Seasonal change shuffle

It’s been a while. I used to find putting together these shuffle posts soothing. I’m “writing”, kind of, but I’m not trying to sound a certain way, and the pressure’s off, because the subject matter isn’t up to me. The shuffle format forces me to go with the flow. 2026, y’all. You have no idea.

 

“I Can’t Be Satisfied” – The Rolling Stones. Early Stones, maybe their first or second album? Covering the old Muddy Waters song. With a Sun Records echo on it.

“It’s a Miracle” – Barry Manilow. Pure positivity.

“Maybe God Is Tryin’ to Tell You Something'” – Mary Mary and Taraji P. Henson, from The Color Purple. Speak, Lord. Speak to me. I have many versions of this song – Tata Vega’s is my fave. The song is perfect, it’s a blank slate in a way – waiting to be imprinted on by these insane vocalists.

“Public Enemy #1” – Eminem. This is a fucking banger.

“It Goes Like It Goes” – Jennifer Warnes. The theme song for Norma Rae. I used to sing this one, when I sang out and about. I still love to sing along with Jennifer. (Didn’t realize this was written by David Shire, who’s done a lot of movie soundtracks, etc., but I know him mostly from the musical Closer Than Ever, aka the Boomer’s Cri de Coeur. I did love that musical. Some great songs.)

“Rock Me My Baby” – Buddy Holly. 1956. The year the wave broke over American culture. Do the Crickets get the credit they deserve? They’re such a great band.

“I Believe” – Elvis. Those looowwww rich tones he gets, the bottom hollowing out: no strain, so much space inside his mouth and throat for the sounds. I think this was off his first Christmas album. 1957.

“Hitch Hike” – Marvin Gaye. So sexy.

“We Called It Everything Else” – Jerry Reed. His lyrics are so fantastic. all the different ways we use the word “call” in the stages of a relationship.

“Limbo” – Royal Blood. I do love melodramatic music boys. I mean, they’re probably nightmares in person, but come on, get your melodrama out in music. Do it.

“Daddy Sang Bass” – Johnny Cash singing a Carl Perkins song. Best of both worlds.

“Here I Go” – Jasmine Ash & Bleu (aka William James McAuley III, if you’re a regular here you should know) . Bleu does so many collabs it’s sometimes hard to track (and sometimes he uses different aliases.) He has a new album out! I am busy absorbing it now. He and Jasmine Ash did a song of catchy poppy songs for kids. He has never written a boring song. He means a lot to me.

“That Makes It” – Jayne Mansfield. A gimmick song, her response to “Chantilly Lace”.

“A Thing of Two” – The Beach Boys. I love the chaos in this track, the herky-jerky moodiness, and also the feeling of goofing around, so often their ace in the hole. Messing around: “DO IT RIGHT BABY.” “AHHHHHH” “OUT OF SIGHT BABY”. The Beach Boys contain multitudes, but one of their most pleasing modes is “we are fun to hang out with, you’re safe with us, let’s goof around.”

“Every Other Freckle” – alt-J. (the band name a triangle, or, the symbol for “delta”). I somehow missed them. Mid-2000s … what was I paying attention to? I don’t know. I really like this track.

“1000 Years” – KT Tunstall and Bleu. (Member what I just said about Bleu? You never know where he’s going to pop up.) This was written for the 2014 Tinkerbell movie. It’s beautiful and their voices are perfect together. I love that he – a solo artist – does so many duets.

“Before I Go” – Guy Sebastian. Not sure how this song came on my radar. He has a gorgeous voice, very strong and masculine, and I love the arrangement, the chorus, the percussion.

“Michael Row the Boat Ashore” – The Brothers Four. I am drawn to The Mighty Wind of it all. The pre-Dylan folk scene. My parents’ record collection were filled with folk artists – Dylan, Joan Baez, the Clancy Brothers, but also people like The Beatles, Donovan. Lots of old folk groups with only one or two albums, the whole coffee house scene. My parents were into this whole scene when they were teenagers.

“Drink To Me Only” — Johnny Flynn and Amber Anderson, duet from the wonderful adaptation of Emma. My intro to Johnny Flynn.

“And He Slayed Her” – Liz Phair. From the album no one liked. Well, I did. I like the fact that the album is so staunchly uncommercial. She was clearly working on something, experimenting with new sounds and layerings and harmonies. This is a good one. I’ll follow her wherever she goes.

“What’s Left Of Me” – Waylon Jennings. There’s a whimsy to the tune, and the lyrics, a gentle mischief. But if you really take them in … that punch line hits deep. “Baby, are you sure you want what’s left of me?” Once you pass a certain point of experience, what you can offer is what’s left.

