Heat Wave Shuffle

Some tunes on the old Shuffle over the past week.

“Lawdy Miss Clawdy” – the great Lloyd Price. One of the first giant crossover hits, where white kids started buying a “race” record. Of course, Elvis would then record it a couple of years later.

“Polly Come Home” – Robert Plant & Allison Krauss. God, I love this entire album. What a sexy fascinating pairing.

“Hoodoo Voodoo Doll” – Brian Setzer. From Guitar Slinger, got that mix of big-band and electric guitar, with an old-school male chorus like Cab Calloway’s stuff or something.

“Will You Love Me Tomorrow” – Carole King & James Taylor, live at the Troubadour. Great song, one of the best pop songs ever written. I love Carole King’s songs, but not so much her voice. It doesn’t do it for me. I like the Shirelles version. But it’s beautiful here, with Taylor harmonizing. So melancholy. Will you still love me tomorrow? You know the answer is No. Although it’s the hope that the answer will be different that keeps people going. Or so I’ve heard.

“We’d Like to Thank You (Herbert Hoover)” – from the original Broadway production of Annie. Go Laurie Beecham. What a VOICE. I saw her play Fantine in the national tour of Les Miserables, when my aunt was in it, and I was thrilled to meet her. The narrator in Joseph! The “star to be” in Annie. I had been admiring her for years. Tina Fey has a funny bit in Bossypants about photo shoots and how she warns you not to play your own music during a photo shoot, because your iPod may blast out “We’d Like to Thank You Herbert Hoover”.

“She Said She Said” – The Beatles. The harmony here is really interesting. I love Revolver.

“Proud Mary” – Elvis, from his 1972 Madison Square Garden concert (recently re-released, with pristine sound, as Prince From Another Planet). He sounds phenomenal.

“I’m Falling In Love Tonight [Takes 1, 2, 3 & 4]” – Elvis Presley. I love this because you can hear him talking and laughing in between takes. He gets the giggles. He stops himself, he works over phrases to himself, he whistles for everyone to “stop”. I love the glimpses of him at work, in process. They have a bit of an issue at first, with counting out before he starts singing – Elvis has to pause for “5”, and they have to work it out. He’s a pure professional, you can hear it in his work process.

“Just Call Me Joe” – Sinéad O’Connor. Haunting. I love it when she almost whispers. Scary.

“Peggy Sue Got Married” – Buddy Holly. You know, you still want to get up and dance to this stuff. It’s still fresh.

“Riot Proof” – Tori Amos. This is from her double album To Venus and Back, which is quite strange, but I like it a lot. I like her when she’s loud and pissed, rather than melancholy and interior.

“In Only Seven Days” – Queen. Freddie Mercury is perfect. A perfect performer. Nothing he did was wrong. Sui generis.

“Funny How Time Slips Away” – Elvis, again from one of the 1972 Madison Square Garden concerts. I always love his version of this. He’s so easy with it, so melancholy, but without any self-pity. He keeps it light, conversational. He’s been there, done it, seen it all, and takes a philosophical view. The audience here is in the palm of his hand. When he sings, “gotta go now”, they erupt into random screams, bemoaning that he may mean what he says. He’s so magical. What IS it? WHAT. IS IT. I will never get sick of contemplating it.

“Monkberry Moon Delight” – Paul McCartney. Yes! From Ram. I always love it when Paul screams, in the Beatles, or here. He’s a great screamer.

“So Long” – The Nylons. We were so into them in college, thanks to Brett. An a capella doo-wop group? Sure, sign up the theatre nerds.

“Christmas Time is Here” – Shawn Colvin, from what I call her “suicidal holiday album”.

“Spring Fever” – Elvis, from Girl Happy, a movie I love. Maybe I’ll watch it again today. Jeremy Richey talks about it here in our QA about Elvis as an actor.

“The Real” – Tracy Bonham, from her incredible album The Burdens of Being Upright. She is so awesome.

“Blow, Gabriel, Blow” – Patti LuPone, in the Broadway revival of Anything Goes, which I saw, back in the day. I love this big gospel number. Shows off LuPone’s phenomenal pipes.

