Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

It seems that the first New York City mix was well received, so here’s another one. There will be at least one more (or two, depending on how popular this one turns out to be), next time going retro in black and white — like all the great New York photos.

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TRACKLISTING
1. Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Jules Munchin – New York, New York (excerpt) (1949)
NYC hook: It’s our three sailor friends’ first time in New York, and having just arrived on shore leave (happily in New York, not in LA where they might have gone on to beat up Mexicans), they already presume it to be “a helluva town” because “the Bronx is up, but the Battery’s down”. Additionally, “the people ride in a hole in the ground” (as they do in many other cities, so big deal, chums).

2. Frank Sinatra & Tony Bennett – New York New York (1994)
NYC hook: Let’s face it, our boy from Hoboken was a promiscuous man when it came to American cities. Chicago? His kind of town! L.A.? It’s a lady he can’t say goodbye to. Las Vegas? He made it! And New York? Well, more of a challenge than a love affair; it seems. By the way, the song needs no fucking high-kicks, party goers.

3. Theme – Seinfeld (1989)
NYC hook: Would Seinfeld have worked had it been set anywhere else? Nah!

4. Klaatu – Sub-Rosa Subway (1976)
NYC hook: The song that caused speculation about a clandestine Beatles reunion. Alas, it was just a bunch of Canadians with a funny name singing about Alfred Beach, the man who built America’s first subway in New York, based on the London Underground. (More on Beach)

5. NRBQ – Boys In The City (1972)
NYC hook: You might leave New York for the country, but you’ll still sing about “the trees in the Park”.

6. Harry Nilsson – I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City (1969)
NYC hook: New York as the new Jerusalem instead of its usual role as a fetid Babylon. So Harry makes his pilgrimage to the city permanent, leaving all his sorrows behind. Same year, he soundtracked Hoffman and Voight’s exit from bad, bad NYC.

7. Mason Jennings – New York City (2002)
NYC hook: Jennings is in love in and with New York City.

8. Kevin Devine – Brooklyn Boy (2006)
NYC hook: The eponymous lad is doing coke on his birthday, prompting Kev — rarely a herald of rampant cheer — to launch into an apocalypso.

9. Ian Hunter – Central Park N West (1981)
NYC hook: Hunter obviously hates living in stinky, crime-ridden, burning New York City. Except he doesn’t: “You’ve got to be crazy to live in the city, and New York city’s the best.”

10. Donavan Frankenreiter – Spanish Harlem Incident (2007)
NYC hook: A rather decent cover of Dylan’s 1964 song about having steamy, casual interracial sex.

11. Bobby Womack – Across 110th Street (1972)
NYC hook: 110th Street is the street that divides Harlem and Manhattan. Bob is not painting a pretty picture of what lies at the other side of Manhattan: pimps and hookers, pushers and junkies jostling on the streets of “the capital of every ghetto town”.

12. Billy Joel – New York State Of Mind (1976)
NYC hook: The New Yorker might leave the city for Miami Beach or for Hollywood, but if they are anything like Bronx-born, Long Island-raised Billiam, they’ll miss the New York Times and Daily News (but not the Post, it seems) so much, they’ll feel compelled to return.

13. Ella Fitzgerald – Manhattan (1956)
NYC hook: On his wonderful radio show, Bob Dylan described the Rodgers & Hart song as a love letter to New York City. Who knew that Zimmerman had a way with words? Ella is full of giddy tenderness as she provides us with a partial road map of the city. Are pushcarts still gliding gently on Mott Street?

14. Hem – Great Houses Of New York (live) (2006)
NYC hook: Native New Yorkers Hem don’t need to mention the city in a song that incorporates its name in the title to prove that it’s set there. It suffices to refer to NYC’s winter climate as a metaphor for a dying relationship, a recurring theme in Hem’s beautiful songs..

15. The Mamas & The Papas – Twelve-Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming To The Canyon) (1968)
NYC hook: The Mamas and the Papas lived in New York before moving to Hawaii and then to California. It seems fair to say that they didn’t dig New York — “every thing there was dark and dirty “ — and this is their fuck-you note to the city. Most likely, the Daily News won’t be enough to lure them back.

16. Odyssey – Native New Yorker (1977)
NYC hook: Two decades before Thingymajig Bradshaw in Sex And The City made her, erm, acute observations about the politics of sex, Odyssey had it already figured out: “No one opens the door for a native New Yorker.” So, like, take charge of your life yourself, girl!