“Such a Night” – Elvis. Exuberant. from the great Elvis Is Back album.

“Boom Boom Pow” – Black Eyed Peas. I’m on that next shit now. This is so 2009.

“Where Have All the Good Men Gone?” — Debbii Dawson. This track is fire. Feels like a classic track that’s been around since 1979, remixed and and sampled for decades. But no. It’s a “right now” song, and I celebrate it.

“Roll Out the Red Carpet” – The Hives. I remember them from back in the 90s grunge days but then lost track of them. I guess they never left and I have some catching up to do. I keep seeing a meme going around like “Chalant is the moment” or “only chalant” and it took me a second to translate into my Gen-X brain: Nonchalance is out. CHALANT is in. I love the creativity of this: tough in this particular moment to resist cultural norms, since cultural norms are now an algorithm sitting in our hands. So I’m listening to the verve and purity of this sound and thinking … “Yes. This is so chalant.”

“Where Is My Husband?” – Raye. Talk about CHALANT. No “non” in sight.

“Price Tag” – Jessie J. [featuring B.o.B.] This song came across my feed somehow and I flashed back to the original release, in 2010 or 2009? Very of its moment. Pure positive lyrics, and I need to hear them now. Can we all slow down and enjoy the right now?

“On the Jericho Road / I’ll Fly Away” – Jerry Lee Lewis. Live. I’ve been waiting for him to show up. He usually doesn’t wait his turn.

“Big Bad Blues” – Carl Perkins. That “Mystery Train” guitar sound. The chug-chug. The “rhythm of the tracks”, as Keith Richards wrote about in his autobiography about old rhythm and blues songs.

“What’s Going Ahn” – Big Star. Ouch. Those opening chords. Why do they hurt. I’m sure there’s a music theory explanation.

“You Need Me” – Pat McCurdy. A friend of mine. Lots of history there. Presented without comment. This song was (is?) a staple of his live shows. I’ve heard it probably 250 times. And sang along, harmonizing, every single time.

“The River of Jordan” – the Louvin Brothers. From their classic album, Satan is Real. With, perhaps, the finest album cover in the history of album covers.

“Seduction” – Eminem. With the instantly-recognizable Recovery sound. Eminem is not, how you say, a “seductive” figure. Would a seducer use the word “johnson” in his pitch? lol There are multiple seductions here and, as per Marshall’s style, it’s all full of torment and self-doubt and self-loathing. The multi-layered lyrical texture means the song can be read a couple different ways. He could be talking about a woman or he could be talking about other hip hop artists, or the business, in general.

“Go Away” – Lorrie Morgan. Late 90s country had some bangers. “I have the right to change my mind at least a couple hundred times. Go away. No, wait a minute. I want out, then I want in it. I’m all confused but I admit it. Go away. No, wait a minute.” It’s so good.

“Here We Go Again” – Ok Go. I think like a lot of people they came on my radar because of the treadmill music video for this song. They’re known for really innovative music videos. Very glad I dug further: there are so many good non-hit songs. They were really ‘there’ for me during some dark times. Their sound is so infectious, I love the harmonies.

“Too Much to Gain to Lose” – Jerry Lee Lewis. 1970. He’s heaven. I mean, he was hell on earth as a person, but his sound is just heaven. Throwing the voice around, totally no hesitation, faith.

“Froggy Went A-Courtin'” – Elvis, horsing around with his band in Las Vegas, before opening 1970. They do the slow half-time ending, and Elvis LOSES his shit. He had the best laugh. Huge, joyous, spontaneous. One of the kids who was in Paradise Hawaiian Style (terrible movie) said he started laughing so hard once that he fell down on the ground, and lay there, helplessly writhing around, tears streaming down his face. She was like 10 years old and she had no idea grownups ever laughed like that.

“You and Me and the Bottle Makes Three” – Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. One of the inexplicable things about the mid-late 90s, was the big band craze. Supper/dance clubs popped up in every major city. I would curl my hair, put on heels, and go out and dance with men (but only the men who knew how to lead). Men who knew how to lead were in high demand. Can we please bring this back?

“I Won’t Be There” – Simple Plan. I am charmed by them. They do pettiness very well. I enjoy a good petty song. It’s validating when you don’t feel like being a good sport.

“Everything Under the Sun” – The Ronettes. The massive-ness of the sound around the voices somehow does not drown out the voices: they become a part of the soundscape. With these echoey male backup singers. And a tambourine, I think? The drums and horns feel like they are being played from half a block away. Whatever is going on: it is (of course) huge.

