iTunes Shuffle 7/26/13

1. Big Star - "Kanga Roo"
2. Talib Kweli & Z-Trip feat. Greg Nice, Styles P - "NY Shining"
3. Green Day - "Coming Clean"
4. Dawes - "When My Time Comes"
5. The Swell Season - "Fallen From The Sky"
6. Hammock - "Together Alone"
7. Tiësto feat. Tegan & Sara - "Feel It In My Bones"
8. De La Soul - "Me Myself And I"
9. Tori Amos - "Horses" (live 6/5/05 Manchester, UK)
10. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "Into My Arms"

The Swell Season is Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, and "Fallen From The Sky" was originally recorded by Glen for the Once Soundtrack. Moving forward:

I first saw you
You had on blue jeans
Your eyes couldn't hide anything
I saw you breathing
I saw you staring out in space

Soon you will see me shining...

Seventeen and coming clean for the first time
I finally figured out myself for the first time
I found out what it takes to be a man
Now mom and dad will never understand
What's happening to me

Had no idea that's what Green Day was up to when I was 14. I should have been playing closer attention.

So I took what I wanted and put it out of my reach
I wanted to pay for my successes with all of my defeats,
And if heaven was all that was promised to me
Why don't I pray for death?
And now it seems like the unraveling has started too soon
I am sleeping in hallways, tweaking perfume
And I'm speaking to mirrors and I'm howling at moons
While the worse and the worse that it gets.

Oh you can judge all the world on the sparkle that you think it lacks.
Yes, you can stare into the abyss, but it's staring right back.

You must've fallen from the sky
You must've shattered on the runway
You brought so many to the light
And now you're by yourself...

Beautiful instrumental music from this group out of Nashville. If you like Explosions In The Sky, you'll like this.

I feel you in my bones
You're knockin' at my windows
You're slow to letting me go
And I know this feeling also
This feeling in my bones

It's just me myself and I...

I got me some horses
to ride on
to ride on
they say that your demons
can't go there
so I got me some horses
to ride on
to ride on
as long as your army
keeps perfectly still
...
you showed me the meadow
and Milkwood
and silkwood
and you would if I would
but you never would
so I chased down your posies
your pansies in my hosies
then opened my hands
and they were empty then
...
and if there is a way to find you
I will find you
but will you find me if Neil
makes me a tree
an afro a pharaoh
I can't go
you said so
and threads that are golden don't break easily

One of the most subtly meaningful songs Tori has ever written, in my opinion.

I don't believe in the existence of angels
Looking at you I wonder if that's true
But if I did I would summon them together
Ask them to watch over you
Oh, to each burn a candle for you
To make bright and clear your path
And to walk, like Christ, in grace and love
And guide you into my arms...

iTunes Shuffle 7/19/13

1. Incubus - "Under My Umbrella"
2. Neko Case - "Magpie To The Morning"
3. Bizet: Carmen: Act One - No. 3: "Choeur et Scene - Quand je vous aimerai?" - No. 4: "Havanaise - L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" (Carmen, sung by Jessye Norman)
4. Buddy Holly - "It Doesn't Matter Anymore"
5. Bob Dylan - "I Want You"
6. Jessie Ware - "Running" (Disclosure Remix)
7. Art Of Noise - "Beat Box (Diversion One)"
8. Yuck - "Sunday"
9. Phoenix - "Armistice" (RAC Remix)
10. Josh Ritter - "The Curse"

Well, that's a schizophrenic, weird mix.

If this is right, I'd rather be wrong
If this is sight, I'd rather be blind

don't let this fading summer pass you by

black hands held so high
the vulture wheels and dives
something on the thermals yanked his chain
he smelled your boring apex
rotting on the tracks
he laughed under his breath because you thought you could outrun sorrow

The great Jessye Norman giving a stunningly casual and beautiful rendition of the "Havanaise" from one of my very favorite operas.

Now you go your way and I'll go mine
now and forever 'til the end of time
and I'll find somebody new and baby, we'll say we're through
and you won't matter anymore

The guilty undertaker cries
the lonely organ grinder cries
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn,
But it's not that way,
I wasn't born to lose you.
I want you...

