The East Coast is alive and well in San Francisco. At a birthday party Saturday night, I compared notes with my side of a long table and three of us went to high schools so close together we could’ve run into each other at the same McDonalds. It’s New York, it’s Boston, it’s the suburbs of DC—and for a couple months of the year, it’s the same conversation: Isn’t it so nice to be done with winter?
Disliking winter is simple: Who wants to slip on ice or endure those long months when it’s bitterly cold without the chance of snow? Who enjoys those days when it’s just never-enough layers and cutting wind, and one sad grey face after another?
Summer is it’s own strange beast though, my first love/hate relationship. I was not built for summer in Baltimore. I’m hilariously pale, perpetually dehydrated, and fairly certain that my blood is just sugar and perfume, since having upwards of 20 mosquito bites at a time is very normal for me.
I loathed the long summer months—but I loved the surreal, magic tinged bits. Pale green fireflies outside my bedroom window, crackling thunderstorms in June, the warm scent of honeysuckles in the heat, an olfactory memory that sums up the word “luscious.” Driving at dusk to the snowball stand, slurping crunchy ice and cherry chocolate syrup from a Styrofoam cup, bare feet perched on the dashboard. The sweet, heady boredom of suburban adolescence in the summer, all tied up in movie theatre air conditioning and cheap sunscreen, drinking Evan Williams in a field or backyard and wondering what to do next.
Are these memories a little far-fetched? Do they ignore relentless sticky days where the outdoors seem sweaty and downright hostile? Yes. But I recommend embracing the idyllic and silly side of things—I recommend embracing that side whenever you get the chance.
So this is a soundtrack for staying out late with nothing to do, for driving barefoot while a storm gathers, for navigating leafy side roads as the sun sets and the day’s sweat cools on your bare arms and legs.
I am back on the first substances we ever embrace—caffeine and sugar. I have Easter egg foil on my bedroom floor and heaps of coffee grinds rotting in my compost bin. I devour a square of chocolate on the walk home from the grocery store, handfuls of dried chili rubbed mangoes (“They’re healthy?” I think, despondently scanning the label). Another black coffee, another, a third—I would like to sip it straight from the pot. I stopped drinking alcohol a month ago: out of nowhere, it started giving me vicious heart flutters. So now I embrace caffeine shivers and scrape together spare quarters for candy like a kid. The Cults sing ‘What I most want is bad for me, I know,” and I nod in agreement.
“What a perfect love song,” I thought the first time I heard “Baby” by Devendra Banhardt. It’s a tall order, modern love songs—so easy to be cheesy or overly simple, so much easier as a listener to lean on the greats from a few decades ago when it comes to romantic music. But this song is silly, pure and joyful, fun to hum and play loudly. And my heart is silly, pure and joyful, it hums and plays loudly, because last month the person I love the most asked me to marry him and I said yes. You can see the happy, bejeweled owl that sits on my left ring finger and makes me smile.
It’s warm and there are little jasmine blossoms on the bushes when I take my walk, there’s a cherry tree that’s flushed and frilly. The sun is out at seven o’clock and I swear I was wrong, San Francisco does have seasons, you just have to live here for three years to feel them. It’s Spring, and the cheerful chorus of “Polaroid Song” is spot-on: “Feel like dancing on my own/ To a record that I do not own/In a place I’ve never seen before.”
It’s Spring, and Van Morrison is a man for all seasons. Every crunchy leaf or drift of snow, every soft pastel April day or first humid morning is best met with a Van Morrison song. I’m sending you glad tidings, from San Francisco.
“Strawberry Bubblegum” sounds like being a teenager in the summer, when you just started driving and there’s that one song that makes you feel sexy and alive, so you play it as much as you can, and the local station follows suit. I’m so tired of the eight minute song, a new favorite of intelligent popstars and rappers, but my weak attention span and jam band hangover didn’t stop me from loving the new Justin Timberlake album. I didn’t expect to, but how can you say no to something so fun and summer-perfect when soaring temperatures and swimming pools are around the corner?