“Puncha Nazi” – Doll Skin. I support our black-hoodied king.

“Lotta Boot Left to Fill” – Eric Church, live. He’s ferocious live. This song is already pretty ferocious. He’s bringing hard rock / metal-even into country – and he’s been doing so for two decades. “The man in black would have whooped his ass.” I love his callbacks to the greats of days gone by, and how he draws inspiration from them. Johnny Cash is a big one.

“Julie” – Rhiannon Giddens. I try not to throw around the word “genius” lightly. Rhiannon Giddens is a genius.

“Michael Row the Boat Ashore” – The Raunch Hands. Second appearance of this song on the shuffle. Who are the Raunch Hands, you might ask? My brother said it best.

“Suddenly I See” – KT Tunstall. Catchy as fuck.

“Devil Gate Drive” – Suzi Quatro. I love her. I reviewed the doc about her.

“Bang Bang” – Jessie J., Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj. Turn it up to 11. Meant to be played loud in the summer as you careen to the beach with your friends.

“I Can’t Stand the Rain” – Ann Peebles. My Lord does this song – and her performance – work on you. No matter how many times you’ve heard it. Those plonk plonk rain sounds. The horns. HER.

“Ba Ba Ba” – Liz Phair. “I don’t have the guts to tell you I feel safe.” She certainly has a way. She’s been speaking my inner thoughts since the 9th and 10th tracks of Exile to Guyville.

“And Your Bird Can Sing” [take 2] – The Beatles. Lots of giggling throughout. Un-usable take. Cute.

“Cold, Cold Heart” – Jerry Lee Lewis covering Hank Williams. With that classic Sun Studio echo. Immediately recognizable.

“Johnny Feelgood” – Liz Phair. One of my favorite Liz Phair songs. It’s so sexy and romantic (if you think like a Gen-X-er).
He’s got petals on the bed of his sweat sock drawer
And who the fuck am I to criticize him ’cause I really need him now
In fact I’m kinda freaking out
And I’m wondering where the hell you are

“Shake, Rattle, and Roll” (take 3, 5, 6, 7) – Elvis. Lots of false starts, the band circling the sound they need, the drums too insistent, Elvis sounds perfect and exuberant, but bursting into laughter out of nowhere, the chaos in the room, Elvis giggling between takes. I love these “outtakes”. I have so many of them.

“Big River” – Johnny Cash. I love the laugh in his voice on this track. He’s telling a sorry story but he’s laughing about it.

“Crater Lake” – Liz Phair. “Well, look at me, I’m frightening my friends.”

“My Baby Left Me” – Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup. Elvis, of course, made this song famous in 1956 (imo one of his best earlier tracks). But Crudup, who wrote the song, recorded it in 1950, just 6 years earlier. Things happened so quickly in the 1950s. And because Elvis “came from out of nowhere”, fully formed seemingly, you gotta go to the source. The source is always – always – earlier. Plus, the source is amazing.

“Little Queenie” – Chuck Berry [featuring Keith Richards]. The crowd is wild, shouting back, and Keef’s punctuating guitar is perfection-gritty.

“Love Letters” – Elvis Presley. Beautiful piano on this track by David Briggs, just 23 years old, called in to replace Elvis’ regular pianist (or one of them), Floyd Cramer. Elvis fell in love instantly with what David came up with for “Love Letters”, and requested he stay on to play on the track. And then stay on indefinitely to play the organ, when Floyd returned. Briggs’ interviews about this are amazing. He was just a kid, and Elvis got attached to him. Floyd Cramer clearly could have imitated what Briggs did, but Elvis got attached like this: “No, I want him to play.” And Elvis’ performance is so soulful and rich.

“Somebody Help Me” – The Everly Brothers. 1966. You can hear the wall of sound influence here. Transcendent harmonies, of course.

“River” – Charlie Puth. His voice is so gorgeous! The arrangement here – the harmonies in the background singers (mostly male, I think?), the song structure and its progression, the small crescendoes, the rhythm of the chorus – is beautiful.

“Honey Pie” (demo) – The Beatles. A strictly Paul joint. This demo was recorded at George’s house, and has some differences from the final version. You can hear the guys making kooky sounds in the background. Pure music hall.

“The Chain” – Fleetwood Mac. A perfect song off a perfect album.