17. Elkow Bones & The Racketeers – A Night In New York (1983)
NYC hook: A sadly ignored club gem whose horns sounds like New York traffic to me. Delicious.

18. Nicole with Timmy Thomas – New York Eyes (1985)
NYC hook: What in the name of all that’s ophthalmological are these New York Eyes that have short-lived soul starlet Nicole attracted to ’70s soulster Timmy Thomas (who I presume provides the groovy keyboard here)? Whatever they are, reciprocally gazing at Nicole’s NY eyes, they make Timmy feel good inside.

19. Beastie Boys – An Open Letter To NYC (2005)
NYC hook: And it’s another love letter: “Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten, from the Battery to the top of Manhattan. Asian, Middle-Eastern and Latin, black, white — New York you make it happen.”

20. LL Cool J feat. Leshaun Williams – Doin’ It (1995)
NYC hook: Six people are credited with writing this droll ode to physical intimacy. None of them have sought to distance themselves from this lyrical gem which surely provides all the required evidence to support the notion that ladies really can’t help themselves but love Cool James. Mr Toddrattles off the specials on today’s hum menu: “It’s the first time together and I’m feeling kinda horny, conventional methods of makin’ love kinda bore me. I wanna knock your block off, get my rocks off, blow your socks off, make sure your G-spot’s soft” (you get hard G-spots? And, more importantly, how do you get away rhyming “off” with “soft”?). With Cool James, sex is a matter of territorial chauvinism, not unlike the so-called World Series. He points out that he represents Queens, whose residents may well jostle for prime bedside seats, the better to cheer on their local stud muffin. Cool James’ hopefully softly G-spotted friend was raised “out Brooklyn”, where she learnt to yearn for a “Big Daddy” who might “pull my hair and spank me from the back” and finish off with some “candy rain”. Just as the contender from Queens might, if his dick is as big as his braggadocio.

21. Ben Folds – Rock This Bitch (NYC version) (2004)
NYC hook: Some “motherfucker in Chicago” once shouted out “rock this bitch” at a Ben Folds gig, giving rise to a tradition whereby Folds (evidently reluctantly) improvises a new “Rock This Bitch” version on the spot. As he did in this recording from the 2004 Summerstage concert. “R.O.C.K. with your C.O.C.K. out, in N.Y.C.”

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(Mirror 1 Mirror 2)

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New York City – Any Major Mix Vol. 1

Is it better to have love and lost than never to have loved? There aren’t many songs about yearning for love. So, as decided by a staw-poll on my Facebook page (become my friend here), for Valentine’s Day here is a collection of songs for those who have nobody to share the commercial feast with, or don’t have the bitterness of love lost, rejected or betrayed to commemorate on the day.

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The Smiths – How Soon Is Now.mp3
The Smiths canon is brimming with songs about Morrissey’s unlovability. He doesn’t even get rejected; he just can’t find the right person to reject him (and when a girl comes on to him, as one does in Never Had No One Ever, he can’t even get “sorrow’s native son” to rise to the occasion). How Soon Is Now is the anthem of these songs. Every person afflicted with shyness will probably identify with Morrissey’s sad disco tales: “There’s a club, if you’d like to go. You could meet somebody who really loves you. So you go, and you stand on your own, and you leave on your own, and you go home and you cry and you want to die.” Which more or less mirrors my juvenile experience, minus the crying and suicidal tendencies.

One day, when I was 19, some friends took me to Heaven, the great gay club in London. It wasn’t long before a very nice man timidly offered to buy me drink. I was flattered to be considered attractive enough to be targetted for a pull (and here is a collorary to the shyness: a lack of self-esteem) but declined politely. I thought what a displeasure it was to be a straight man in a city where the women in the clubs I went to were so stuck up when I wouldn’t even have to try to get laid if I was gay. What did not seem to occur to me was that the girls were probably not so much stuck-up as I was a victim of a shyness that was criminally vulgar which prevented me from actually approaching them. No wonder I couldn’t get laid.

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Richard Hawley – Coles Corner.mp3
Like Morrissey, Hawley is looking for company in bright, busy places, only to find nothing. “I’m going downtown where there’s music. I’m going where voices fill the air. Maybe there’s someone waitin’ for me with a smile and a flower in her hair.” And with such hopes our hero puts on his best shoes and (as Kris Kristofferson would have it) his cleanest dirty shirt and heads to Coles Corner, apparently a popular hang-out in Sheffield. “I’m going downtown where there’s people. My loneliness hangs in the air, with no one there real waitin’ for me, no smile, no flower, nowhere.” And so he’ll make his sad way home.