And speaking of things I didn’t think I’d love, a lesson learned: Try the music you hate again. Just like every taste, your music tastes change without you even noticing. And speaking of songs that sound like being a teenager in the summer: “Keep the Car Running” by Arcade Fire fits the bill. Yes, I said I didn’t like them and believed it. Changing my mind was refreshing, and made me wonder what else I was missing. Could I enjoy other things I’ve disliked for years, like Twizzlers or horror movies? A Freon and fake butter scented movie theatre in Baltimore is surely the place to find out. I’ll keep you posted
San Francisco, I thought we had a deal: I fork over the astronomical rent and sit through more conversations about militant veganism than I would like. You, in return, provide me with year round sun dappled sweater weather, the kind that makes my East Coast friends contemplate growing third arms just so they can flick me off thrice.
So what’s with this dark rainy stuff, huh? I saw a child wearing mittens today. MITTENS. The handful of serotonin that I still have woke up this morning, threw open the curtains, and said “Nope!”
But, there is a bright side: Rainy day songs! In honor of this terrible-no-good-very-bad-weather, here are my top five rainy day songs.
“And It Stoned Me” by Van Morrison
A rainy day song list wouldn’t be complete without Van Morrison. “And It Stoned Me” is a classic, full of awe and childlike wonder. If you need a solid empowerment slogan, I say skip all the over-Tumblered quotes and write “Oh the water/Get it myself from the mountain stream” on your mirror.
You know those comedians who could read you a phone book and you would laugh? Their jokes are impossible for other comedians, who lack magical, inexplicably humorous voices. Van Morrison could sing me the latest Bieber trifle, or even his grocery list, and I’m sure it would glue me to the spot, widen my eyes and fill my thoughts with vastness and strange joy.
“Shipbuilding” by Elvis Costello
“Shipbuilding” is about the Falklands War of 1982 and the prosperity that it brought to shipbuilding towns, who then had to send their sons to war on the ships they built. It’s slow and rich, with sparse luscious stretches of piano and cymbals and Chet Baker on jazz trumpet. I didn’t know what this song was about until I started writing this, but that didn’t make it less haunting, particularly the lines “With all the will in the world/Diving for dear life/When we could be diving for pearls.” Something about it has always reminded me of driving in the rain.
“Dry the Rain” by the Beta Band
I found this song the way most people did: through the moment in High Fidelity when Rob turns it on with the promise that merely playing it will sell five copies of The Three EPs by The Beta Band. It’s a nice nod at the earnestness inherent in music obsessives like myself. We’re not always snobs, sometimes we’re not snobs at all, but we are people who hold the delusional belief that if we play you a song, you’ll understand everything we want you to understand. You’ll hear it just like we will and together we’ll embrace the best kind of empathy: the kind that comes with a soundtrack.
I wish we could stand in a record shop together and listen to this while drinking a plastic cup of cheap red from a bottle stashed behind the register. We would listen to this song that starts with so much sadness and vulnerability, then becomes something joyful and overwhelmingly comforting. How perfect is that for a rainy day?
“Cigarettes and Coffee” by Otis Redding
I think my brief smoking career really ended when I couldn’t smoke in 24 hour diners any more. If that treat still existed, I don’t know that I could consistently ignore the siren song of cigarettes, black coffee, and the promise of late night pancakes. Otis sums up the end of one of those nights so perfectly—when the cups are empty, the pack is almost over, and dawn is around the corner. Where will you go? Will you go to sleep, or will you stay awake and savor the twinkling promise of adventure that exists when the day is long over and you’re running on adrenaline? Wherever you end up, know this: If it’s late and raining, make sure you’re listening to Otis Redding.
“Cherry Wine” by Nas and Amy Winehouse
Hide out from the rain and curl up with someone who knows you so well, just coming home to him or her proves that “Life is good.” This was one of my favorite new songs this year; it’s so charming and full of genuine affection. And it brought Amy Winehouse back, if only for a few minutes.
Smile, dance around, fall in love a little—the rain isn’t all bad. Pour some cherry wine. Let Amy Winehouse and Nas cheer you up.
It’s autumn. I want sweaters, pumpkin beer, tomato soup, a new hair color (I’m thinking dark brown? I know you guys care), and these albums. In no particular order, but in particular I’d like them all at once, thanks.
These are all albums that I listen to here and there throughout the year. Come October 1st, I start playing them on repeat through Thanksgiving. I have no idea why. They fade out with pumpkin spice, holiday flights, and that first clean whiff of impending snow.