“Let’s Have a Party” – Wanda Jackson. Rough, raw, and thrilling. The rough-ness of her voice, it’s primal, a primal scream. I feel so fortunate that I got to see her live. If you get the chance, don’t miss it. Legend.

“Not Fade Away” – Buddy Holly. I love the macho-ness of the song. “I’m gonna tell how it’s gonna be …” Yes, sir.

“God Only Knows” – the incomparable Beach Boys.

“You Belong to Me” – Dean Martin. He’s so perfect that I imagine young singers should stay far away from him, in order to keep their confidence level up. It’s like me avoiding James Joyce when I am trying to write something big. He makes me lose confidence. I mean, listen to him here. You never ever feel him working at ANYTHING.

“If I Can Dream” – Elvis Presley. Legendary performance.

“Now She Cares No More for Me – A.K.A. When You Stop Lovin’ Me” – Doug Poindexter. Another Sun Records artist. It’s got that classic in-the-moment Sun sound. This is pretty pure country, with swoopy steel guitar.

“8 Mile” – Eminem. Excellent. Relentless.

“Good Morning Starshine” – the Broadway revival of Hair. Beautiful. I get a bit sick of the hippie-dippie stuff, but I love this musical.

“Bad Way To Go” – Lydia Loveless. My pal Charlie and I went to see her at Webster Hall. She’s great. Great live, too.

“My Happiness” – Elvis Presley, recorded in 1953, one of two songs he recorded as a “gift for his mother”. Story here. He’s 18 years old. He can barely play the guitar. He is doing something with his voice, he’s imitating something, the Ink Spots, perhaps, so you can’t quite hear him … hard to believe that a year later he’d record “That’s All Right”, when you listen to this warbly gentle recording. Full of ache and heart, though.

“Come See About Me” – the band Yipes!, which, if I’m not mistaken, was Pat McCurdy’s first band. I have all their stuff. I don’t even remember where I got it. I had it on cassette tape, I think. I have no idea.

“One Night” – Elvis Presley. A searing version of this song, which Elvis then recorded again (unforgettably) in 1968 during the live sit-down section of his NBC special. Elvis was forced to change the lyrics in his original version because they were too racy. Basically the original version was about a hot night of sex which he now regretted on some level, but also didn’t, due to the gloriousness of the sex experienced. Make the earth stand still, etc. Pretty racy stuff. That wouldn’t fly, though, so Elvis, who recorded it in 1958, sat down and rewrote the lyrics himself. “One night of sin is what I’m now paying for” then became “One night with you is all that I’m praying for.” Not too shabby, Elvis. Eventually, a “take” was discovered of Elvis singing the original lyrics which involved “one night of sin”, and so now we all can be happy to listen to all three versions back to back, should we so desire. Funnily enough, even with the tamer lyrics, you can tell what Elvis is really singing about. He couldn’t BE tamed.

“I Love It When You Call Me Names” – Joan Armatrading. Another singer we were obsessed with in college. She’s incredible, I still get excited when her songs come up on Shuffle. What a great and interesting career.

“You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You’re Told)” – The White Stripes. Boy, I couldn’t stop listening to Icky Thump there for a while. Think I over-listened to it, but I still like it.

“It’s a Sin” – Elvis Presley. Deep in the RCA years now, Elvis is a Pop God by now. Much of the Sun Records rough-ness is gone, and here he oozes and smoothes his way through a sweet ballad. He’s a pro.

“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” – U2, live from Milan, 2005. Maybe my favorite of all of their songs. Goosebumps.

“Blue Veins” – The Raconteurs. Two of my favorite people are involved in The Raconteurs, Jack White and Brendan Benson. It’s all a bit self-indulgent, but if it’s talented people being self-indulgent, I’m usually okay with it. More, more, more.

“Baker Street” – Foo Fighters. This is from the special edition of their breakthrough album The Colour and the Shape, not on the original version. Love them.

“I’m Happy Just to Dance With You” – The Beatles, from Hard Day’s Night. So simple, and so good.