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Kevin Devine – Probably.mp3
Set in a train carriage, Kevin is admiring a fellow passenger, imagining her life (covering all the bases of contradiction): “You probably don’t wear your glasses but you probably need them to read, and you probably value your downtime and you probably don’t get much sleep, and you probably don’t like the movies but you probably go anyway, and you probably fight with your parents a lot when you feel like there’s nothing to say, and you probably don’t care for punk rock but you probably own Nevermind.” He thinks of chatting her up – “you probably don’t talk to strangers but you wish they’d talk to you all the time” – but either shyness or self-loathing preclude him from approaching her: “So I should probably say something to you, but I’d probably ruin it then. It’s best for us both if I keep my mouth shut and just stay on my side of the train.” It may well be his loss and hers. This is the far superior version from 2003’s …Travelling The EU EP.

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Hello Saferide – Loneliness Is Better When You’re Not Alone.mp3
Annika Norlin (for she is Hello Saferide) has nobody in her life, so she is looking to compensate for that with meaningless one-night stands, rationalising it with the statement of the song’s title. No strings attached. “I will be gone when you wake up. No awkward breakfasts, I swear. And don’t you look for me, because I could be anywhere – in someone else’s house, in someone else’s arms, with someone else to warm the pain away.” Her promiscuity is a band-aid for the sores of loneliness. She really would like closeness, to open up herself, not just her legs. “If I told you my stories and sang you my songs, would you laugh at me? Would you pity me? What would you say if I asked of you not out of accident, out of loneliness: would you shelter me? Will you shelter me?” And why does she not ask? Low self-esteem seems to be at play: “What can I ask of you? What would you want from me? What would you say if I just fell asleep?” Annika, there’s a club, if you’d like to go…

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Liz Phair – Fuck And Run.mp3
Another song about promiscuity compensating for loneliness. She wakes up with a one-night stand guy and instantly has regrets, thinking: “Whatever happened to a boyfriend, the kind of guy who makes love cause he’s in it… I want a boyfriend. I want all that stupid old shit like letters and sodas.” But it doesn’t seem that a boyfriend is on the cards (maybe Liz should look in the unrequited love section; loads of nice guys there), even when a one-night lover reaches out to her. She doesn’t want his pity. So, she concludes, “I’m gonna spend another year alone. It’s fuck and run, fuck and run.” But there is an alarming clue in the lyrics which might explain her disposition. “It’s fuck and run, fuck and run, even when I was 17. Fuck and run, fuck and run even when I was 12.” Does that suggest that she was abused, leading to these trust issues?

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John Prine – Aimless Love.mp3
in this 1984 song, Prine is singing about a sensitive soul, a guy who is suspicious of strangers and “a bit too gun shy to have his heart touched without a glove”. He really wants love to find him. Prine reminds him, and us: “Love has no mind. It can’t spell unkind. It’s never seen a heart shaped like a Valentine. For if love knew him. It’d walk up to him and introduce him to an aimless love.” In other words, open yourself up to let love in when you find it.

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Jay Brannan – Housewife.mp3
In an alternative riff on Audrey’s Somewhere That’s Green in Little Shop Of Horrors, Jay is describing a scene of domestic bliss (and great sex): “I’m making guacamole, he’s working on the car. When he grills turkey burgers he knows I like them charred. I like to wash the dishes, I like to scrub the floors, don’t mind doing his laundry, what are boyfriends for?” Yes, he wants to be a housewife. “What’s so wrong with that?” But, as it turns out, he’s not one yet. “Can’t wait to till he’s in my life, ’cause we haven’t met.” (Read my interview with Jay)

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Colin Hay – Waiting For My Real Life To Begin.mp3
At first glance, this song (from Hay’s 2001 album Going Somewhere; one of three versions) might not belong in this series, but I think it has a place, and right here. The singer has a girl, but she’s obviously not what he really wants. He’s holding out for a better life which does not seem to include her. Indeed, even now, she is peripheral. “And you say: ‘Be still my love, open up your heart, let the light shine in.’ Don’t you understand I already have a plan, I’m waiting for my real life to begin.” It seems to me that our friend could be in depression, vainly holding out for a better future — “Let me throw one more dice, I know that I can win” — and in the process is unable to return the love offered by his current partner. Which is really just as tragic as Morrissey’s shyness, Annika’s and Liz’s promiscuity, and Kevin’s lack of self-confidence.