“Sakura (Cherry Blossom Moon)” – Bleu. Why has he been such a source of comfort to me? Why does he hit so deep? Why does he mean SO much? We’re connected on Instagram now, commenting on each others’ stuff, an unforeseen development, trying to picture early 2000s Sheila understanding how normal this is now. I went and saw him in November 2012 at Rockwood Music Hall. I was struggling after a relationship breakup maybe a month before, but using those banal words masks the reality of what was going on. Bleu’s show was small, maybe 100 people?, and we had this beautiful group experience, healing for me in ways I couldn’t sense at the time. I woke up the day after the Bleu show and wrote about it, taking almost all day. I can see now I was writing through the pain. Bleu means more to me than this particular story, but when I try to put my feelings into words, I can’t help but flash back to Rockwood Hall and the feeling of togetherness he created, in the midst of the Sandy maelstrom, in the midst of my crack-up.

“A-Roving” – the Raunch Hands. Two in one shuffle! Not bad for guys who only put out one album. An album, by the way, not available on streaming. Some kind soul uploaded each track to YouTube. My mother, though, took it upon herself to transfer the scratched vinyl record in her collection to CD, a Christmas present for each of us. A reclamation of our childhood favorite.

“Nobody Knows You Once You’re Down and Out” – Leftover Cuties. I am not sure how I tripped over the Leftover Cuties but I am so grateful I did. Their music – covers of old tunes, like “Happy Days Are Here Again” … “Blue Christmas”! – with old-timey piano, ukulele, horns, and the perfect vocals by Shirli McAllen – has given me so much joy.

“Cabinessence” – The Beach Boys. A song with a fascinating and troubled backstory. A song about … the birth of the railroads in America. With an intricate structure, a massive sound, MASSIVE, but sometimes the massive sound drops out, and we have the vocals and a banjo. The song was part of the SMILE project, and the subject of some inter-Beach-Boys disputes. A great accomplishment.

“Square Dance” – Eminem. From The Eminem Show, one of the last albums where I have the track order memorized. One song ends and I know what comes next. Humorously, when I started this blog in October 2002, The Eminem Show was still ricocheting through the culture, and my third post on the blog – the third! – was about being a fan, and how I was making plans to wait in line for the premiere of 8 Mile. “I am FREAKING OUT” I screamed to my audience of 10 people, all of whom I knew personally. The Eminem Show was so massive it was like Thriller or Purple Rain, world-conquering unavoidable albums, track after track releasing, climbing the charts, sucking up all the oxygen for a full year. If you weren’t there, it’s hard to explain … Years later, I wrote the piece about Eminem’s “Kim”, one of his most controversial tracks (although how can one even choose), I got some pushback in comments on Twitter, Insta, and in private emails. Mostly women, sorry to say, saying they were really surprised I wrote this way about him, and how could I support someone like him? Eminem’s female fan base is huge. Deal with it. Got the same thing with my monster post about him – Eminem literally helped me get through 2020 – I received more shocked messages and a lot of “Okay different strokes, I guess”, like they were trying to justify to themselves why they still liked me. It was wild. People like this were clearly new around these parts. The THIRD post on this blog was about my love of Eminem. You should not feel blindsided. I told you up front who I was. In “Square Dance”, Eminem lashes out at everyone he hates, surprise surprise. He was feral. Again, hard to explain to those who weren’t born yet: to be such a huge star and be THAT feral doesn’t happen all that often. We’re lucky he’s still around. Grandpa Marshall.

“Baby’s Coming Back” – Jellyfish. I just resurrected a post about doing ecstasy at a party where Jellyfish was blasting. Kismet! I love them and miss them.

“Mean Mean Man” – Wanda Jackson. So grateful I saw her live a handful of times before she retired. Her RASP.

“Mean Woman Blues” – Elvis. A companion piece to Wanda’s song! They dated. He sings this in Loving You, his second film. With these huge claps that somehow seem … nerdy? The way he sometimes seems? So exposing, his enthusiasm and into-it-ness, it’s so touching. Tom Petty said this song blew his mind when he first heard it as a kid, maybe 9 or 10 years old. The line “She kissed so hard she bruised my lips” made him think … wait, whaaaaat? A glimpse of not only incomprehensible adult sexuality but the image of a woman kissing you that hard … whaaaaat?

“Second-Hand Suit” – from the Broadway musical The Great Gatsby. Sara Chase plays Myrtle. “I married up and never left the bottom rung …” You need a real damn voice to sing this song. Haven’t seen the show but I love the score.

“Cherry Bomb” – The Runaways. Hell of a debut single.

“Red Rubber Ball” – The Cyrkle. They opened for the Beatles in 1966. Had a couple of major hits including “Red Rubber Ball”, which went gold. I just checked and they were active for a short time in the 60s, and reunited in the last 10 years. I love how many bands are doing this.

