1. Your favorite song with the name of a city in the title or text.
Cannot think of anything.
2. A song you’ve listened to repeatedly when you were depressed at some point in your life.
“Watershed”, by the Indigo Girls. Think we covered that yesterday.
3. Ever bought an entire album just for one song and wound up disliking everything but that song? Gimme that song.
Mortifying admission, but whatever. I bought Britney Spears’ first album because I LOVED that first hit single. I knew I wouldn’t like the rest of the album, and I didn’t. But I still jammed out to “Hit me, Baby One More Time.”
4. A great song in a language other than English.
“Óró, Sé Do Bheatha ‘Bhaile!” – Irish, Clancy Brothers do it on their Carnegie Hall album. Ohhh
5. Your least favorite song on one of your favorite albums of all time.
Sue me, but I can’t get into “Territorial Pissings” on “Nevermind” by Nirvana. It’s one of my favorite albums EVER but I always skip that nightmare.
And if Eminem had left “Drips” off of “The Eminem Show” it would be, in my estimation, a perfect album. But no. He had to go and include it.
I have listened to that CD so many times that I now need to buy a new one. But I only listened to “Drips” once.
6. A song you like by someone you find physically unattractive or otherwise repellent.
Ozzy.
7. Your favorite song that has expletives in it that’s not by Liz Phair.
“Sing for the Moment”, by Eminem. Might be my favorite one off that album.
8. A song that sounds as if it’s by someone British but isn’t.
Anything by Green Day.
9. A song you like (possibly from your past) that took you forever to finally locate a copy of.
“Those were the days, my friend”.
Even writing that title gives me a chill. I literally would GO places in my imagination when I heard that song as a little kid. God. Huge fantasy life. Then lost track of it. Forgot it existed.
Until my friend Pat M. made me a mix tape. And there it was. My song from my childhood. I felt so … I can’t describe it.
The hairs rose up on the back of my neck, that’s how I can describe it.
10. A song that reminds you of spring but doesn’t mention spring at all.
“Vienna”. Who the hell did that song? I LOVE that song.
11. A song that sounds to you like being happy feels.
“Fields of Joy” by Lenny Kravitz. Starting soft soft gentle gentle and ending fierce fierce fierce. That, to me, is happiness.
12. Your favorite song from a non-soundtrack compilation album.
Hmmm. I have a compilation of Irish music put out by a radio station – plenty of great stuff on that. I listen to it all the time.
13. A song that reminds you of high school.
“Freeze Frame”. Actually anything by J Geils.
Also “Rock Lobster” by the B-52s.
“We got the Beat” – Go Gos
14. A song that reminds you of college.
“Man in the Mirror” Michael Jackson
“Pink Cadillac” – wait, who did that … Natalie Cole?
Anything written by Prince. I lost something to a song by Prince, if you know what I’m sayin’.
15. A song you actually like by an artist you otherwise dislike.
Copying Dan on this one who says:
“Mmmbop” by Hanson. Laugh all you want – it’s a catchy tune and a fine example of a pure pop song.
Totally!!
16. A song by a band that features three or more female members.
“Our lips are sealed” – the Go Gos
17. One of the earliest songs that you can remember listening to.
“Rocky Mountain High” – John Denver
Also the Clancy Brothers. And Bob Gibson
18. A song you’ve been mocked by friends for liking.
Well, there’s the whole Britney Spears debacle.
I am mocked for liking Eminem. By those who do not understand his genius.
19. A really good cover version you think no one else has heard.
Whirling Dervishes cover of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”. (Although Lippert – I know you know that one!!)
20. A song that has helped cheer you up (or empowered you somehow) after a breakup or otherwise difficult situation.
“21 Things I Want” by Alanis Morrissette – great song
“Til we Reach That Day” – from the Ragtime soundtrack
Ah, the Clancy Bros. at Carnegie Hall – man, I know that one backwards and forwards.
“Anything written by Prince. I lost something to a song by Prince, if you know what I’m sayin’.”
Bwahahaha. THAT would make a good meme – songs you ‘lost something’ to.
Did Patty LaBelle do Pink Cadillac?
Bets- just Googled it. It actually is Natalie Cole. But Springsteen wrote it.
Oh, and forgot to tell you:
Your Michael Landon quote yesterday at first went right over my head … I was like: “wait … what does he have to do with it…”
And then … it all became clear to me on the bus ride home … and I BURST out laughing.
Dan – what is once lost can never be found again.
More’s the pity.
“what is lost can never be found again”.
I dunno. I think there’s a statute of limitations.
And I’m probably just about there.
Whirling Dervishes cover of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”. (Although Lippert – I know you know that one!!)
Best. Christmas song. Ever.
Regarding “loss”…a friend (no, really, it was a friend) made the mistake of revealing to us that he lost it to Extreme’s “More Than Words,” for which we mock him endlessly.
Music quiz
In the service of Sheila A-Stray’s Redheaded Ramblings, I once again assert my Internet Lemminghood. 1. Your favorite song with the name of a city in the title or text. New York, New York, Sinatra. In my college days, I’d…
Meme Du Jour
From Silver Fox, via Red, one of those “fill in the blanks” surveys that I love so much. This one? Music, natch….
