.  And now (of course) I couldn't be happier to hear the same song I was always quick to skip in the past.  I love it when that happens.  I love being wrong.

What do you think?  I challenge all of you to drink way too much caffeine, play the shuffle game, and see where your mind/ears/blog-typing fingers take you.  Hit up the comments and tell me what happens!

My agent says writer's block,
CM

P.S. Look out for a new Fan of the Month on Monday!  Plus, get your questions in for the next Mailbag--you ask, I answer.

In My Stereo

Mother Nature doesn't know where she is or what she's doing these days and, bed-ridden and cough-exhausted, I guess I don't either. The Weatherbug tells me it's February, then May, then December, then May, and just from the look of things out my back window, it's somewhere between winter and spring. Meantime I'm drinking hot liquids and putting another record on because, really, what else can you do in February but wait for warmer weather or better basketball?

(Go Tahgers.)

So, now's as good a time as any to bring back "In My Stereo." Here's what I'm hearing these days...

Atherton - "California"
This links you to the Myspace page, but "California" is not there. Go to ITunes and get it. Trust me. If there's a better song for the winter-weary and restless-hearted individual, I haven't heard it lately. While so many songs about California (or westward migration in general) are ambivalent or bittersweet, this is one man's true love song about coming home. The production is perfect, the vocals are inspiring, and the song sets me moving.

Phantom Planet "The Guest"
From one sunny Californian anthem to a sunny Californian band, "The Guest" is the title track to PP's debut album back in 2002. On a record full of cheerful pop tunes, this harmonics-laden melody is anything but joyful. The quiet verses contrast with the upward-spiral of the chorus, juxtaposing subdued frustration and helpless abandon. The two guitars create a gorgeous counter-melody, and the cryptic lyric of the refrain ("would you please put out your cigarette?") is somehow the perfect sentiment. This is the sound of one tiny straw breaking the camel's back.

The Thrills "Say It Ain't So"
And now an Irish band writing sunny songs about California (noticing a trend, are we?). This track, off So Much for the City, is typical of The Thrills: jangly percussion, glistening pop songwriting, electric guitar melodies swirling around. There's a girl in the song, and there's a guy, and someone's leaving, and someone doesn't want someone to, but really it's a celebration of the present as much as a epitaph for the future. The lead guitar work is as good as any in their catalogue, and it's great to drive to.

Magpies "Cobblestone Road"
I saw the Magpies at East Nashville's 3 Crow Bar, opening for Cory Branan a few months back. The tracks on Myspace don't capture the raw power and urgency of their live sound (especially their frenetic and outstanding keyboardist), but "Cobblestone Road" stayed with me enough to warrant a download. The song starts at the outset of a night, when anything is possible ("Here comes the night and I'm feeling like a pistol-whipped criminal"). By the end, with the singer's climactic wail that "those nights are gone," we realize it wasn't so much a portrait of the present but a cry out for a wild and desperate past. The chorus, especially live, is something to behold.

MGMT "Time to Pretend"
Two Memphis transplants in Brooklyn, armed with three coats of irony and a heavy synthesizer, got a Columbia contract and are making noise with the absurd and awesome single, "Time to Pretend." Their album is called Oracular Spectacular. Their genres are listed as "surf/jungle/country." The song is a bombastic, over-synthed, ridiculous pseudo-statement about living the rock and roll lifestyle from kids that like to hang out in zoos. It's also well-written, genuinely funny, and remarkably catchy. Everything about this band screams "don't take us seriously"; if they keep "screwing around" this well, it'll be hard not to.

North Mississippi All-Stars "Make Me Down a Pallet"
I can't speak (yet) about Hernando, the new release by the All-Stars. Nor can I speak (yet) about their current tour, as they haven't made it (yet) to Nashville. I can say that the "Songs of the South" tracks on their Myspace--evidently a new collection of Mississippi-folk tunes--are ridiculously good. "Make Me Down a Pallet" is the All-Stars at their surprising best...within the structured and simplistic confines of a simple melody, a blues guitar, and a true sentiment. Sure, they can do electric-wailing-in-the-night-blues-groove as well as anyone, but this is an interesting change of pace for them, and one that makes them a better band.

My Morning Jacket "Nashville to Kentucky"
This song isn't on their Myspace, but track it down. As someone who has made this trip countless times, this song is the sound of that rough and desolate stretch of road. Hop on 65N in a bad mood, drive until sunset, hit play, and wait for the harmony. It won't fix what ails you, but at least you'll know you're not alone.

Cory Branan "Freefall"
Go to Cory's Myspace and play "Freefall" in his music player. Better yet, download it for free. This is a live bootleg of an unreleased song and, a few audio skips aside, it's among his best work. Actually, for my money, this could very well be his best song. Not coincidentally, it's one of his darkest...painting the stark and unforgiving portrait of a man in a single scene, and relationship, that he can't seem to shake. Like Tom Waits, his funniest lines are never far from his darkest moments ("And I was fucked up/as my haircut/you were wasting good perfume..."). The guitar part is absolutely perfect--ominous, beautiful, building to an explosion that never comes--and the penultimate lyric is one of his greatest lines, "I've been drinking with those three-chord girls/everybody knows exactly how they go." When his voice sails, hangs (for 13 seconds!), and finally settles on the word "go," it's a moment of universal truth, and remarkable beauty.

Heard any of these? What are you listening to? Give it to me...I've got nothing but good headphones and time.

Go Tahgers,
CM