“Moonlight Swim” – Elvis and pals, 1966, at home around the piano. It is truly bizarre. Elvis is playing “Moonlight Sonata”, and he and pals are singing gloomy “ohs” as accompaniment, sometimes cracking up in laughter. So weird. Just a regular day at home in Bel Air or Memphis. Listen to Elvis play that Beethoven though!

“Born This Way” – Lady GaGa. When I go for a run, I put this on repeat. You just have to keep moving.

“Go Away” – Lorrie Morgan. I think these lyrics are fantastic. Funny, ironic, emotional, it’s a well-developed monologue and character. Great job.

“Thousand Times Why” – Pat McCurdy, a Midwest legend. If you live in the Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison area you have probably heard of him. I performed with him at the Milwaukee Summer Fest in 1994. I wore a bustier, a bowler, and fishnet stockings. And 3,000 people chanted my name. It’s hard to believe that that even happened, but it did. I have the battered video tape footage to prove it.

“I’ll Never Tell” – the aforementioned Brendan Benson. He’s such an awesome songwriter. He hasn’t written a boring song. Not yet anyway. I’m a fan for life.

“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” – The Five Blind Boys of Alabama. I’ve been reading Peter Guralnick’s wonderful biography of Sam Cooke and immersing myself in the gospel groups who surrounded Sam and the Soul Stirrers. These guys are amazing, and this version crackles with life, faith, and sexiness. That’s the thing with the gospel movement in the 50s, how it also tapped into the seething sexuality of the audience, through the guise of faith-full release. Controversial, sure, at the time, and now – but you can’t deny listening to this that you want to get up and move your self around. It’s amazing!

“Before the Parade Passes By” – Barbra Streisand, in Hello, Dolly!. The song has such a build. It starts almost as a ballad and then … yeah, it doesn’t end as one.

“One Short Day” – the cast of Wicked. Lots of fun. The first time I posted about Wicked, some guy named Otis left a comment, which is indicative of the problem I had on my site back in the day, with right-wingers being political and full of cultural resentment in places that were not appropriate. Ugh. These people saw everything through the filter of their resentment. So boring. After my Stalinist purge, I didn’t have much trouble with such folks anymore.

“How’s the World Treating You?” – Elvis Presley. From the early RCA days in 1956 when the engineers at RCA, in trying to re-create the raw slap-back echo of the Sun sounds, put an echo on Elvis’ voice which sometimes goes over the top and makes him sound like he is calling for help at the bottom of a well.

“King Creole” – this is actually the re-vamped re-mix used in the Cirque de Soleil show Viva Elvis. I’m not big on re-mixes, although there are a couple I really love (the “Blue Suede Shoes” one they play in Elvis’ car museum at Graceland), and, of course, the wildly successful “Little Less Conversation” re-mix that took the world by storm. But this is fun!

“Love Me Tender” (instrumental) – Elvis and friends, on the Million Dollar Quartet day (so-called) in December 1956. Things have slowed down a bit in the impromptu jam session. Someone fiddles with an electric guitar, and someone (Jerry Lee Lewis) plays “Love Me Tender” on the piano.

“All I Do Is Dream Of You” – the dreamy dreamy Doris Day.

“Damage Case” – Metallica. The best part of Shuffle is going from Doris Day to Metallica.

“We Shall Overcome” – the unbelievable Mahalia Jackson. I should have mentioned her “cameo” in Imitation of Life when I wrote about it. The look on Lana Turner’s face in the pews, as Mahalia sang, was apparently not “acting” (although, of course, that’s what it was). She was overcome listening to Mahalia and you can see it on her face. She is decimated. Powerful scene.

“Don’t Bring Me Down” – the wonderful Ok Go doing an acoustic version of ELO’s song. It’s just one guitar and the guys. They’re in some tiny club in SoHo. I love these guys.

“Even Flow” – Pearl Jam. Boy is this song a time-traveler. Evocative of a whole era in my life.

“Reel Around the Sun” – good ol’ Bill Whelan, for Riverdance, the opening number, which is still quite thrilling.

“Rockin’ Years” – Dolly Parton. I swear, at the first chords of a Dolly song, I start to feel myself relax, sink in, open up, be more present. She has a gift. This is a duet with Ricky van Shelton. Beautiful!