Lost In Space by Aimee Mann
Autumn has it’s own class of sweets. We might add frilly pastel frosting flowers on spring cupcakes, or blanket a tart with stone fruit in late summer, but we don’t introduce an entire suite of flavors only to forget them for nine months the way we do in autumn. Cinnamon, nutmeg, dark brown sugar, molasses—any edible goodie that’s given a “harvest” or “fall” moniker features a combination of these flavors. It’s a dark, warm, and ultimately complex flavor backbone, even though it feels simple and comforting.
Lost in Space is musical harvest cake. The tone is somber but complicated. Though the lyrics and themes are dark, it’s not music you listen to if you want to lean into sadness, or cultivate it. Mann’s impeccable grasp on pop song craftsmanship keeps each song catchy and hummable, even though a million tiny pieces are working to make the songs so warm and easy to digest. Listen to it with the windows open on a crisp day while eating something lousy with nutmeg and pumpkin.
Exile in Guyville by Liz Phair
I listened to whitechocolatespaceegg about a thousand times (not an exaggeration) before I ever heard Exile in Guyville. And it took me years to finally listen to it—I started obsessing over Liz Phair in late middle school, I heard Exile in Guyville for the first time when I was 24. The only reason I listen to this album in autumn is because I bought it the first time my family visited me in San Francisco, about three months after I moved, and it was October. We went to Haight Ashbury and bought armloads of CDs at Amoeba, including this one. It was a really perfect day, and the first day that I felt pretty certain that I lived in San Francisco and wasn’t just on some endless visit.
The Queen is Dead by The Smiths
I feel like I’m supposed to like The Smiths a lot more than I do. Which is weird, because I do like them, this isn’t a band I’m supposed to like but don’t. But I’m not obsessed and they’re not a go-to if I were to list bands that were indicative of my taste. I think they have some really good songs, and some boring stuff, and Morrisey seems like a wang.
I heard this album for the first time in Autumn, again way later than seems appropriate (I think I was 22. I’m not even sure how that happened. It was also sort of embarrassing because 500 Days of Summer came out around the same time and I felt like a total poser, even though I hadn’t seen the movie yet. Isn’t there a joke about The Smiths and posers in High Fidelity? Five bucks if you find it. Leave it in the comments.) (P.S. I probably won’t give you five bucks.)
Tupelo Honey, by Van Morrison
There’s nothing like driving around on back roads with the windows down on a crisp Autumn day, playing Tupelo Honey. It’s great during any season, of course, but something about big pretty leaves falling and that waning end of the day sunshine makes it even better. Also good music for the beginning of a party, before everyone is there, on a chilly night. And for when you’re up much too late, writing a paper, drinking a cup of very hot coffee.
The Best of the First 10 Years, by Elvis Costello
I know, a compilation! How embarassing! But it’s a really good one, and honestly I just get a hankering for Elvis Costello in general and it felt like a cop-out to put “Elvis Costello” down as though he were an album. Why Elvis Costello in autumn? He’s clever, bright, a little slow on the tempo (sometimes), and a lot of his songs have a distinct dreamy quality. Good soundtrack for drinking boozey cups of apple cider, or very hot coffee, while letting your mind wander. So far this month I can’t stop listening to “New Lace Sleeves” and “Living in Paradise” (which isn’t on this compilation. I’m breaking all the rules here. Eep.)
I’ve really enjoyed this past week of foggy weather.
Now it’s sunny, coat-less and warm during the day, but the truth is I like the city when it’s cloaked in fog. I liked walking around and watching the fog hang in the street lights, I like the way it makes all the tall views in the city look like Impressionist drawings of what, just the other day, was clear and crisp.
I take these epic, head-clearing walks almost daily, up and down several hills, in wide squiggley ovals through the city. When it’s foggy, the soundtrack to my walk changes drastically. I like the idea of seasonal songs, and it’s one of many things I miss about having seasons. Fog songs are about as close as I get.
“Spooky,” by Dusty Springfield
We don’t get sticky summer nights, when the air is dense and your blood quickens. When the fog rolls in, it’s the closest San Francisco gets to a sensual, seasonal moment—the thick low fog, the feelings it stirs, it’s all strange and a little wild, spooky. Dusty gets it. The first line “In the cool of the evening/When everyone is feeling kind of groovy” is right on.