“La La La” – Bleu [featuring Addie Hamilton]. A Bleu-heavy shuffle. I have so much of his stuff his presence is inevitable. This is a dance song, with a remix sound. Important to remember Bleu, along with his solo career, he also writes songs for pop divas. I love this aspect of what he does. He thinks pop music, he breathes pop music.

“Take the Money and Run” – Steve Miller Band. The quick claps are very very important. You must clap along. Even if you are driving.

“Rat King” – The Scratch. I adore them. Their sound is a blend of heavy metal and Irish traditional music. Very male. Very Irish. Aggressive. But free. Not clenched but open. It’s as if Def Leppard, Marilyn Manson, and the Chieftains got together and had a baby. Bestill my heart. Not to mention how they named a song after Yeats’ epitaph: “Cold eye”. They include the whole thing in “Cold Eye”:

Cast a cold eye
On life on death
Horseman pass by

“Little Rain Cloud” – Dale Hawkins, known pretty much only for “Suzie Q” – not too shabby, a song for the ages, sampled, used in soundtracks, eternal. Well worth it, however, digging into his catalog. A lot there, like this one.

“Ballad of Maxwell Demon” – Shudder to Think. From the great Velvet Goldmine soundtrack.

“Hands on You” – Obie Trice [featuring Eminem]. “Obie Trice, real name, no gimmicks”: legendary opening for THE song of the summer of 2002. Not a big Obie fan, sorry. I have his stuff because … I feel loyalty to his crew, since I don’t have a life. This song is about domestic violence, something Eminem knew a little bit about. Ahem. Saying he’d never put “hands on you” as long as she was true. Now, he understands the bullshit of this, he gets what he is doing and saying, he gets what he is admitting. Typical for Eminem to wrap the subject matter of violence in love and obsession. 20 years later, in “Bad Husband”, he said letting go of Kim was like “sawing off a body limb”. He admits the worst of himself, exposing the vulnerability of loving someone in such an enmeshed way. Perhaps the strongest (and most famous) statement of his along those lines is “Love the Way You Lie”. It’s toxic and Eminem is aware it’s toxic.

“The Man of Mystery” – The Shadows. The opening guitar!! They come from the pre-Beatles moment. They exist in the Before Times. I’m so interested in the Before Times for figures like The Beatles or Elvis. Again, if you move back – just a little bit – you can see what else was going on, laying the groundwork for what came next. In a way, the Before Times are a void. A void waiting to be filled. There’s rarely a void as huge as the one before The Beatles. I wrote about this in my Eminem piece. He came into a cultural void too. He seems inevitable in retrospect. The Shadows opened for Cliff Richard. They were huge. But … they were Before. And so … they were obliterated by what came immediately After.

“Stormy Weather” – Etta James. One of the eternal voices in our cultural catalog. Can’t live without her voice: the mellifluous quality but then the screaming rasp filled with need and anger and pain. My God.

“Deathbed” – Bleu, off his album that just released, Sergeant Pepper Grinder! I am loving the Bleu-heavy shuffle. Beautiful and heartachey. His voice is so perfect. Always loved his confident pure falsetto. It’s sad. Or maybe just yearning and nostalgic and wondering: “on my deathbed looking back …” He makes me cry.

“Shed a Little Light” – James Taylor. We listened to this album a lot in our Chicago years. I can’t help it but I associate it with Mitchell’s first couple months in Chicago. He went on a couple of dates with a guy named Tadeusz, who said at one point, “I don’t like the daylight.” Somehow this morphed into us singing, to the tune of “Shed a Little Light”: “Shed a little light, Tadeusz!”

“I Don’t Know What You’ve Got” – Little Richard and Jimi Hendrix. I am so glad this happened.

“Waffle House” – Hannah Dasher. I discovered her in the last year through her Instagram page and her regular series “My grandma was a hooch.” Her music is new to me. She’s old-school country, with a modern flare, a throwback, if you will, with a big eloquent voice. I love her.

“Son of Sam” – Elliott Smith. I was into him from the beginning. My heart hurts when I think of him. One of the worst deaths I’ve ever heard of. The pain he had to be in to do what he did … The anguish is in his music. No surprise that Wes Anderson used an Elliott Smith track underneath Luke Wilson’s suicide attempt in The Royal Tenenbaums (just two years before Smith took his life). You knew the anguish was there even if you didn’t know.

