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Hey folks. I wasn't feeling too hot today. My back hurt all night long, and that's put me in a lot of pain today. So, I didn't think I could concentrate enough to write. I recorded a podcast episode instead, which requires a little less attention. Unfortunately, it still requires a good amount of sitting in front of the computer, which made my back hurt more. Anyways, hopefully I'll be back to normal this coming up weekend.
Mother Mother, "Body of Years"
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Wintermitts, "Dans"
Website
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The Aimless Never Miss, "The Bright Side
Website
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Dream Bitches, "Mother's Day"
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St. Vincent, "The Strangers"
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Music Go Music, "Light of Love"
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East Hundred, "Slow Burning Crimes"
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Sunday, March 29, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By
Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By
Hey Marseilles, "Rio"
No, not that "Rio" (which is what I was hoping when I first song the name), but whereas that faraway song was about the love (or at least lust) of a beautiful, magical woman named Rio, this song is for the city of Rio. He wants to go where the "days left to breathe, are not gone, are still long." While he may not actually be there, the band infuses the song with a celebratory atmosphere. Beautiful viola and cello thread through the song, like a ribbon from Carnivale. There is hand-clapping (though no cow-bell, as much as I can tell) and a bit of mandolin for accent. Everyone loves a bit of mandolin.* The singer sounds hopeful--though he might be coming from a disappointing situation, he's thinking about starting over. I can hear an upswing in his voice--it's the inflection a person gets when they've really begun to parse out an answer. Hopefully he gets to Rio for real, or at least a good enough approximation in his mind.
Website
Myspace
More downloads
*There are more instruments, but unfortunately I'm not musically inclined enough to be able to separate them out
The vests and sweaters are all part of their bad boy image. Plus thrift stores are cheap.
Bishop Allen, "The Ancient Common Sense of Things"
One of my favorite bands is back! And they're as precocious as ever. Not precocious in the "put crazy glue on your seat" way (well, maybe that, too), but precocious in their deceptive simplicity. When you first hear them, you might think the song's cute, but maybe throwaway. Something you'll listen to a few times then forget about. Then like galato, you realize that you want more. It might seem fluffy and transient, but it's denser than you thought. You'll have their songs in your head all day. You'll still listen to them weeks, months and years later. I still play their earlier songs (some of which are still on their site) with the zeal I did the first few dozen times I played them. They grow on you fast, and they bind to your DNA. You will be part Bishop Allen by the fifth or so listen. Just ask my friend Gary. I introduced him to Bishop Allen and he never went back. He bought all of their CDs. Like me, he's protective of what little money he has, but he knows when something's worth parting with some of it.
Website
Myspace
Damn, that wind tunnel was fun. Let's do it again!
Hey Marseilles, "Rio"
No, not that "Rio" (which is what I was hoping when I first song the name), but whereas that faraway song was about the love (or at least lust) of a beautiful, magical woman named Rio, this song is for the city of Rio. He wants to go where the "days left to breathe, are not gone, are still long." While he may not actually be there, the band infuses the song with a celebratory atmosphere. Beautiful viola and cello thread through the song, like a ribbon from Carnivale. There is hand-clapping (though no cow-bell, as much as I can tell) and a bit of mandolin for accent. Everyone loves a bit of mandolin.* The singer sounds hopeful--though he might be coming from a disappointing situation, he's thinking about starting over. I can hear an upswing in his voice--it's the inflection a person gets when they've really begun to parse out an answer. Hopefully he gets to Rio for real, or at least a good enough approximation in his mind.
Website
Myspace
More downloads
*There are more instruments, but unfortunately I'm not musically inclined enough to be able to separate them out
The vests and sweaters are all part of their bad boy image. Plus thrift stores are cheap.
Bishop Allen, "The Ancient Common Sense of Things"
One of my favorite bands is back! And they're as precocious as ever. Not precocious in the "put crazy glue on your seat" way (well, maybe that, too), but precocious in their deceptive simplicity. When you first hear them, you might think the song's cute, but maybe throwaway. Something you'll listen to a few times then forget about. Then like galato, you realize that you want more. It might seem fluffy and transient, but it's denser than you thought. You'll have their songs in your head all day. You'll still listen to them weeks, months and years later. I still play their earlier songs (some of which are still on their site) with the zeal I did the first few dozen times I played them. They grow on you fast, and they bind to your DNA. You will be part Bishop Allen by the fifth or so listen. Just ask my friend Gary. I introduced him to Bishop Allen and he never went back. He bought all of their CDs. Like me, he's protective of what little money he has, but he knows when something's worth parting with some of it.