Previously in this series:
Love Hurts
Unrequited Love
Being in love (Any Major Love Mix)

More songs about love

Today we put up our Christmas tree, and I built a Lebkuchenhaus (a gingerbread house, sort of), which turned out like it belongs on the set of a Tim Burton movie. I might post a pic of it at a later stage, when I post some of my favourite Christmassy tracks. This mix is most certainly not in keeping with the season to be jolly. As the title suggests, it’s not what you’ll bring to mother for Christmas lunch or dinner.

Some of the stuff is downright strange (TVTV$, Mr Lif), some of it pretty amusing (Ben Fold), some bitter (Rilo Kiley), some sad (Kevin Devine), some scroogey (Waits & Murphy), some classic (Run DMC, Waitresses) and a couple are simply brilliant songs for any time of the year (especially John Prine’s Christmas In Prison).

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R.

Santa's image consultants earned their Christmas bonus this year.

TRACKLISTING:

1. The Ramones – Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)
2. Green Day - Christmas Day
3. Eels – Christmas Is Going To The Dogs
4. Arcade Fire – Jinglebell Rock
5. Ben Folds – The Bizarre Christmas Incident
6. The Young Republic - Merry Christmas Again…
7. Low - Just Like Christmas
8. The Raveonettes - Come On Santa
9. Rufus Wainwright – Spotlight on Christmas
10. John Prine - Christmas In Prison
11. Kevin Devine – Splitting Up Christmas
12. Saint Etienne – I Was Born On Christmas Day
13. The dB’s – Christmas Time
14. The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping
15. Firefox AK & Tiger Lou – Christmas Eve
16. Jill Sobule – (Christmas Is) The Saddest Day Of The Year
17. Rilo Kiley – Christmas Cake
18. Tom Waits & Peter Murphy – Christmas Sucks!
19. Home Grown – Christmas Crush
20. Yo La Tengo - Rock n Roll Santa
21. TVTV$ – Daddy Drank Our Xmas Money
22. Run DMC - Christmas in Hollis
23. Bootsy Collins – Santa’s Coming
24. Mr. Lif – Santa’s Got A Muthafuckin’ Uzi

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More Mixes

Last year I did a series of Songbirds which seems to have been quite popular, showcasing female artists who fall within the singer-songwriter genre which unaccountably has acquired something of a bad name among the critics. In my view, the genre has not been in a more fertile state since the 1970s. Indeed, it is probably more varied now than it was then.

I’ve thought of doing a similar series on male singer-songwriters (which I might call “Singers with names like schoolteachers”, borrowing a great dig from the Welsh music writer Simon Price). In the meantime, here is a collection of some of the male singer-songwriters I hold in high esteem. What they have in common is that they write the songs they sing, and are broadly, if not invariably, acoustic performers. But the mix transcends such narrow characterisations. Their sensibilities range from folk (such as Mason Jennings) to pop (Bob Evans, Benji Cossa) to indie (Jens Lekman, Josh Ritter) to soul (Amos Lee) to country (Joe Purdy) to rock (Charlie Sexton, Scott Matthews). Most are American, but other nations are also represented, such as Australia (Evans), England (David Ford), Sweden (Lekman) and South Africa (the excellent Farryl Purkiss).

Some are well-known (such as Damien Jurado or, again, Ritter and Lekman), others are without a record contract. Josh Woodward, whose previous album I enjoyed very much, has made his new, very good double set titled The Simple Life available for free download on his website. If you like the sample track on this mix, download it and share it widely. TV viewers will recognise the Steve Poltz song from the Jeep ad, while Landon Pigg’s voice is used to advertise diamonds (albeit with a different, very beautiful, song).

My shortlist is not exhausted. If this mix proves popular, I intend to compile a volume of Songbirds and then a co-ed one. Let me know what you think.

As always, the mix should fit on a standard CD-R.