“Holding Poison” – Foo Fighters. Huge sound. Very aggressive sound but not dark or heavy. I kind of can’t believe they lasted. It was an amazing thing, when they came out with their first album. Still bruised and battered from Kurt Cobain’s suicide, that first album was like light from the caves. And Dave Grohl was playing the GUITAR. I couldn’t believe it.

“Red Hot Kinda Love” – Christina Aguilera. I am grateful I spent my 20s with Liz Phair, Sleater-Kinney, Jennifer Finch, and Courtney Love as … if not “role models”, then just examples of women doing their thing at a high level in pop culture. PJ Harvey. Bjork. Weirdos, angry and prickly, and they were stars. Grown women. Adults. A short 5 years later, it was all Lolitas in low-rise jeans. Let me be clear: I love the late-90s pop stars. I love Britney, and I loved her back then. I love Christina. Etc. But I wasn’t their age, and they were not aspirational figures. I felt protective of them, more like. I have friends in the millennial generation who have spoken about how damaging those years were to their body image, etc. I’m not saying I escaped completely, the world being what it is with its vested interest in making women feel bad about themselves, but I made it through my 20s wearing flannel, jeans and combat boots, with unshaved armpits because I don’t do that generally, and still I was successful with men, and I didn’t trip about SEEMING sexy since I just FELT that way, regardless of what I was wearing, if that makes sense. I’m sure in some circles the same pressures applied, having to “present” as girlie or male-gaze-y sexy, but in bohemian circles maybe not. I don’t know. I was a born-and-bred tomboy – a straight tomboy – and the mid-90s were perfect for one with those tendencies. I do love Christina though!

“Good Night Irene” – Merle Haggard and Jerry Lee Lewis. Two old old men. Heart-crack.

“What Time Is It” – High School Musical 2. Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, etc. Love those harmonies.

“Savoy Truffle” – The Beatles. George Harrison penning a tribute to Eric Clapton’s love of sweets. With those meta “we’re all in the know” throwaways, referencing Ob-La-Di, etc. The horns! Since Beatles Time is different than Regular Time, Harrison – at this point – didn’t feel like being all mystical anymore and wanted to toss off something funny and light and of-this-earth. In other bands, this process would have taken a while, but time for the Beatles was always – always – compressed. Shit happened fast. As soon as Harrison was known for being the sitar-spiritual one, he got sick of it. More happened in a minute for them. They were on their own timeline.

“Go Let It Out!” – Oasis. I wish I liked them more. His voice is a perfect rock voice, big – big enough to dominate their sound.

“Mary Mary” – The Monkees. Michael Nesmith wrote this one! Member when Run DMC sampled the song??

“Come Now” – The Troggs. In a competition for The Horniest Band, I don’t think you can argue that the Troggs would not at least be in the top 5. I will say, of all those peacocking horny male-fronted bands singing about feverish sexual activity … how many, besides The Troggs and (of course) Prince … write songs about making HER come? Devote whole songs to HER orgasm? And people wonder why there’s a pleasure gap. Come on now, let’s get real.

“Tell It Like It T-I-s” – The B-52s. One of the strongest time-travel songs in my collection. This was on my “running” mix, on cassette tape, when I moved to Chicago. I’d pop the tape into my walkman and run up and down the Lake Shore. I remember that time, but those events come to me through my senses: I was so alive, so present, nothing existed outside of the moment. Tastes and sounds and songs are portals to that winter and spring when I was free. “Tell It Like It T-I-s” still makes me want to put on my running shoes and head out into the world.

“Snookeroo” – Ringo Starr. Speak your truth Ringo!

“It Must Be Love” – Labi Siffre. What a songwriter (and singer). He’s been sampled and covered to the point where he himself has vanished. For instance, I had no idea in high school the Madness song was a cover. The most famous Labi Siffre sample is the bratty opening to Eminem’s first single, “My Name Is …” Those distinctive chords came from Labi Siffre’s “What The …”

“Watershed” – The Indigo Girls. I had a vague memory of writing about how this song haunts me to such a degree I can’t listen anymore – and a quick search brought me to the post, which I don’t remember writing. “Watershed” is great and I never need to hear the song again.

“Can the Circle Be Unbroken” – The Carter family. I love these old gospel tunes.

“Xanadu” – Olivia Newton-John. I made the mistake of attempting this one at karaoke. I do have a head voice, and can go there but Newton-John is on another level: her voice is so rare, there is no “break” between belt and head. And so I felt like I was basically singing/faking opera when all I’m trying to do is sing “Xanadu”. She has one of the most extraordinary voices ever. Try to sing along with her. Good luck.