“Swingset Chain,” by Loquat
I’ve been trying to reclaim this song. Do you ever do that? There are some songs so stanched in memories, often unpleasant ones, and I would like them back without the baggage. In the first dregs of a long, dark winter a few years ago, I listened to this song constantly. It reminds me of crisp, hard November coldness and teary Metro rides. It reminds me of a box of Trader Joes crackers I used to come home and eat while drinking white wine and watching bad movies, like a triage for winter blues that seemed to facilitate them more than abate them. But I want to listen to it again without cracker crumbs in my lap or a sigh lodged in my throat. It’s dreamy and catchy; it’s even by a San Francisco band. When I walk around in the fog, “Swingset Chain” feels fresh and that winter feels far away.
“Fluffy Lucy,” by Cracker
A few weeks ago, Joshua and I were trying to list our top 5 lustworthy musicians. I wasn’t great at this list–I’ve never been much for crushes on musicians (boy bands were sold to my generation so hard in our puberty years that it turned me off, rather than on) and most of the men I listen to rabidly fall into a playlist labeled “Sad Old Guys.” I have a lot to say about Richard Thompson, but I don’t really want to take him home.
That said, David Lowery is also kind of sad, and comparatively kind of old, certainly a guy, but I think he’s silly cute and always have. A little crush is nice on an almost dreary day. But even if you lack a Lowery crush, this song is one of many slower Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven songs that work well when walking through the fog (See: “That Gum You Like is Back in Style“). “Fluffy Lucy” is a great example of one of these: soulful, slow, a little suggestive. The soft strum of the guitar, the light drumming and sparse piano moments, it’s all the kind of pace that works perfectly when slowly ascending steep hills. I hope it hits the chorus when you get to the top, where the outlines of the city have gone smudgey, like a child just finger painted San Francisco onto the skyline.
“The Crane Wife, Pt. 3,” by The Decemberists
Joshua listed this as one of his Top 5 Snowed in Songs, which I think is definitely in the same genre family as Foggy Day songs. It’s lovely and sparse, full of rich imagery and music that makes me feel wildly hopeful and excited. I think it has something to do with the way the sounds build, and how the music seems to burst on the chorus. The Decemberists make a lot of good foggy day music; I like walking up a hill listening to this, and walking down the hill listening to “Red Right Ankle.”
“Sweet Thing,” by Van Morrison
Van Morrison created a song that sounds and feels like falling in love. Bright, happy, rich and strange, dizzying overall. Sometimes in the deep fog, the trees seem bathed in an otherworldly light. Flowers pop, bark glows, the outlines of leaves and branches seem to hover and sway. It reminds me of when I first visited the city, when I wandered through coffee shops and book stores, when I sat in the park half-crazed on espresso and couldn’t stop smiling. It was like falling in love—it had to be. You can’t move across the country for anything less. Bounding up hills, wandering the city, watching the same views become even more beautiful, it makes me fall in love with San Francisco all over again. It still seems strange and wonderful. It’s still exactly where I want to be.
Claire’s List: If we named these lists, I would call this one “Napkin Songs” or “Margin Songs,” since they lived on napkins and in margins, scribbled over the course of several months. In a weird experiment, I listened to them in order, and they mostly worked as a playlist, with a few minor alterations.
This song is what it sounds like – it’s a ten minute guitar solo. I’m not big on them as a rule, but this one is different and a little (and mostly likely apocryphal) backstory is necessary: The guitarist, Eddie Hazel, was sat down in a room with a guitar and given a whole bunch of acid. When he was tripping balls, the band started playing a slow backing rhythm. George Clinton then told Hazel that his mother was dead and to start playing the guitar. Halfway through the blistering, emotionally raw solo, Clinton shouted to Hazel that he lied and his mother was alive. You can hear in the track how the playing changes. Still, it’s an awesome song to be snowed-in to. It’s long, it’s haunting, and if you let it, it will take your breath away easier than that draft seeping in the window.
D’Angelo – Untitled (How Does It Feel)
What do you want when you’re snowed in? I know I want a blanket, some hot chocolate, a roaring fire, and a special someone to snuggle up next to. This song is perfect for that – Snuggle up next to your baby and the fire and put this on. Soon enough you’ll be generating enough heat together to want to put that fire out.