“(I’ve Got a Gal In) Kalamazoo” – Tony Burgos & His Swing Shift Orchestra. Takes me back to those old dance halls. Oh, that’s right, that’s before my time. But I can picture it all when this comes on.

“Nobody’s Crying” – Patty Griffin. If I’m feeling tender or too-sad, I stay far the hell away from Patty Griffin.

“My Truly, Truly Fair” – Guy Mitchell. I don’t know, this is awesome and also slightly psychotic! The background chorus of dames is so funny. It sounds like it could be a strictly country number but all this other stuff is added to it.

“I Am the Walrus” – Bono, from Julie Taymor’s Beatles-inspired film Across the Universe. This is good.

“Something In the Air” – Thunderclap Newman. The song is great, and will always be associated with Easy Rider.

“The Golden Age” – my cousin Liam O’Malley, who is one of the most talented songwriters I know. He wrote a couple of essays on The Kinks on my site a million years ago. He has a new album out now, under the pseudonym Dr. Mars. I love his stuff so much. Go, Liam!

“Forgiveness” – Patty Griffin. See comment above in re: Patty.

“I’m Leavin'” (take 3) – Elvis Presley. Beautiful song, very different for him. The arrangement (the “la’s” of the chorus, the picking of the guitar, the melody) – is very complex. It took some time to get it right. This is a beautiful take, if a bit rough. Elvis feeling his way through all of the different elements. He can sense where the song needs to go, he can sense the final version in his head (he always could, it was just a matter of matching the reality in his head to the reality out in the world). Listen to his vocalizations, how high he goes, how he flips up to the falsetto. It’s so beautiful, but the song isn’t quite “there” yet in the take. When the song ends, you hear Elvis give a whistle and say, “That is tough, man.” There’s a pause and then he declares, “This thing is worth working on.”

“Rock and Roll Ruby” – Warren Smith. Ruby just wants to rock, and nobody should hold her back from her destiny.

“Pump It Up” – Elvis Costello. My second favorite of his songs.

“King of the Road” – Roger Miller. Swing it, Rog! I love Dino’s version best, but the song is great pretty much regardless of who sings it.

“Because Of You” – Kelly Clarkson. Chick can sing.

“Physical” – the cast of Glee and the great Olivia Newton-John. I remember when this song came out, I remember the video, I remember how “shocking” it was. I like the distortion of this version, I think it’s hip.

“Wildwood Carol” – Jane Siberry and friends, in her recorded Christmas concert at The Bottom Line (I think it was). A lovely album of traditional Christmas carols, funny monologues, and twists on the familiar theme.

“Second Hand News” – Fleetwood Mac. From that very rare thing, a perfect album.

“Complicated” – Avril Lavigne. Jeez, member her?

“We Three Kings” – Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. A mournful dirge with horns.

“Showbiz Is My Life” – Pat McCurdy, live. The man speaks the truth.

“Baby Won’t You Come Out Tonight” – Buddy Holly. Reminiscent of Elvis’ Baby Let’s Play House, with the same “buh-buh-baby …” Released on a posthumous album. It rocks.

“Mean Woman Blues” – Elvis Presley, from Loving You, 1957. Hot. “She kissed so hard she bruised my lips, hurts so good my heart just flips …” Racy stuff. I love the scene in the film, where Elvis is really set loose.

“All Shook Up” – Elvis, live in Honolulu at his fund raiser concert for the USS Arizona memorial. March 25, 1961. It’s a poor recording but a gold mine because this was Elvis’ last live appearance until the late 60s. He is on FIRE and the audience is out of CONTROL. Piercing screams.

“Not a Second Time” – The Beatles. From With the Beatles. I take Wikipedia with a grain of salt, but there is some interesting information here.

“Brown Derby Jump” – the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies. I love these guys. Short-lived, with the revived swing craze, but I love them.

“Ask Me” – Elvis, in full-on Dino Crooner Mood. Gorgeous.

“Dim All the Lights” – Donna Summer. We listened to her constantly at college parties. This song brings back a lot of memories.