You keep me running...

New Wave, avant-garde synthpop, I think this was called in the '80s.

Cold winter months and I'm thinking of you
How you got me high
I used to choreograph the airplanes in the sky

Our daily compromise, it is
Written in your signed armistice

He opens his eyes, falls in love at first sight
With the girl in the doorway
What beautiful lines, how full of life
After thousands of years, what a face to wake up to

He holds back a sigh as she touches his arm
She dusts off the bed where till now he's been sleeping
Under miles of stone, the dried fig of his heart
Under scarab and bone starts back to its beating

iTunes Shuffle 7/12/13

1. James Brown - "Papa Don't Take No Mess, Pt. 1"
2. Alabama Shakes - "Hang Loose"
3. Josh Rouse - "I Will Live On Islands"
4. Lotus Plaza - "Come Back"
5. The Ting Tings - "Great DJ"
6. Jonny Lang - "Matchbox" (Ike Turner cover)
7. John Prine - "Please Don't Bury Me"
8. Bluff City Backsliders - ".44 Blues" (Roosevelt Sykes/Howlin' Wolf cover)
9. Shearwater - "Breaking The Yearlings"
10. Magazine - "I'm A Party"

Funky bluesy mix, starting with James Brown:

Don't worry, sweet baby
Don't you ever worry about a thing
Put your worries on a shelf
Learn to love yourself
Don't be your own worst enemy

I will live on islands and I will see the sun...

Come back...

Nine minutes of pretty loudness.

Imagine all the girls
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah
And the boys
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah
And the strings
Eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee

And the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums
the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the
drums, the drums...

Pure poetry.

Don't try to get me back now, baby
'Cause baby, I'm through
I got my clothes in a matchbox
Gonna forget about you

Please don't bury me
Down in the cold, cold ground
No I'd rather have 'em cut me up
And pass me all around
Throw my brain in a hurricane
And the blind can have my eyes
And the deaf can take both of my ears
If they don't mind the size.

More dirty blues. I had no idea I had this much blues on my hard drive.

Shearwater makes some of the most fucking gorgeous music I've ever heard.

I curl right back into the sound
I take one breath and spiral down
And you, not watching the road
Or watching the flood stage rise
We are yearlings
Now watching the tide run out
Till what the daylight hides
Is known

I will let you hurt me
Because I know it hurts you

iTunes Shuffle 7/5/13

Once a week I shuffle my iTunes and listen to the first ten songs that come up. Here's this week's:

1. Shabazz Palaces - "Swerve... The reeping of all that is worthwhile (Noir not withstanding)"
2. Chance McCoy and The Appalachian String Band - "Indian Ate A Woodchuck"
3. Tori Amos - "Jackie's Strength"
4. Les Savy Fav - "Poltergeist"
5. Tori Amos - "Silent All These Years" (live 3/15/92)
6. Janet Jackson feat. Carly Simon - "Son Of A Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You)"
7. Yeasayer - "Final Path"
8. Belly - "Stay"
9. Sinkane - "Runnin'"
10. Mogwai - "Rano Pano"

Shabazz Palaces = incredibly smart hip-hop for people who also like Björk.

Chance McCoy = bluegrass from one of the members of Old Crow Medicine Show.

make me laugh
say you know what you want
you said we were the real thing
so i show you some more and i learn
what black magic can do
make me laugh
say you know you can turn
me into the real thing
so i show you some more and i learn

Les Savy Fav = noisy. I like it.

"Silent All These Years" is my longstanding favorite song of all time. The live versions from the early years are particularly beautiful.

years go by will I still be waiting
for somebody else to understand
years go by if I'm stripped of my beauty
and the orange clouds raining in my head
years go by will I choke on my tears
till finally there is nothing left
one more casualty
you know we're too EASY easy easy

I'll never be your lover
I'd rather make you suffer
You stupid motherfucker

Nothing's gonna stop the sky from falling
Nothing's gonna stop the water rising
Nothing's gonna stop the sun from burning out

Stay.
It's not time for me to go.

I don't mean to let you down
Gotta keep on runnin'

And a nice noisy instrumental from Mogwai to finish up