Website
Myspace
Damn, that wind tunnel was fun. Let's do it again!
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Episode 67, New Battlestar Coming Up!
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These Modern Socks, "On The Moon" (Zip file)
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Samantha Crain, "Get The Fever Out"
Website
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The War On Drugs, "Taking The Farm"
Website
Myspace
Marching Band, "Make No Plans"
Website
Myspace
Camera Obscura, "My Maudlin Career"
Website
Myspace
J. Tillman, "Steel on Steel"
Label Site
Myspace
William Elliott Whitmore, "Lifetime Underground"
Website
Myspace
Novalima, "Coba Guarango"
Website
Myspace
Direct Link
RSS Feed
These Modern Socks, "On The Moon" (Zip file)
Website
Myspace
Samantha Crain, "Get The Fever Out"
Website
Myspace
The War On Drugs, "Taking The Farm"
Website
Myspace
Marching Band, "Make No Plans"
Website
Myspace
Camera Obscura, "My Maudlin Career"
Website
Myspace
J. Tillman, "Steel on Steel"
Label Site
Myspace
William Elliott Whitmore, "Lifetime Underground"
Website
Myspace
Novalima, "Coba Guarango"
Website
Myspace
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By
Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By
The Puppini Sisters, "Walk Like an Egyptian" (No mp3 available)
I may be a little behind on this band wagon. I usually don't take my musical cues from TV shows, but when I heard this on Monday night's Chuck, I just went all sorts of gaga. It's an inspired cover of an already inspired song. Anyhoos, I'm obviously not the first to discover them. I found several blog articles on them, complete with expired links. NPR has a fantastic performance/interview for streaming. (You know, I subscribe to that podcast, but I'm obviously more behind on listening to them than I thought.)
Anyhoos, part deux: I rarely feature a song if I don't have an mp3 available, but once in awhile I do go so completely gaga over a song, I'm willing to get it out there any way I can. I can't believe I haven't heard of this band before today. I'll be embarrassed if I find out that everyone else freakin' has. Then I'll be mad that no one introduced me to this before. The Puppini Sisters take a style of music that is very much tied to a specific era (the 40's) and use it to completely reinvent some of my favorite modern songs. Even my mom'll love this band--she'll love it 'cause they sound like the old timey music. I love it 'cause they freaking do an awesome cover of The Smiths' "Panic"! "Wuthering Heights"!
Website
Myspace
Youtube performance of the song (I didn't use this at the top of the post because the audio quality is not great)
The Puppini Sisters at Amazon.com
This is style, folks. Observe and learn.
Ra Ra Riot, "Can You Tell" (The song is labeled incorrectly. It's labeled as "Dying is Fine", but after a few minutes of confusion on my part, and a little help from Amazon.com, I figured out which song it actually is. Now hopefully they won't correct it and make this post look absolutely silly).
It's that time again. Time to mine the hundreds of free mp3s on South By Southwest's website. See the musical note by the artists' names? That means there's a free mp3 for offer. I don't always like every one of them; in fact, out of the dozen or so I listened to yesterday, I only found one that I wanted to feature. Such is the nature of this beast, though. I'll spend hours listening to various genres of music, only to find one or two that really strike me.
I've posted songs by this band a few times (their version of "Suspended in Gaffa" is a great Kate Bush cover--like the Puppini Sisters' version of "Wuthering Heights", Ra Ra Riot make the song their own--they don't try to do their best Kate Bush impersonation). They have this mixture of ska and post-punk sound--like a calmer, gentler, less hostile Everclear. They compliment the ska-ness of the melody with cello--like wrapping a bit of wrought iron around a fence; it's not there for structural purposes, but damn, it sure is pretty. This song sure is damn pretty--it's sentimental (as most love songs are), but not sappy. Bittersweet might be more the word for it.