“Love Me” (remix) – Elvis, from Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC, a film I still can’t believe exists.

“Factory Girl” – Sinéad O’Connor and the Chieftains. Eerie.

“Vertigo” – Griff. Included in the excellent Off Campus soundtrack, playing underneath the lead-up to a potentially conversation-shifting, nay, culture-shifting scene. Not exaggerating. “I wasn’t asking for a lifetime. I was just asking you to take my hand.”

“Beaches in Mind” – The Beach Boys. Me too. Tomorrow’s a beach day. Meeting up with D. in the Stop ‘n Shop parking lot, where I can leave my car all day without paying, will transfer my stuff – chair, cooler, bag – to his car, and we’ll grab iced coffee and hit the beach. Goal is to get TO the beach, ON the beach, by 10 a.m. because Labor Day is – historically – insane, the beaches packed, the traffic backed up, etc.

“You’re My Best Friend” – Queen. Was totally missing them this shuffle. To quote Crowley in Supernatural, “Hello, boys.”

“Dollar Bill” – The Scratch again. They’re playing/singing the shit out of this.

“Wildcat Tamer” – Dale Hawkins. That underlying fast chord-change, over and over and over, underneath everything: rhythm & blues sped up. His guitar (I think?) over the top. You can hear the Carl Perkins influence. Greil Marcus wrote a wonderful piece about the song and the album of the same name.

“Make You Feel My Love” – Adele covering Bob Dylan, heartbreakingly, off the Songs for Japan compilation album, put together as a charity for the victims of the 2011 earthquake/tsunami in Japan. I’ve moved so far away from the low-level heartbreak I used to feel – constantly – and the loneliness that ate me alive, the loneliness that literally would wake me up at night. During the bad times. This song was un-listenable back then. I can listen now, but honestly it makes me miss having the capacity to feel as much as I felt back then (dangerous words). I don’t want to be sick again, but the intense highs/lows … I miss them sometimes.

“National Express” – The Divine Comedy. I was super into this album. He’s got a GREAT voice, huge, with an ironic mockery in his tone, you can hear his slight distance, the perhaps-parody of what they’re doing. He drops the irony in “Gin-Soaked Boy”, off the same album, in an overwhelming performance. But I love the jaunty mod-London-big-band-yet-early-60s-pop sound of “National Express”.

“It’s Sweet” – Liz Phair. Is that a sitar?? “It’s sweet how you believe you’re in love with me.” I just … stop speaking my language, Liz.

“Hey Now” – Lesley Gore. She’s known now for two songs, basically, massive hits, but digging into her catalog is so gratifying. Adore the backup singers here. And the claps. The song is a whole GROOVE.

“It Will Stand” – The Showmen. Doo-wop powered by rhythm & blues, a real jam, and their biggest hit.

“Stuck to You” – Hellogoodbye. I was so so into them for a hot second. Where are they now? Do they still exist? I will investigate. I don’t remember when they got my attention. Mid-2000s, maybe, because I remember yearning to some of their songs, in that yearning decade. Good riddance.

“Wonderboy” – Tenacious D. Heaven. So funny but also … perfection, as a song, an arrangement, his vocal performance … the whole thing. Lightning in a bottle. Moonlight in a chamber.

“Backseat” – Carina Round. Yikes. Associated with writing my script in 2009, since the script was kind of about this feeling. Can’t really listen, turns out. “It should be forever, God told me. We’re born into the wrong time.” Nope.

“If I Had” – Eminem. Off the Slim Shady LP. When he’s recording the song, poverty and desperation is still really close. Nothing is set. He’s not famous yet. He still doesn’t know how or if things will work, he’s been clawing his way out since he was born.

“Outta my Way” – The Skeletons. Another track reminding me of my first year in Chicago, but … why on earth. Tori Amos makes sense, her album just came out. But these Boomer dudes? Why on earth did I get into them? I’d have to check my journal but I think I saw them live, for some reason, by accident. I didn’t CHOOSE to, but I think they were playing in a bar and I was there maybe with John. Something like that.

“Whiskey in the Jar” – Metallica, basically stealing from Thin Lizzy, but all’s fair.

“What a Wonderful Life” (takes 3, 4, 5, 6) – Elvis Presley, from Follow That Dream soundtrack (which my friend Larry calls “Elvis’ Occupy Wall Street movie”, which is so perfect) The company FTD puts out special-release CDs – physical media – with outtakes from all these different sessions over the years. I’ve purchased a couple. I love to hear the false starts, his cracking up, the way the band makes their way through – because he always (or usually) recorded with the band and the Jordannaires. These are all, essentially, live. I love hearing him in process.