“Life’s Too Short” – Pat McCurdy. This was from The Sound of Music, the first album of his I bought. A cassette tape at a local Tower Records in Chicago. This is still one of my favorite songs of his. He always remembers, too. Any time I have shown up at one of his shows, and it could be years apart these times, he’ll play this one, along with “Paris When It Burns”, all for me. He remembers.

“Louise” – the great Robbie Williams on his bizarre album Rudebox.

“All Of Your Love” – this really great band called Hellogoodbye. My friend Emily introduced me to them.

“Boys” – The Beatles. Hot. I love the “bop bop shoo-wop” behind the real action: it’s cliche, but it somehow sounds fresh and new in the context of the Beatles.

“Real Man” – Bonnie Raitt. I’m with you, girl. I got your back on this one.

“And She Was” – Talking Heads. Boy. Memory lane, man!

“Like You” – Evanescence. I was so into them for a while. Have kind of lost track of what they are up to. Her voice kills me. It’s so honest and powerful.

“Your Cheatin’ Heart” – Elvis Presley. Elvis goes way country here, and I love how he swings with his voice. Sexy too, what he does, “When-uh tears-uh come-uh do-OWN …”

“Impromptu” – Queen, live at Wembley Stadium. Eerie. Powerful. He blows me away, what he is able to do with his voice.

“I Say a Little Prayer For You” – a kind of kick-ass Glee cast version of Dionne Warwick’s classic. Now Dionne cannot be replaced, but I do like this.

“Twenty Days and Twenty Nights” – glorious full-blown 70s-era Elvis Presley. Beautiful.

“I’ve Got a Woman” – Ray Charles, live. He starts soulfully, slowly, powerful. The audience can barely bear the excitement, knowing what is coming. Just had a big conversation about Ray Charles last night.

“Jesus Gave Me Water” – Sam Cooke, with the Soul Stirrers. This was their first hit as a gospel quartet. It would bring the house down whenever they performed it. It’s gorgeous. Sam Cooke is so young here, but he already dazzles with brilliance and confidence. Some people just “have it”.

“So Glad You’re Mine” – Elvis Presley. Sexy as hell. Early RCA stuff. Elvis is so open and confident with his talent, you get the sense that whatever he wants to do, he does, because he know it is right. Every choice he makes, every vocal choice, where he breathes, where he doesn’t breathe …. all conscious, and yet not studied or deliberate. A genius, basically.

“In the Ghetto” – Elvis. This is live, in Vegas, 1969. “A record that just did very well for me, ladies and gentlemen,” he says, by way of introduction. That’s an understatement. Live, it’s rousing and powerful. He’s so IN it.

“Endgame” – from the Broadway production of Chess. It feels like Chess, in all its versions (I have three of them) is always overly represented in Shuffle. It’s annoying. Again with the freakin’ Chess? I realize I could ban it from Shuffle, but my OCD tendencies forbid such an action. I need to have everything in one place at all times.

“Fingerprints” – Katy Perry. I don’t know what she’s talking about.

“Help Is On Its Way” – Little River Band. That is very good news and not a minute too soon.

“Anna (Go to Him)” – The Beatles. Love that lead guitar.

“I Will Follow” – U2. Insanely exciting. Still. After all these years.

“Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 “Pastoral”: I. Allegro Ma Non Troppo” – Beethoven (London Symphony Orchestra). Beautiful, almost courtly-sounding. Formal and yet emotional.

“Going Through Changes” – Eminem. Lots of pain and self-loathing. In other words, just a day in the life of Marshall. But still, very honest.

“Crazy In Love” – Eminem, an absolutely nuts song written about his relationship with his wife/ex-wife/wife/ex-wife/and-counting Kim. Not perhaps as nuts as the most famous one, but this one is more openly autobiographical, a monologue to her. “Kim” is a fantasy/nightmare/wish-fulfillment. “Crazy In Love” is an analysis of their relationship and what binds them together. It’s quite revealing. He’s really a one-woman kind of guy, as ridiculous a statement as that might seem. Kim is the only one that matters. Also, I love it because he samples Heart’s song “Crazy On You”.

“Girl On My Mind” – Buddy Holly. Beautiful, aching, yearning. I’m psyched there’s so much Buddy in this Shuffle.