Website
Myspace
Everyone but that one dude on the right agrees: it's a bird, and not Superman
The Puppini Sisters, "Walk Like an Egyptian" (No mp3 available)
I may be a little behind on this band wagon. I usually don't take my musical cues from TV shows, but when I heard this on Monday night's Chuck, I just went all sorts of gaga. It's an inspired cover of an already inspired song. Anyhoos, I'm obviously not the first to discover them. I found several blog articles on them, complete with expired links. NPR has a fantastic performance/interview for streaming. (You know, I subscribe to that podcast, but I'm obviously more behind on listening to them than I thought.)
Anyhoos, part deux: I rarely feature a song if I don't have an mp3 available, but once in awhile I do go so completely gaga over a song, I'm willing to get it out there any way I can. I can't believe I haven't heard of this band before today. I'll be embarrassed if I find out that everyone else freakin' has. Then I'll be mad that no one introduced me to this before. The Puppini Sisters take a style of music that is very much tied to a specific era (the 40's) and use it to completely reinvent some of my favorite modern songs. Even my mom'll love this band--she'll love it 'cause they sound like the old timey music. I love it 'cause they freaking do an awesome cover of The Smiths' "Panic"! "Wuthering Heights"!
Website
Myspace
Youtube performance of the song (I didn't use this at the top of the post because the audio quality is not great)
The Puppini Sisters at Amazon.com
This is style, folks. Observe and learn.
Ra Ra Riot, "Can You Tell" (The song is labeled incorrectly. It's labeled as "Dying is Fine", but after a few minutes of confusion on my part, and a little help from Amazon.com, I figured out which song it actually is. Now hopefully they won't correct it and make this post look absolutely silly).
It's that time again. Time to mine the hundreds of free mp3s on South By Southwest's website. See the musical note by the artists' names? That means there's a free mp3 for offer. I don't always like every one of them; in fact, out of the dozen or so I listened to yesterday, I only found one that I wanted to feature. Such is the nature of this beast, though. I'll spend hours listening to various genres of music, only to find one or two that really strike me.
I've posted songs by this band a few times (their version of "Suspended in Gaffa" is a great Kate Bush cover--like the Puppini Sisters' version of "Wuthering Heights", Ra Ra Riot make the song their own--they don't try to do their best Kate Bush impersonation). They have this mixture of ska and post-punk sound--like a calmer, gentler, less hostile Everclear. They compliment the ska-ness of the melody with cello--like wrapping a bit of wrought iron around a fence; it's not there for structural purposes, but damn, it sure is pretty. This song sure is damn pretty--it's sentimental (as most love songs are), but not sappy. Bittersweet might be more the word for it.
Website
Myspace
Everyone but that one dude on the right agrees: it's a bird, and not Superman
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Media Player for my blog!
Lookie! Lookie! Lookie!
Notice anything different about my blog? I found a music player for my blog! Whoot Whoot! It allows you to play the mp3s right on the site, so you don't have to download them and then find out you don't like them. I love it when music sites have players right on the blog.
I found the player on Largehearted Boy's site. Thanks to him for putting it on his site so that I could discover it!
If you don't see the little "play" button, it just means you have to click on the link to get to a different website that hosts the mp3. It doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't an mp3--it was probably just too buggy for me to try to lift the mp3 from the original site.
Yayyy!
Notice anything different about my blog? I found a music player for my blog! Whoot Whoot! It allows you to play the mp3s right on the site, so you don't have to download them and then find out you don't like them. I love it when music sites have players right on the blog.
I found the player on Largehearted Boy's site. Thanks to him for putting it on his site so that I could discover it!
If you don't see the little "play" button, it just means you have to click on the link to get to a different website that hosts the mp3. It doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't an mp3--it was probably just too buggy for me to try to lift the mp3 from the original site.
Yayyy!
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By
Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By
The podcast show notes are in the post before this one
Two songs again, instead of the usual three. I'm still not feeling all that up to snuff. In fact, since I've been so tired for so long (at least the last month), I may start doing two songs instead of three more often. We'll see how I feel next week.