The Band – Acadian Driftwood
This isn’t exactly the happiest song. It speaks of the expulsion of the Acadian people from Canadian islands and the hardships they endured during and after. But the melodies and somber and soothing and the guitar is lilting and strangely powerful. It also has great winter lyrics, my favorite being “I set my compass north; I got winter in the blood.” And the singing of Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson always sets my mind to ease.
Miles Davis – All Blues
I was very close to making this list all jazz. There’s something to be said to huddling around in blankets with the windows covered in snow and listen to Miles Davis or John Coltrane soulfully eek out a wonderfully crafted solo. This song has that in spades. It’s slow-moving and plodding, helped by having a simple blues 1-4-5 chord progression played in a 6/8 waltz feel. The head is an almost dark, muted affair mingling Davis solo with harmonies by saxophone and trombone. This whole album is good for a snowy day, but I find I gravitate towards this song and the lead track, “So What,” namely because their dark motifs remind me of the windows being caked in snow and it being dark, darker than it should be for 2 in the afternoon. Brew up some dark coffee for this one.
The Decemberists – The Crane Wife 1 & 2 / The Crane Wife 3
These are the title tracks the Decemberists’ fourth album, comprising one of their best song cycles. It retells the Japanese folktale of the crane wife. She is found, in the form of a crane, by a lonely peasant, who nurses it back to health from an arrow wound. Once she is set free, she returns as a beautiful women…well, why don’t you just listen to it? It’s heartbreakingly beautiful and impeccably sparse. Colin Meloy, the singer/songwriter for the band, is in rare form in this song cycle. An interesting side note about the songs: “The Crane Wife 3” is the track that opens the album, while “The Crane Wife 1 & 2” is the second to last track. It’s a great choice – “3” sets the tone for the album and piques the interest of the listener, who’s being let into the story in medias res.
Honorable Mentions:
The Decemberists – January Hymn: Disqualified from the main list simply because it’s too on the nose. Otherwise, a beautiful track.
Jamie Cullum – High and Dry: I normally hate Radiohead, but Jamie Cullum’s mournful vocal tone makes one glad you’re not outside.
Rasputina – Snow Hen of Austerlitz (Cellist’s Revenge Mix): Melora Creager’s ethereal, haunting voice only compounds the dark, dark plucks and short bow-strokes of the cellos on this track. Put this one on then watch The Shining. You’ll be terrified of the snow afterwards. And shouldn’t you be?
CLAIRE’S List
Shawn Colvin — “Riding Shotgun Down the Avalanche”
The guitar, at once spare and lyrical. Colvin’s voice, with it’s rising, even-keel alto (also Alison Krauss is music’s version of salt and her voice is the definition of “dulcet tones”). The lyrics, heavy-hearted and restrained. The combination is quiet and haunting, the sonic equivalent of stepping outside mid snowstorm, when everything is silent, and neighbor’s houses and lawns are one endless blur of soft white. The chorus’s request to “Be quiet tonight, be sure to step lightly, on this mountain of new fallen snow” is fitting. This is the beginning of the storm. This is when it’s still magical, when your home is still warm-bellied and comforting, when the days haven’t passed and the tempers haven’t flared.
Joshua Radin — “Winter”
I don’t love snow. Now that I live somewhere without it, I have a sort of idealized craving for it when I come home for the holidays. I want to watch it flutter in the street lights, I want the soft powdery snow that piles up in the backyard and demands saucer sleds and mittens, regardless of age. This song is when it stops being fun. When I’m no longer barrelling down the enormous hill in my backyard, slicing through the cold air with ruddy cheeks and layers of soaked clothing. When the darkness, cold and still, wraps tightly around my house and the slow sadness of being alone, in the dark, with my thoughts, creeps in. On the nose, to be sure, but Radin’s whispery voice and the lyrics, painfully self aware to the point of melodramatic, exemplify the “I’m starting to wish this storm would end” feeling. Or, as I call it, Day 3.
Sufjan Stevens — “For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti”
There are images of writing we all want—ones with big oak desks and low light, with a cigarette clamped in your teeth and a cup of coffee going cold and oily in the corner. The kind of writing that demands typewriters, thick glass tumblers, unbuttoned shirts and pushed up sleeves. You can be that person when you’re trapped inside. I’ve never done it successfully (my snowed in writing process goes like all of my writing processes—get up every 5 minutes, wear pajama pants, become really particular about having a glass of water, or cleaning something, or doing any and all non-writing related things). This is a good writing indoors song. It makes you feel something, though it’s hard to say what, and its got the right energy for being inside, thinking, maybe even productively.
