I discovered this today, but I think it’s been around a while, and I’ve just been missing it. Anyway, the New York Times runs a great blog called Papercuts, which is about literary news, personalities, new books, etc.
Exciting, but not terribly cool.
However, what is cool is that on Wednesdays, they ask “a writer or some other kind of book-world personage” for a playlist of their top songs of the moment, with explanations. This week’s featured personage is Miranda July, who directed a film I loved (Me and You and Everyone We Know) and has a new (and awesomely-titled) book of short stories just now out (Nobody Belongs Here More Than You).
Anyway, I’m not really a book-world personage, unless you count the public library as part of the book-world. But here’s my playlist. Hopefully you’ll write your own playlist on your own blog (let’s say ten songs, shall we?) and drop the link in the comments box here, or initiate a trackback, or let me know in some way what’s on your playlist. At the very least, it’ll be a nice diversion from dealing with the pros and cons (mostly cons) of five-paragraph essays and No Child Left Behind.
These aren’t in order of preference, by the way. They’re in order of flow–I’ve made and listened to this playlist in preparation for this post. That’s dedication.
1. J-Live, “Nights Like This”: When a suburban geek like me starts a playlist with a hip-hop track, your poseur radar should activate. J-Live’s great–he’s a former NYC public school teacher and one of the most underrated MCs out there. He dishes out internal rhymes as if he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it–”Nights like this I don’t whisper raindrops / No need to anticipate / My words hold enough weight to make it precipitate / The barren I fertilize, the crooked I set straight.” Even better, though, is the way this track sounds. There’s some kind of keyboard thing going on that captures that late-night mood J-Live is after. A great instance of production enhancing the lyrics.
2. Bloc Party, “I Still Remember”: Bloc Party’s really good at angry, but I tend to like their sentimental songs better. They have one called “This Modern Love” (off Silent Alarm) that’s the most wistful disco song since Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.” “I Still Remember,” though, is even more intense. Hearing Kele Okereke sing “And on that teacher’s training day / We wrote our names on every train / Laughed at the people off to work” over a driving beat is devastating.
3. Built to Spill, “Car”: It’s always best to follow up two emotional/maudlin songs with a catchy singalong. “Car” is stealthy–it starts mellow and moody, then just hits you with a great fist-pumper of a chorus. The peak, though, is the second verse. I can’t even explain why. Just listen to the song and tell me I’m right.
4. The Hold Steady, “Stuck Between Stations”: Yes. Rock. I could’ve picked any Hold Steady songs, but this one is good for an English teacher’s blog, what with the On the Road reference in the first line. There’s been a lot of ink spilled about how the Hold Steady is the best American band out there at the moment, and I’m not going to try and disabuse anyone of that notion. “She said, ‘You’re pretty good with words / But words won’t save your life,’ / And they didn’t, so he died.” I bet Craig Finn was insufferable in his high school English classes.
5. Gogol Bordello, “Illumination”: Okay. Eugene Hutz sounds a bit like Borat. And this song is full of ridiculous yearbook quote-esque platitudes. But I challenge you not to spend some time learning the words to this one, just so you can sing along at the top of your lungs when you think nobody can hear you.
6. Roger Dean Young & the Tin Cup, “Stettler II”: I have no idea what a “stettler” is. In fact, I thought it was a typo for “settler” for months. I do know, though, that Roger Dean Young is one of the best songwriters that nobody’s ever heard. He sings like a Cormac McCarthy novel reads, and he’s got a rotating band (the Tin Cup) of what I imagine to be urban cowboy types who spend a lot of time drinking coffee and shopping for trumpet mutes.
7. Lucinda Williams, “Pineola”: This is what would’ve happened if Flannery O’Connor wrote vicious country songs instead of short stories. A kid commits suicide and the narrator is stuck trying to deal with it. The beauty of this song is that Williams’s narrator never attempts to make sense of the event. She just has to get along.
8. Marah, “My Heart is the Bums on the Street”: I had to put on something to lighten the mood after “Pineola.” I came up with this one, an ode to Philadelphia from a heartbroken kid who can’t do anything but catalog his memories over a Motown beat. Also, it’s got the second Kerouac reference of the playlist, which might set a world record.
9. Mike Doughty, “Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well”: Continuing the theme of depressing song titles matched with not-terribly-depressing songs, Doughty tries to make you cry but just gets you pumped up with the catchiest song you’ve heard since “Hey Ya.” “Let’s get down to business now,” indeed.
10. Wilco, “What Light”: I didn’t know how to end this list, so I’ll pick my favorite new-ish song. It’s the single off Wilco’s latest album. If you like Wilco, you’ll like this one. If you don’t like Wilco, this won’t convert you. But they’ve been one of my favorite bands for years, and every time they release an album I listen to it until I can’t stand it anymore. I’m not quite at that point yet.
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