1. Steve Poltz – You Remind Me (from Chinese Vacation, 2003)
2. Bob Evans – Friend (from Suburban Songbook, 2006)
3. Farryl Purkiss – Ducking And Diving (from Farryl Purkiss, 2006)
4. Mason Jennings – Which Way Your Heart Will Go (from Boneclouds, 2006)
5. Landon Pigg – Can’t Let Go (from Coffee Shop EP, 2008)
6. Joshua Radin – The Fear You Won’t Fall (from Unclear Sky EP, 2008)
7. Jay Brannan – Can’t Have It All (from Chinese Vacation, 2003)
8. David Ford – Cheer Up (You Miserable Fuck) (from I Sincerely Apologise For All The Trouble I’ve Caused, 2005)
9. Josh Ritter – Wait For Love (You Know You Will) (from The Historical Conquests Of, 2007)
10. Damien Jurado – Simple Hello (from On My Way To Absence, 2005)
11. Charlie Sexton – Cruel And Gentle Things (from Cruel And Gentle Things, 2005)
12. Griffin House – Just A Dream (from Lost And Found, 2004)
13. Josh Woodward – History Repeats (from The Simple Life, 2008)
14. Jens Lekman – I Saw Her in the Anti War Demonstration (from Oh You’re So Silent Jens, 2005)
15. Kevin Devine – Probably (from … travelling the EU EP, 2003)
16. Joe Purdy – Why You (from Only Four Seasons, 2006)
17. Amos Lee – Long Line Of Pain (live) (from Supply And Demand, 2006)
18. Elvis Perkins – Ash Wednesday (from Ash Wednesday, 2007)
19. Scott Matthews – Passing Stranger (from Passing Stranger, 2007)
20. Benji Cossa – The Show Is Over Everywhere (from Between The Blue And The Green, 2007)

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For the sheer joy of it, five more of the random best:

Nicole Atkins – Maybe Tonight.mp3
Oh, I kissed the iPod when it threw up this gem first. I had just finished putting together my Any Major Awards nominations, in which I already awarded Nicole Atkins, for being a viable alternative to the horribly overrated Amy Winehouse. This song sounds like… Petula Clark meets Blondie meets Abba. It’s glorious pop. On other tracks, Atkins gets all soulful (“The Way It Is”), or goes into ’80s throwback mode, sounding like the B-52s as sung by Sandie Shaw on Broadway (“Love Surreal” or “Brooklyn On Fire”). Absolutely marvellous, and so much better than schtick merchant Winehouse.

Crowded House – Fall At Your Feet (live).mp3
This is from the Farewell To The World live CD, which was recorded in 1996 and released ten years later. That album was one of those rarities among live sets, where the stage versions almost invariably eclipse the studio originals. And so it is with “Fall At Your Feet”, one of Crowded House’s finest moments. The lyrics get me every time: “The finger of blame has turned upon itself, and I’m more than willing to offer myself. Do you want my presence or need my help…Who knows where that might lead.” Try hitting the high note of the ad libbed “I fall” rigtht after that verse (at 2:25).

Kevin Devine – Longer I’m Out Here.mp3
Why is Kevin Devine not more popular? This is a great Indie-pop-rock workout, from 2003′s Make the Clocks Move, with some seriously strange and beautifully poetic lyrics (“And you say that there’s someone that you need to reconnect with; some scarecrow from high school that you loved and never slept with; a baby with a pipedream playing hopscotch on your bandages”) .

Ennio Morricone – Deborah’s Theme/Amapola.mp3
I’m not big on movie soundtracks, unless it is a musical. But Ennio Morricone’s score for Once Upon A Time In America, itself one of my all-time top 3 favourite movies, is astonishingly beautiful. It can create emotions like few other albums I have. This track closes the soundtrack, reprising two running themes throughout the movie: “Deborah’s Theme” and the 1930s hit “Amapola”. The strings in the former can make a grown man cry; the latter, coming in at 3:30, might cheer the listener up, but here the tune induces a certain quiet wistfulness.

Radiohead – High And Dry.mp3
I revisited “Creep” over the weekend. Any Minor Dude’s friend brought his new PS2 Sing Star game along, and, lo, there was Thom Yorke feeling “so very special”. I totally nailed this song. As did Any Minor Dude. So we battled until I set an unassailable score. But I know that the very Minor Dude, with his musical talent and competitive streak, won’t let it rest there… Anyway, to the sing at hand. iPod has done well again with a topical pick: “High And Dry” apparently is about Evel Knievel, who has just died. Listening to it now for the first time in a long while, I’m reminded that this is a very good song.

…so you might as well enjoy whatever music you damn well like. Even Foo Fighters, hell, even the Goo Goo Dolls and Matchbox 20. Here a few tracks from EPs, b-sides, live bootlegs and who knows where from.

Ben Folds Five – Brick (live acoustic)
Counting Crows with Ben Folds – A Long December (live)
The Weepies – Cherry Trees (live) (Very cool, actually. I love the Weepies a lot)
Kevin Devine – Probably (from the Travelling the EU EP, not the inferior album version).
Ben Kweller – Sha Sha (from the Freak Out… EP, not the inferior re-recorded version from Sha Sha)
Matchbox 20 – Long Day (acoustic)
Foo Fighters – Everlong (acoustic)
Goo Goo Dolls – Slide (acoustic)