Brian Eno — “By This River”
I used to work at a tiny music memorabilia company called Connected Music. I was there for years, starting in high school, and I attribute my Brian Eno love to that time. (My Top 5 Connected Music bands: Brian Eno, Nick Lowe, Bootsy Collins, Leftover Salmon, Lucinda Williams.) During one rough winter, (personally for me, financially for the business), the three of us listened to Eno, drank black coffee by the gallon, and snuck off for frequent, jittery smoke breaks, the smoke and our breath visibly intertwined in the cold air. A storeroom full of Devo costumes and Aerosmith lunchboxes is a weird place to discover Brian Eno, but there he was, the perfect soundtrack for long cold days in a musical bunker.
Van Morrison — “I Wanna Roo You”
One bright spot in an otherwise dark list. Van Morrison is required listening for snow days. And this song, a bouncey number set on a snowed in day, is perfect. The 23rd of December has come and gone, but may all your snowed in Roo-ing (or snow-less Roo-ing, for that matter) go exceedingly well. Roo away, everyone. Roo away.
Honorary Mentions:
Counting Crows — “Long December”: This song is being fifteen, sad, cold, and terribly deep. Pairs well with red wine pilfered from your parent’s bottle stashed under the sink.
Interpol — “Obstacle 1″: Featured prominently on a mixtape someone gave me in high school, which I listened to relentlessly for years. The first notes always give me the fresh anxiety of driving through a snow storm.
Mama Cass — “Dream a Little Dream of Me”: A good moony, daydreaming song. Snow days can be joyful and lovely. Our lists don’t reflect that (much), but I swear, it’s a possibility that your snowed in day will be all cocoa and old movies, picturesque views and good food. Fingers crossed, and if it is, here’s music for that sort of day. Enjoy it.
Joshua: At my job (for those of you who don’t know, I make the bagels at a small Baltimore café [a Jew making bagels? Go on!]), we have a busted-ass iPod speaker set. The actual part one would hook an iPod up to it is busted so all we can do with it is listen to the radio. The only station it picks up reliably is 100.7 The Bay, Baltimore’s only native classic rock radio station. Unfortunately, it’s corporate owned so it’s basically a Top 40’s station with classic rock instead of pop. The other day, I was working my ass off, slaving over the hot oven when I realized every single song they were playing had pissed me off. Every single song was terrible. I related this to a co-worker, who then said, “But they play the same damn songs every day, just in a different order.” So I said, “You’re right. I guess the order is what’s pissing me off today.” And that’s the crux of what we’re talking about this week. These are songs, if they came up on your iTunes or some other non-Apple-based-software shuffle you would totally dig, or at least not skip. But when they come on the radio and you can’t do anything but turn it off or suffer, they will piss you off every time. Bonus: Both Claire and I listened to a stream of 100.7 The Bay while writing this. We don’t recommend doing the same while reading it.
JOSHUA’S TOP 5:
Led Zeppelin – Kashmir
The problem I have with this song is really just the length. I love this song when it comes up in my shuffle. I mean, they are playing in 4/4 time and simulating 3/4 time over it. It’s a wild song. But the novelty of the time signature wears off about 4 minutes into the 8 minute song and certainly after the 69326th time you’ve heard it and had to sit through the whole damn thing. Not to mention it was sampled shittily by Puff Daddy for an even shittier remake of Godzilla.
Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb
I will come out and say I don’t really like Pink Floyd. People always tell me it’s because I haven’t “opened my mind” enough (read: acid), but that’s not the problem. The problem is that their music is bland and boring. This song is second to only “Wish You Were Here” in the boring Pink Floyd oeuvre. Side note: The scene in the movie The Departed where Leonardo DiCaprio gets it on with Vera Farmiga is both hot as hell and set to a much better version of this song, sung live with Roger Waters and fucking Van Morrison. This version I would love to hear on the radio, but instead I get the insanely boring album version.
