A blog and nothing but since 2003. Some tech, lots of music, and if rambling was money, drinks are on me.
How you gonna keep Fine Tune Friday down?
It’s days like this when I love that I’ve started this weekly exercise. Without an obvious pick, I turn back to my collection and look over what I’ve rated and look around for a song that strikes my fancy. And, as with my year-end mixes, that’s when I really find gems: songs that I’ve overlooked in my shuffling gluttony.
Andrew Bird, “How You Gonna Keep ‘em Down On the Farm?”
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This is one of those songs that’s pretty easy to overlook. It’s no kind of departure from Andrew Bird’s other stuff, it starts out slow, it could be condescendingly dismissed as “pleasant”. But it’s the kind of song that would sneak up on you outside of your music collection. Maybe you’re watching a movie or TV show or you’re at a friend’s house, and you hear that beautiful chorus and it strikes you because the mood’s so right. And you find out what it is and go back to your music library to discover that you’ve not only owned it all along, but that you’ve listened to it a bunch of times before. And then it becomes a favorite.
This song fits my mood today perfectly for no specific reason.
“How ya gonna keep ‘em away from Broadway?
Jazzin’ around,
and painting the town?
How ya gonna keep ’em away from harm?
that’s the mystery”
Added to my library this week:
- The Last Shadow Puppets, The Age of the Understatement. Side projects usually have a concept, and the concept of this one is something like, “We think that ‘Some Velvet Morning‘ is the greatest song EVER.”
- Crystal Castles, “Crimewave”. Free from Amazon mp3 store. I know I’ve heard this before, but I can’t figure out where.
- Kelley Stoltz, “Reverie”. Kelley Stoltz has been recommended by these two people for years, but it was Headphones On that finally got me to listen to this song. Fantastic.
- Squeeze, Singles 45’s and Under. I went and picked up a digital copy to go along with the vinyl that I picked up on Saturday. I can’t believe I’ve done without it for so long.
- XTC, English Settlement. See above but replace “last Saturday” with “had it for a long time on vinyl”.
- Flight of the Conchords, Flight of the Conchords. It misses a couple of my favorite songs (”Bret You Got It Going On” and “The Tape of Love”) and it doesn’t make me laugh as hard as it used to (partly because of repetition, partly because the show really lost it as it went through the season), but it’s still great to have.
And you?
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April 25th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Coincidentally, I’ve too spent a good amount of time this week with both “English Settlement” and, oddly enough, various Squeeze albums. My acquisition of the two early XTC albums on vinyl spurred me to dust off some of the other albums I had on cd. “English Settlement” just sounds fantastic. If we were still doing The Greatest Song In The World Today poll, my pick would be “All of the Sudden (It’s Too Late)”. By the way, do you have the full album on vinyl (15 songs) or the truncated domestic version? For some reason, they pruned it for American audiences.
As far as Squeeze goes, I gravitate between “Argybargy” and “East Side Story”, though “Cool For Cats” isn’t far behind.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
A ha! I knew that I had a different version of English Settlement…I just didn’t know how it was different; whether the mp3s was an extended version or if the vinyl was a truncated version. Turns out it was the latter.
I’ll never be able to hear English Settlement without thinking of the story that Andy Partridge told in the liner notes to their Best Of comp: that he had given away his guitar in a contest, got a new 12 string and suddenly, all these new songs came pouring out. It’s a good lesson on how to cure writer’s block: simply use a new instrument, even if that just means switching to a different one of the same kind.
I’m loving the Squeeze comp. I don’t know how I went so long without it. Favorites: “Goodbye Girl” (geek cool), “Up The Junction” (perfect melody), “Pulling Mussels” (perfect hook), and “Slap and Tickle” (I had no idea Squeeze ever did such a great dance tune). Throw in “In Quintessense” from East Side Story, and you have my top 5.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Some mid-’80s Dead (never a sure thing), a couple of Springsteen boots (also via BT), and a couple of the remixes from the new Spoon EP plus the b-side.
Otherwise, I really enjoyed dusting off Songs For Silverman. (And I finally watched the DVD side.)
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Holy crap, this song is gorgeous. I’ve never heard this before.