songs i tried to resist
Darangutan
a stupid iTunes program just to read this.
Ta,
Dar
J. D. Mack
wrote:
I can only post the list. iTunes also has John's explanation as to
why he chose these songs, but there's no way to copy and paste the
text (and it's too lengthy to transcribe before I have to go to work).
Get in or Get Out Hot Hot Heat
Blitzkrieg Bop Ramones
Glamour Girl Chicks on Speed
Smells Like Teen Spirit Nirvana
Dancing Queen ABBA
I'm Like a Bird Nelly Furtado
Gay Bar Electric Six
You'll Be in My Heart (Phil Version) Phil Collins
I'll Take New York Tom Waits
Midnight Train to Georgia Gladys Knight and the Pips
Manitoba Frank Black & The Catholics
The Night Has a Thousand Eyes Bobby Vee
J. D.
Lohner
Linnell's commentary included.
"Get In or Get Out" (Track 1): "I knew I was supposed to like this CD
and resisted partly on that basis. The band was presented as The Cure
meets XTC, which sounds kind of appealing but which paradoxically
turned me off. I guess that Hollywood-style formula of 'A meets B'
always smells unpromising. When I hear the song now I forget all about
the hype and enjoy it on its own terms."
"Blitzkrieg Bop" (Track 2): "We had a friend in high school who kept
pushing this record on us. I remember indulging his relentless
enthusiasm for this brand new, puzzlingly stripped-down kind of music
without really liking it for a few weeks. The whole thing took a while
to make sense, but once I got it, it changed everything forever. I know
someone who's about 10 years older than me who had an identical
response to Jimi Hendrix's 'Purple Haze' when it came out. He and his
friends heard it and tut-tutted about the fall of Western Civilization,
and within a week or so they were all walking around going 'Daernt
DAERNT! Daernt DAERNT!'"
"Glamour Girl" (Track 3): "My wife played me this without any
explanation. My ears were tied and grumpy and I didn't want to like it.
I still don't know exactly where it's coming from, but the disturbing,
subtly messed-up vocal was what eventually won me over,"
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Track 4): "How can I explain this one? I
clearly missed the boat, and I really don't know why. When the record
came out it sounded noisy and unfocused and like an inferior version of
the Pixies to me. I didn't see the video until I had already 'gotten
it', but it was an interesting example of why I would fail miserably as
a record executive."
"Dancing Queen" (Track 5): "I can barely remember hating this song
because I've loved it for so long, but there was definitely a moment
sometime in the mid-seventies when all indicators pointed to ABBA as a
toxic force and to the malignancy of this song in particular. Hard to
explain this to youngsters who were not actively oppressed by this
unavoidable juggernaut when it came out. Listening now I'm haunted by
it's reverb-y beauty and the poignancy of the lyrics."
"I'm Like A Bird" (Track 6): "Another example of my self-defeating,
knee-jerk aversion to songs that are wallpapered all over the radio. My
problem, perhaps not yours."
"Gay Bar" (Track 7): "I remember the tolerant winces I and other
listeners wore the first time we heard this. Every now and then,
however, offensiveness is a perfectly valid form of entertainment.
After a few more listens I started singing along to this, and then I
checked in with the RatherGood.com video which added some depth to the
whole experience."
"You'll Be In My Heart" (Track 8): "Defending the music of Mr. Collins
can be a fruitless, time-wasting effort. In the simplest terms,
throughout his career I've been silently praying that the earth would
open up and swallow him and all his works. So the pleasure I took in
this ballad from the Tarzan soundtrack took me completely off guard.
Something about the third and fourth chords against the melody in the
chorus seems to transcend the cheap sentimentality in his music that I
have found so offensive in the past. Either he made some radical
breakthrough in his songwriting or I've gone soft in the head. Or
both."
"I'll Take New York" (Track 9): "I must have heard this record when it
came out, but I had completely forgotten about it until John Flansburgh
and I heard this on the radio recently, and it made Tom Waits seem
suddenly fresh and interesting again. To me it echoes a really strange,
creepy version of a song called 'Stepping Out With A Memory,' that Ted
Lewis performed in his plaintive style."
"Midnight Train to Georgia" (Track 10): "This was Mr. Flansburgh's
suggestion for my list of the initially unappreciated. He reports that
he thought it was a little pop confection with no depth until sometime
well after he first heard it, when he checked out the truly poignant
lyrics and realized what a heart-wrencher it really is. I feel
similarly about 'Do You Know The Way to San Jose' by Burt Bacharach,
having originally heard it when the lyrics were uninteresting and
incomprehensible to me."
"Manitoba" (Track 11): "I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't run out
and buy this CD when it came out. I wasn't anticipating the effect that
the song would have on me because the way I listen to everything is
clouded by context and expectations. This song really kills me in a way
that I can't really explain, tending towards the atheistic and
anti-mystical as I do."
"The Night Has a Thousand Eyes" (Track 12): "The night does indeed have
a thousand eyes, though it makes us uncomfortable to contemplate this."
Nathew
province song.