James Yorkston, "Tortoise Regrets Hare"
I have a feeling I could spend years trying to parse apart these lyrics. I'd still hear new things in the lyrics even then. Whereas a lot of lyricists rely on "ooh ooh ooh, yeah baby" to convey most of their story, James Yorkston is interested in actual story-telling, using so many words it sounds like they may fall off the end of the sentence. The words are visceral: a woman asks him if his "hands were untied, would he consider [her] wise enough to find out if [his} fear of heights were real or imagined". The breathlessness and rush of his words help convey the rattling motion. There's a sense of urgency--a sense that he's rushing towards something, but then sometime around the middle of the song it's disippated. The tortoise has lost. The headiness, the intoxication fills the first of the song. She'll show him "what the city has taught [her], she'll "bowl him around the city's boundary." He quickly jumps to the after-euphoria, though. She tells him, in a note slipped to him, that she's the "same infinite girl he knew". She still sleeps "with his songs running up her sleeve". I hope she has earphones running up her sleeves so her new husband doesn't hear. Her husband seems to be worthless to her, though. He doesn't "understand her beauty". Soon the singer finds himself with a second chance. He says he was a cruel man, but he "presents himself much warmer, anxious not to lose out on a year or two's favor, for the sake of [his] red temper". In a cruel twist, though, the storybook ending still alludes him. He doesn't think that she's really the ideal person he's been scampering after. He's waiting while she "presses sea shells into the sand, spelling out her cruel, cruel, demand." It looks like something got the tortoise.
Website
Myspace
More mp3s
James Yorkston is meeting with his secret informant, "Daisy". If "Daisy" is her real name...
The Dears, "Disclaimer"
Hello, saxophone opus. How I've missed you. it's been since, what? The 80's since you were in popular music? Today's a day for heady music. I just need the smoky club. The smell of anticipation, the flash of interest...yes, I'm channeling a scene either from an MTV video or a from Miami Vice episode. Shhh..let me have my fantasy. The guys are all in white suits, the tables are all in white tableclothes. It's late at night, the club is emptying. I'm nursing my fifth (what drink was popular in the 80s?) martini, swirling the little straw around in the glass. I'm waiting for the saxophonist to finish his solo and come rescue me from boredom and the burden of having so much money and beauty, and nothing to do with it.* I have very high-stacked hair. Shoulder pads. My dress is very scifi looking, all angles and sharpness. Okay, so I look like Sean Young in Blade Runner. Except my makeup is very glittery--like a girl from a Duran Duran video. Yes, Duran Duran...this kind of reminds me of one of the instrumentals Duran Duran ended their early albums on (Ex: "Tel Aviv", "Tiger Tiger") . Ah, early Duran Duran. How I chase you in my dreams, and apparently the fantasies I make up while trying to explain how a song makes me feel.
*This is all fictional, FYI. I have no money and a sort of beauty that can only be obtained by falling asleep face down on the sofa cushion.
*In this fantasy, I'm played by whomever posed for the Rio album cover
Website
Myspace
Hmmm...none of us knows how many licks it takes to get the center of a tootsie roll?
The podcast show notes are in the post before this one
Two songs again, instead of the usual three. I'm still not feeling all that up to snuff. In fact, since I've been so tired for so long (at least the last month), I may start doing two songs instead of three more often. We'll see how I feel next week.
James Yorkston, "Tortoise Regrets Hare"
I have a feeling I could spend years trying to parse apart these lyrics. I'd still hear new things in the lyrics even then. Whereas a lot of lyricists rely on "ooh ooh ooh, yeah baby" to convey most of their story, James Yorkston is interested in actual story-telling, using so many words it sounds like they may fall off the end of the sentence. The words are visceral: a woman asks him if his "hands were untied, would he consider [her] wise enough to find out if [his} fear of heights were real or imagined". The breathlessness and rush of his words help convey the rattling motion. There's a sense of urgency--a sense that he's rushing towards something, but then sometime around the middle of the song it's disippated. The tortoise has lost. The headiness, the intoxication fills the first of the song. She'll show him "what the city has taught [her], she'll "bowl him around the city's boundary." He quickly jumps to the after-euphoria, though. She tells him, in a note slipped to him, that she's the "same infinite girl he knew". She still sleeps "with his songs running up her sleeve". I hope she has earphones running up her sleeves so her new husband doesn't hear. Her husband seems to be worthless to her, though. He doesn't "understand her beauty". Soon the singer finds himself with a second chance. He says he was a cruel man, but he "presents himself much warmer, anxious not to lose out on a year or two's favor, for the sake of [his] red temper". In a cruel twist, though, the storybook ending still alludes him. He doesn't think that she's really the ideal person he's been scampering after. He's waiting while she "presses sea shells into the sand, spelling out her cruel, cruel, demand." It looks like something got the tortoise.