These are great questions. I don’t know if you want readers’ answers, but here, after much thought, are mine:
1. “Summer, Highland Falls,” Billy Joel
2. “Small Blue Thing,” Suzanne Vega, though in truth it’s harder to find a song I haven’t listened to when depressed
3. “Undercover of the Night,” Rolling Stones
4. “Bang Bang,” Joe Cuba Sextet (everything but the title’s in Spanish, so I say it counts)
5. “Revolution No. 9,” The Beatles. No, too easy. “Day Tripper,” James Taylor, Flag (he did it without the riff — bad idea)
6. “If I Love Again,” Barbra Streisand
7. “Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen,” from A Chorus Line — maybe not my favorite, but I like it, and when I was a kid, the line “And I thought ‘Shit'” was for a while the funniest thing I’d ever heard
8. This is hard. Maybe “Radio Free Europe,” REM
9. “Stranded in the Jungle,” The Cadets
10. “There She Goes Again,” Marshall Crenshaw
11. “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” Ray Charles, True to Life
12. “Keeping Awake,” Innocence Mission
13. Man, too many. I’ll go with “Don’t You Want Me,” Human League
14. “Red Red Wine,” UB40 — my next-door neighbor played it incessantly freshman year
15. “Cover of the Rolling Stone,” Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show
16. “James,” Bangles
17. Meet the Beatles, the whole thing, over and over. Still one of my favorite albums. I got the LP when I was two and listened to it every day for years, and there’s not a skip on it. That’s how much I loved it
18. “Terra Nova,” James Taylor. My friends are idiots
19. Someone did a great cover of “Baby I Love You,” the old Aretha Franklin track. I have no idea who. It was playing in a bad movie, and I didn’t have the sense to watch the closing credits. My friends are smarter than I am
20. “Drive,” Todd Rundgren
I didn’t actually “lose something” while a Prince song was playing, but I made out with a boy I’d been obsessed with for a year in the TV room of my dorm at college, while Purple Rain was playing in the background.
“The Beautiful Ones” always makes me think of him: “I may not know where I’m going baby/ I may not know what I need/ But I know what I WANT.”
CIMike,
Innocence Mission would be one of those bands that I could have answered #9 with – I can NEVER find their stuff, and they were a hella cool group.
My answers, by the way –
http://www.shotinthedark.info/archives/003314.html
Oh, Red – looks like we have one thing in common, anyway; my dad owned maybe ten albums, and two were the Clancy Brothers. I knew all the lyrics to “Dirty Old Town” by the time I was five.
(We’re about as Irish as pickled herring on roggebrot).
Sheila, Did you know that “Those Were the Days” is a Russian folk song, adapted by Gene Raskin? You can hear a balalaika version of the song here:
http://www.barynya.com/mp3/index.stm
Here’s the Russian chorus, which I like even better than Raskin’s (duon’t know if the Cyrillic will take):
Дорогой длинною, погодой лунною,
да с песней той, что в даль летит звеня,
и с той старинною, да с семиструнною,
Что по ночам так мучила меня!
Along the long road, with the lunar weather
Yes, with that song that flies up ringing from afar
And with that old, yes with the seven-string
That so tormented me at night.
“Lunar weather” – great description of Russia in winter. I learned the Russian word for “torment” from this song.
John – I have this whole … imaginating thing … surrounding that song. I didn’t know it was an adapted folk song – I know the one that was on the radio, female singer (who was that??) – But when I was a kid, and I would hear it – I would go off into these fantasies, and they were all Russian peasant fantasies.
Little Siberian cottages, with glowing fires, and peasants dancing about – and I was a little girl, peeking through the windows.
Where this fantasy comes from, I have no idea – since I barely knew what Russia was at the time – but those were my fantasies.
So … on some Jungian level … I was dipping into some collective unconscious or something.
Something in me KNEW that it was Russian.
Weird? Yes.
True? Yes.
I love that you just posted Cyrillic writing on my blog. I love that.
Cyrillic is so cool. When I’m bored in meetings, I take notes in cyrillic (I don’t speak russian, at least not well – but it’s fun to transliterate cyrillic onto English or German words.
I’m officially pathetic, aren’t I?
Mitch, that’s not pathetic. Keeps the riff-raff from seeing wht you’re really doing. I take notes in meetings in either Russian or Japanese when I want to make particularly pejorative comments. I have to watch which language based on who is sitting next to me though, my company is pretty international.
Sheila, I forgot to mention the Russian title, which is “Dorogoi Dlinnoyu”, or “Along the Long Road”.
Speaking of songs that evoke memories, the day I learned this song, I was in an intensive summer Russian class here in the States. At lunch we students were talking about our heritage, where our families were from (very few Slavs) One of us asked a teacher how he got to the States. He paused, fork half way to his mouth. Stayed that way for about 30 seconds. Then he said “You must never, never ask a Russian emigre that question.” I later leaned he’d done time in the Lyubyanka.
John – InCREDible.
You just painted an entire emotional picture. How his fork froze, etc.
Michael:
Hello 12 Hello 13!!
Oh my God, the memories.
“Helloo love…”
Was the female singer that famous ski-groupie/killer, ex of Andy Williams, Claudine Longet. I think she had an album with a version on it. Wait a minute. Maybe I am thinking of Melanie.