“Where Were You On Our Wedding Day” – Lloyd Price. Great. The thing about that era – the 40s and 50s – is that everyone was making it up as they went along, and we had geniuses at work who realized that the culture was blending, integrating, before the laws came down from above. You can’t stop white kids from buying “race” albums, although certain powers-that-be tried. Things like gospel, hillbilly, and rhythm and blues, from a culture perhaps unfamiliar to the kids growing up in Boston, or Milwaukee, or Portland, were suddenly accessible – through greater radio transmissions, and also artists who sensed that all of these different “genres” were actually part of one giant river. You can hear all of that in songs like this one. It’s still vibrant and exciting.

“One After 909” – The Beatles. With everything they did, with all of their great songs, and things like Sgt. Pepper and the White Album, this is one of my favorite Beatles recordings.

“Overkill” – Colin Hay. Ouch. This is his acoustic version. I think Grey’s Anatomy used it to poignant effect. It also was a great inspiration for me in writing my play. It’s an inner monologue.

“Jamaica Jerk-Off” – Elton John, from the great Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album. In college, my friend Betsy won tickets to an Elton John concert as well as a limo ride to said venue. It was a last-minute thing. She called me, “Can you be at my house in a couple of hours??” Hell yes I could and was. We had a great night.

“Steamroller” – James Taylor. I grew up hearing James Taylor around the house, my parents had all his albums. I’ve seen him in concert a bunch of times, most memorably with my group of friends in Chicago. But I remember being a kid and not understanding the sexual metaphor of the song. I took it literally. Why does he want to run over that nice lady and crush her flat?

“Thanks To the Rolling Sea (take 10)” – Elvis, from Girls! Girls! Girls! This is 100% absurd. I love it. But I’m trying to picture those who had loved the Sun stuff and the RCA stuff trying to understand a track like this one. Go, Elvis. Keep ’em guessing.

“Love Me” – Buddy Holly. Yeah!

“Just Blew In From the Windy City” – Doris Day from Calamity Jane. Read my conversation with Mitchell about Doris Day!

“Down the Line” – Buddy Holly. Well. I am in heaven. This is sexxxxxxxy.

“Drown Soda” – Hole. I loved them. This is a great soundtrack, by the way.

“Hey Eugene” – Pink Martini. I’ve written about this song before. The description of that night always reminds me of a similar New York night I had with a similar charming guy.

“Folsom Prison Blues” – Johnny Cash, the original Sun Records recording. It’s almost scary. Cash is so authentic, so present … it almost acts like an indictment of all of us who have a hard time being present. He’s an example. Here I Am, I Live, I Exist, Here Is My Voice, Here Is Who I Am.

“The Interview” – from Chess In Concert. See what I mean?

“And I Love Her” – The Beatles. That opening is so unique. It seems to start in the middle of something. But it’s the beginning.

“So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)” – The Everly Brothers. Their harmony is perfection. Them and the Louvin Brothers. It’s just gorgeous.

“I Want Your Sex, Pts. 1 & 2” – George Michael. That album WAS my junior year in college. We listened to it constantly.

“My Eyes Can Only Look At You” – Nina Simone. I have to gear up to be able to deal with her. She is so intense. So brilliant. It’s not that I have to be “in the mood”, but she always takes me somewhere, moves me from one place to the next, and I have to be up for something like that. I am unable to be passive listening to Nina. This is wonderful.

“Dirty Rotten Bastards” – Green Day, from the recently released ¡Tré!. A lot of the songs are totally stock, but I like many of them nonetheless. This is very stock, with a “nyah nyah nyah” sound to the melody (a Green Day staple). I like it.

“There’s No Cure Like Travel/Bon Voyage” – from the new Broadway cast recording of Anything Goes, starring Sutton Foster. Fun.

“Everyday” – Buddy Holly. I feel like I have hit the Holly jackpot. But listen to this, the little slapping sound, the metronome, the child-like keyboard, it’s a fascinating arrangement.

“Jolene” – from Glee. A nice rendition of the song, and nicely woven into the storyline. Can’t compare to Dolly, of course, but what can?