Website
Myspace
More mp3s
James Yorkston is meeting with his secret informant, "Daisy". If "Daisy" is her real name...
The Dears, "Disclaimer"
Hello, saxophone opus. How I've missed you. it's been since, what? The 80's since you were in popular music? Today's a day for heady music. I just need the smoky club. The smell of anticipation, the flash of interest...yes, I'm channeling a scene either from an MTV video or a from Miami Vice episode. Shhh..let me have my fantasy. The guys are all in white suits, the tables are all in white tableclothes. It's late at night, the club is emptying. I'm nursing my fifth (what drink was popular in the 80s?) martini, swirling the little straw around in the glass. I'm waiting for the saxophonist to finish his solo and come rescue me from boredom and the burden of having so much money and beauty, and nothing to do with it.* I have very high-stacked hair. Shoulder pads. My dress is very scifi looking, all angles and sharpness. Okay, so I look like Sean Young in Blade Runner. Except my makeup is very glittery--like a girl from a Duran Duran video. Yes, Duran Duran...this kind of reminds me of one of the instrumentals Duran Duran ended their early albums on (Ex: "Tel Aviv", "Tiger Tiger") . Ah, early Duran Duran. How I chase you in my dreams, and apparently the fantasies I make up while trying to explain how a song makes me feel.
*This is all fictional, FYI. I have no money and a sort of beauty that can only be obtained by falling asleep face down on the sofa cushion.
*In this fantasy, I'm played by whomever posed for the Rio album cover
Website
Myspace
Hmmm...none of us knows how many licks it takes to get the center of a tootsie roll?
Episode 66, Whatevs
Podcast Page
Direct Link
RSS Feed
(No theme music--Propaganda ate the file)
Gavin Castleton, "Coffeelocks"
Website
Myspace
Nite Jewel, "Artificial Intelligence"
Website
Myspace
Jennifer O'Connor, "Here With Me"
Website
Myspace
Dead Heart Bloom, "Flash In A Bottle"
Website
Myspace
The Forms, "Knowledge In Hand"
Website
Myspace
The Accidental, "Dream For Me"
Website
Myspace
Cut Off Your Hands, "Happy As Can Be"
Website
Myspace
Teddy Thompson, "In My Arms"
Website
Myspace
Dar Williams, "It's Alright"
Website
Myspace
Direct Link
RSS Feed
(No theme music--Propaganda ate the file)
Gavin Castleton, "Coffeelocks"
Website
Myspace
Nite Jewel, "Artificial Intelligence"
Website
Myspace
Jennifer O'Connor, "Here With Me"
Website
Myspace
Dead Heart Bloom, "Flash In A Bottle"
Website
Myspace
The Forms, "Knowledge In Hand"
Website
Myspace
The Accidental, "Dream For Me"
Website
Myspace
Cut Off Your Hands, "Happy As Can Be"
Website
Myspace
Teddy Thompson, "In My Arms"
Website
Myspace
Dar Williams, "It's Alright"
Website
Myspace
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By
Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By
I'm still exhausted. I've gotten over the illness, but being sick made my back much worse than it's ever been, and I'm still in pain because of it. I'm also tired because this was a tough week. I was in a skit at work Thursday. I wrote and performed a poem and I also wrote the outline of the skit and the bits in between. All of my concentration went to that--by the time Friday came I was almost crying with exhaustion. Yesterday, even though I was tired, we went to the Highland Scottish games. We got there late, though, and missed the actual games.
This is my roundabout way of saying that I'm only going to do two songs this week. I've written the blurbs for both of them, but I think I need to take a nap now. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Bon Iver, "Blood Bank"
This is by far the prettiest blood bank song I've ever heard. And there are so many...okay, so I know of none. No songs about blood banks, or hooking up with people at blood banks (unless its vampire related). This song is a snapshot in time: two people going to the blood bank together (who really wants to go there alone?). The girl* remarks that the guy's blood looks like his brother's blood. They go out to the car to eat candy bars and recuperate. Recurperation leads to kissing...then kissing leads to the guy admitting to himself that he loves the girl ("loves [her] honor, loves [her] cheeks", and presumably the secrets that he knows she has.) I get very faint when I give blood, but if I knew it could lead to a little sumpin' sumpin' I might've donated blood more. Of course I would probably be too faint to get the little sumpin' sumpin'...
*he says it's a girl in the song. Just letting ya know I'm not assuming.