“What Comes Next?” – Jonathan Groff, as mad King George in Hamilton. Seeing this show in previews – before Hamilton HIT hit – is something I thank my lucky stars for on an almost daily basis. Thank God. My mother bought tickets when the show was still at the Public, but headed to Broadway. We got in early. I couldn’t even believe this whole Hamilton thing was real, since I was “into” Alexander Hamilton before everyone else. Old-time blog readers will remember. When I was a kid I had a crush on the hottie on the 10 dollar bill. I haven’t counted, but I’ve probably written more about Alexander Hamilton than I’ve written about Cary Grant. I used to live within walking distance of the duel spot and I’d go “visit” him, YEARS before the musical.

“Scream” – Michael and Janet Jackson. Sigh. I get that for many people the situation is not complicated, is black-and-white (speaking of which), but for me it’s complicated. I’ve always been okay with complicated responses to things, books, movies, famous people. Don’t quote me on this but I remember being a child, and looking at my dad’s bookshelf, seeing a line of books with the same name in the title, and asking, “Who’s Ezra Pound?” The name got my attention. I was probably 9 or 10. My dad said, “He really helped James Joyce in the beginning.” Oh. Okay. I knew about James Joyce already. Then my dad added, “He was also a wacko and a fascist.” Both were true. I accept both are true. My feelings are complicated. I wish he wasn’t a wacko and a fascist but he was. I GET that others do NOT agree with my stance and I am FINE with others not agreeing. I trust you have come to your conclusions for your own reasons. I wish the same courtesy went the other way. We are all individuals and presumably adults and I will not be told WHAT to think, by ANYone. I’ll listen to what you have to say and I will never tell you you are wrong, at least not with something so personal, my God, but what goes on inside my brain is my decision.

“Enough Space” – Foo Fighers. The Colour and the Shape. Track listing memorized. All segues embedded in my DNA. I probably listened to this album, front to back, every day in 1997.

“Mississippi Bo Weavil Blues” – Charlie Patton. Delta blues granddaddy with a really interesting and still in some ways obscure background. He might have been “passing”. He might have been Mexican or indigenous – I think Howlin’ Wolf thought this. Regardless, the Delta sound isn’t baked INTO what he does, the sound comes OUT of him. Even though the recordings are scratchy, you can hear the wellspring of the sound.

“Washington On Your Side” – Daveed Diggs, Leslie Odom Jr., Okieriete Onaodowan. Great song but Daveed Diggs is on another level here. (Pedantic side note: Hamilton was not an “immigrant”. He moved from one British colony to another. Yes, he was an “outsider”, and marked for that reason, since he had “no people” or “land”. I get the whole point of the musical is “immigrants get the job done” – and the line gets a huge audience response – but … Okay, so you could make the case that Hamilton was considered an “immigrant” but you cannot argue EVER that Lafayette was an “immigrant”. He was a citizen of France. He was VISITING. Pedantry over.)

“Isn’t It Grand, Boys” – The Clancy Brothers. The soundtrack to my childhood. Please think of the O’Malley children, all under age 10, singing these gruesome morbid lyrics at top volume. “ISN’T IT GRAND, BOYS, TO BE BLOODY WELL DEAD? AND ALWAYS REMEMBER THE LONGER YOU LIVE, THE SOONER YOU’LL BLOODY WELL DIE.”

“Giant’s Rolling Pin” – Tori Amos. Sorry, but she’s sometimes too twee for me. I like her best when she’s pissed. Little Earthquakes was massive – for her career, of course, for all of us. When I moved into my first apartment in Chicago, the first place I ever lived in by myself, I ripped a picture of Tori out of Interview magazine and taped it on the wall. I hung nothing else. (M., his first time entering the sanctuary, looking around at the nothing-ness of the decor: “I love what you’ve done with the place.”) I went to go see Tori at Park West, right before Little Earthquakes came out. I sat in the balcony by myself. She was mesmerizing live, a mermaid at the grand piano.

“Goodnight Irene” – Johnny Cash. I should check but I have probably 20 versions of this song in my collection. Everyone sings “Goodnight Irene”. Or, they SHOULD. If you cover “Goodnight Irene”, I’ll purchase it.

“Who Want It” – Trick Trick [featuring Eminem]. Detroit legend. Trick Trick’s voice and delivery make Eminem sound tame.

“As” – George Michael and Mary J. Blige. SO good. This pairing, I swear.

I guess we should stop here. Been putting this together song by song as I go about my life for the past week.