“I Got a Woman” – Elvis, again from that 1961 concert in Honolulu and one of my favorite recorded versions of this song in his career (he sang it for his whole life). The later versions from the 70s were polished, often ferocious, and energetically performed, but often the deep-down-dirty sex drive, which Elvis was so able to tap into, was skidded over. It’s implied, rather than explicit. Here it is explicit. The song is an expression of sex, the need for it, the love of it. You feel like he’s about to attack the audience, or himself. Again, the sound quality of this particular concert is extremely uneven but in a way that adds to its power – you feel like you are out there in the audience.

“Free Speech for the Dumb” – Metallica, from Garage, Inc. I don’t keep up with the Metallica controversies amongst fans and music critics. What’s the vibe out there right now about them? I’ll buy whatever they put out, and for the most part, love it – even the despised Load. I’m fascinated by them, in general.

“High School Confidential” – Jerry Lee Lewis, at Sun Records. Rockin’. He’s so nuts.

“Introductions” – Elvis introducing his band at a show in Dallas in 1975. At one point, some insane woman screams, “I love you” and he says, “I love you too, honey, but don’t fall out of that balcony.”

“Shame On You” – Indigo Girls. You know, I’m not earnest, and have a weird visceral dislike of earnest-ness (I know it’s partially a flaw of mine) – but I love these women and am so glad they weren’t just a fluke. I look forward to their albums.

“Husky Dusky Day” – Elvis Presley and Hope Lange from Wild in the Country. Not a number, strictly, there’s no accompaniment. It’s the two of them singing as they drive. And not to be a total nerd, but he sings harmony briefly, one of the few times in his entire career that he got to take the harmony line.

“Quartet (A Model of Decorum and Tranquility)” – from the London cast recording of Chess. Again: see what I mean?

“Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard” – Paul Simon. Another artist I grew up listening to, from my parents’ record collection.

“Could You Lie” – the gorgeous Alison Krauss. I find her very soothing.

“In Love With My Lover” – the great great Bleu. He has a new one coming out.

“Love Coming Down” – Elvis Presley, sexy powerful ballad with a country feel. He’s awesome.

“Midnight Shift” – Buddy Holly. Thank you music Gods. Funny vivid lyrics. Annie comes alive, doesn’t she?

“What’s Your Sign?” – the gorgeously talented Des’ree. Member her? I should see what she’s up to. Wonderful songwriter. She’s a Sagittarius, apparently, just like me. “I’m always aiming into the sky, I point my arrows extremely high! Everyone has a sign, whether supernatural or divine. Believe or not, if you’re so inclined, cause in this great big universe, we’re the stars on earth!”

“One Track Heart” – Elvis Presley, from Roustabout. He has a one track mind and a one track heart, people.

“Cockies of Bungaree” – The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem. Come to think of it, the Irish have been very under-represented in this here Shuffle! Hi, lads!

“Wouldn’t It Be Nice” – The Beach Boys. Classic.

And since it’s 99 degrees out today, I’ll stop with the summery Beach Boys. I’m off to the beach myself.

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2 Responses to Heat Wave Shuffle

  1. mutecypher says:

    Re: Metallica. My general vibe is “dear God, nothing ever again with Lou Reed.” I so wanted to like that one, but it is unlistenable to me. I’m glad they followed up with the EP (or whatever one calls them) Beyond Magnetic. I’ve read that they are in the studio and what they are working on sounds like a continuation of Death Magnetic – which would be excellent.

    Before moving to Hawaii, my family and I liked to come to Hawaii for the week before Christmas. We had a resort we liked to stay at on Maui. It was mostly for middle class folks, but with some serious high end accommodations. We saw Jason Alexander, William Fichtner, and… James Hetfield there for a couple of years. The pool had a nice, long, twisty water slide. One day, my daughter and I are going down it – and James must have been expecting HIS daughter to be coming down because he damn-near caught me at the end of the slide. A couple of days later, we were on the same flight back to the Bay Area and we made eye contact and he kinda laughed. I suspect I remember it more vividly than he does.

    Stay cool at the beach (well, I’m sure you’re cool wherever you go….)

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