Website
Myspace
Bon Iver appears on the charity album Dark Was The Night. It's from the Red Hot organization, and if you're my age or older, you may remember the original Red Hot and Blue album. I loved that dang thing. I played it every day for months. From the playlist, it looks like this new album may be just as good (if not more).
Justin Vernon of Bon Iver lives in a mirror. Little known fact.
Neko Case, "Middle Cyclone"
I know--I just posted a song from her a month and a half ago. How could I say no to this, though? This song is a gem. Soft, trudging guitar strumming, light piano notes (that actually could be a xylophone--I'm not sure) and Neko's sad, lush voice all relay a lullabye that will cause any stoic being to cry him or herself to sleep. The way she puts her predicament is not typical, though the predicament is one of the oldest known: She asks if someone made a fool of her, because she "can show them how its done", implying, of course, that it's been done many, many times before. She wants to "ride the bus to the outskirts of the fact that [she] needs love". She sees her need for love as a place. Probably a place she's visualized many times in her head. Maybe a broken down, lonely, isolated place. Probably has a faded, old "Coca-cola" sign falling off its hinges. Lots of spiderwebs on the benches. Or maybe that's just what my place would look like. That's her power, though--we empathize because we've felt it before. We really connect with the song, though, because we recognize the strength of her emotion. The bonding is even stronger because of the feelings of isolation. Maybe listening to a song like this can bring all of us poor, isolated sods together.
Website
Myspace
Label website
Neko Case and friend
I'm still exhausted. I've gotten over the illness, but being sick made my back much worse than it's ever been, and I'm still in pain because of it. I'm also tired because this was a tough week. I was in a skit at work Thursday. I wrote and performed a poem and I also wrote the outline of the skit and the bits in between. All of my concentration went to that--by the time Friday came I was almost crying with exhaustion. Yesterday, even though I was tired, we went to the Highland Scottish games. We got there late, though, and missed the actual games.
This is my roundabout way of saying that I'm only going to do two songs this week. I've written the blurbs for both of them, but I think I need to take a nap now. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Bon Iver, "Blood Bank"
This is by far the prettiest blood bank song I've ever heard. And there are so many...okay, so I know of none. No songs about blood banks, or hooking up with people at blood banks (unless its vampire related). This song is a snapshot in time: two people going to the blood bank together (who really wants to go there alone?). The girl* remarks that the guy's blood looks like his brother's blood. They go out to the car to eat candy bars and recuperate. Recurperation leads to kissing...then kissing leads to the guy admitting to himself that he loves the girl ("loves [her] honor, loves [her] cheeks", and presumably the secrets that he knows she has.) I get very faint when I give blood, but if I knew it could lead to a little sumpin' sumpin' I might've donated blood more. Of course I would probably be too faint to get the little sumpin' sumpin'...
*he says it's a girl in the song. Just letting ya know I'm not assuming.
Website
Myspace
Bon Iver appears on the charity album Dark Was The Night. It's from the Red Hot organization, and if you're my age or older, you may remember the original Red Hot and Blue album. I loved that dang thing. I played it every day for months. From the playlist, it looks like this new album may be just as good (if not more).
Justin Vernon of Bon Iver lives in a mirror. Little known fact.
Neko Case, "Middle Cyclone"
I know--I just posted a song from her a month and a half ago. How could I say no to this, though? This song is a gem. Soft, trudging guitar strumming, light piano notes (that actually could be a xylophone--I'm not sure) and Neko's sad, lush voice all relay a lullabye that will cause any stoic being to cry him or herself to sleep. The way she puts her predicament is not typical, though the predicament is one of the oldest known: She asks if someone made a fool of her, because she "can show them how its done", implying, of course, that it's been done many, many times before. She wants to "ride the bus to the outskirts of the fact that [she] needs love". She sees her need for love as a place. Probably a place she's visualized many times in her head. Maybe a broken down, lonely, isolated place. Probably has a faded, old "Coca-cola" sign falling off its hinges. Lots of spiderwebs on the benches. Or maybe that's just what my place would look like. That's her power, though--we empathize because we've felt it before. We really connect with the song, though, because we recognize the strength of her emotion. The bonding is even stronger because of the feelings of isolation. Maybe listening to a song like this can bring all of us poor, isolated sods together.
Website
Myspace
Label website
Neko Case and friend
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