David Bowie – Fame
The biggest problem I have with this song is that it’s one of two or three songs they play by David Bowie, the others being “Space Oddity” and “Ziggy Stardust” and that’s it. Bowie has a huge collection of music and most albums are nothing like the one that just came before it. Having “Fame” being the one song 100.7 has fixated on playing by Bowie makes him seem like a one-hit wonder, which is both patently untrue and offensive. And racist. Why racist? Shut up, that’s why.
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young – Ohio
This song is fine to sit through, with the exception of the chorus, which is needlessly repetitive. However, the real problem I have with it is the same problem I have with any song with a message on the radio: The more you hear it, the less the message hurts. And this song is supposed to hurt when you hear it. But all I can think about when it comes on the radio is “When the fuck will they shut up about ‘Four dead in O-hi-o’?”
Fleetwood Mac – The Chain
I actually really love this song. Straight up, unabashedly love this song. And that’s the real problem. I can’t hear it as often as 100.7 wants to play it, which seems like every two hours. When it comes up in my shuffle, I sing along so loud. And it has special meaning for me too: The first time I saw The Decemberists, I went to go pick up the tickets with the girl I was dating at the time (who, of course, was the one to get me into them) and I got to hear them doing their sound check and they totally sang this song. We were the only two people there…which makes it even worse to have to hear it as often as they play it. It tarnishes what should be a magical memory.
CLAIRE’S TOP 5:
Van Morrison — Brown Eyed Girl
This is a great song. Joyful, summery, with Van Morrison’s grainy Irish molasses voice (this is clearly a nonsense description, but you know what I mean, right? Like if molasses and a loofah had an Irish love child. There, that’s better), and the lovely silly “Sha la la la” chorus, designed by Russian scientists for maximum head bopping. Unfortunately, this is THE ONLY Van Morrison song for most classic rock radio stations. Oh sure, once in a while they’ll throw in a “Moondance,” or an “Into the Mystic” if they’re feeling really feisty, but when they need to hit that daily Van quota, they’re reaching for this. And after too many listens, those opening notes become a cue to switch that station, because not only is this a so-over-played-it’s-impossible-to-listen-to song, but it’s a so-catchy-it’s-impossible-to-shake-out-of-your-head-song too. Dangerous combo.
The Pretenders — Brass in Pocket
I love the Pretenders. I didn’t know that for years, because for years this was the only song of theirs I had ever heard. Years I tell you. It’s not a bad song—repetitive to a fault, more than a little cloying. But it’s another quota song, another “Hey guys, the Pretenders are classic rock, right? What’s the one song we need to play by them?” or “Hey, we never play songs by women, lets play “Brass in Pocket” and then….Heart?” Sigh.
Bob Dylan — Like a Rolling Stone
The overplaying of this song is part of a giant covert plot to make everyone hate Bob Dylan. Here’s the selection process: Lets look at a huge, luminous body of work (forget almost everything the man put out in the 80s, and that Victoria’s Secret commercial, okay? For me? Thanks.), and pick the most nasal, early Dylan-y voiced tune, play it incessantly, and only switch it up with “The Times, They Are a Changin’,” which fits the same voice model. And luckily, both songs are really long, so if you skip them, you end up going back to the station like three more times before the damn thing is over. No wonder everyone seems to answer the “What artists do you not like who you’re supposed to like?” question with Bob Dylan. For a lesson on how to like Bob Dylan again, just go listen to Blonde on Blonde a few times over. You’ll figure it out.
John Lennon– Imagine
“Imagine” is a haunting, beautiful, hall-of-fame-of-songs type song. And this is why it shouldn’t be treated like the latest Katy Perry pop trifle and put on repeat. Sometimes good songs needs to be treated like good foods. You wouldn’t eat a double ice cream scoop full of caviar. You wouldn’t spread foie gras on toast every morning and eat it standing up over the sink. Sure, it sounds awesome. But after a while, those luxurious treats would transform into technically good, but ultimately unexciting, foods that you could definitely do without. Who wants to feel that way? That’s how I feel about “Imagine.” Give it space to breathe, classic rock radio. And as with all artists—the man has other songs. Play them.
Everything by James Taylor, ever.
James Taylor, I hear you’re a good artist. And after reading “Girls Like Us,” I hear you’re a heart-breaking sex icon. That’s all terrific. Congratulations. Unfortunately, I can’t listen to any of your music. You are one of the few quota-less classic rock radio musicians, which means all of your music has been played to death. Maybe you’re proof that artists do need quotas?
