because i like to list
musical memories.
THE FIRST CD I EVER OWNED: Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. THE SECOND: Wish You Were Here // about 15 years ago, i was a bit of a pink floyd fan. ok, that’s kind of an understatement. i was a HUGE pink floyd fan there for a while - and I still am. I listened to The Division Bell yesterday, as a matter of fact. The little blinking light on my me and my brother’s commual copy of Pulse went for years and years before winking out. And during one particularly strange, dark period, I think i listened to The Wall like 9 times in a row. I’m a dork-there’s no question anymore.
A FEW RECORDS that belonged to my parents that i sat and listened to - on headphones with a long, curly cord - our basement when i was a kid/teenager:
• Santana’s “Abraxas”
• Chicago (i believe the album was just called ‘chicago’)
• the soudtrack to ‘easy rider’
• Abbey Road
• disco duck (ok, this was mine. but i listened to it a LOT as a little, little kid)
MY FIRST CONCERT:
Some Eric Clapton tour in the late 80s. // i went with my parents. Highlight of the night: my father pulling me aside and saying ’smell that? that’s POT. never forget what that smells like.’ (A p.s. to this: if you want to split hairs, my first concert EVER was probably a show on one of Elvis’s last tours, a just months before his death. I was in utero - my mom 7 or 8 months pregnant).
A SHORT LIST of my favorite songs (for musical, but not necessarily lyrical reasons):
• The Letter (originally by the box tops - but joe cocker does an incredible version as well)
• House of the Rising Sun (the Animals)
• Mad World (the tears for fears original is nice, but gary jules’ haunting version from donnie darko stops my heart cold)
• Golden Slumbers (who doesn’t have a beatles song in their top ten? i could name a few…)
• Black Cadillacs (modest mouse. oh, the chorus.)
• Rain King (counting crows. the slow, mtv ‘unplugged’ version. the fast, album version just doesn’t seem right to me.)
• Save Me (aimee mann. from the magnolia soundtrack. actually, i don’t know that i’ve ever heard an aimee mann song i didn’t like.)
(i’m going to stop here - i can never remember some of the important ones. but i’ll be driving along or listening to someone’s ipod and hear one - and then i’ll add it to the list.)
THREE OF MY FAVORITE lines from songs:
#1 hands down - from Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ — “now maybe there’s a god above / but all i ever learned from love / is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you” (i’m also partial to, well, every single line in this song, which makes it about my favorite song of all time. brilliant.)
#2 - elliot smith’s needle in the hay—”walk walk walk, four more blocks, plus the one in my brain” // honestly, i’m not sure why i like this line so much. it’s a pretty simple metaphor, but something about it just really gets me. huh.
#3 - shawn colvin’s ’suicide alley’—”You know I wasn’t born I was spat out at a wall / And nobody even knew my name / The sun hatched me out, cradle and all / On the corner of First and Insane” // i also quite enjoy singing this song at the top of my lungs. ask - i’ll do it about anywhere.
(off hand, those three people, plus aimee mann are my favorite song-writers. that i can think of.)
WHAT’S PLAYING right now: ‘a rose for emily’ by the zombies. // i love this song. it’s simple, like most of the zombies’ stuff - something i can almost imagine banging out on the piano by ear - but it also reminds me a lot of my father. Admittedly, the man is traditionally more of a chicago/blood sweat and tears listener (and musician), but i heard a fair amount of the british invasion over the hi-fi speakers over the years. That, and both he and my mother were kind of spontaneous singers, with a chorus of some song at the ready for a vareity of situations. For example, if i ever begged to do something i was obviously too young to do (say, go into cincinnati alone at age 8 or something), they’d sing—loudly, in unison—a few bars of Zeppelin’s “Your time is gonna come.” They reserved ‘a rose for emily’ for teasing purposes - to jab at my little brother about his first girlfriend—a smart little brunette named ‘emily’.
central park blooms
seen on alcatraz island, port of san francisco