A Huge Shout to my Homies

My blog has been M.I.A. (not to be confused with the singer, galang galang,) and now I'm back, thanks to spinning girl, who suggested I republish my blog (duh!).

So Yay!

Back to what's important: Matty and I made CDs for each other. The CDs contain the songs we love, that mean something to us, that (we hope) speak not of how we want others to perceive us, but who we are. A tall order, considering a CD only holds eighty minutes worth of music.

Here's the first five on my CD:

1. "Time Has Told Me" by Nick Drake (That's Richard Thompson on the twangy guitar.)

Nick Drake's voice is so soothing, so sad, and his lyrics say all kinds of of private things that the tunes somehow render very public: Leave the ways of making you be what you really don't want to be/Leave the ways of making you love what you really don't want to love. Yes, I would like to do that. These days I feel like I'm being torn apart. If you decide to buy a Nick Drake album, Five Leaves Left.

2. "Wildwood Flower" by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (sung by Ma Maybelle Carter).

This is from the 1972 release of Will The Circle Be Unbroken, and again, the whole album is awesome! I guess I chose this one for the autoharp and for the lyrics -- this is humble and incomprehensible mountain springtime poetry -- pure hillbilly folk, imbued with I guess parable. My parents played Will The Circle Be Unbroken over and over again when we lived in a place called Ritzville, Washington. This was a desolate and tiny town full of rattlesnakes and wheat fields and bachelor's buttons. Our house, a rickety two-story shambles, would shake and shudder every time the train passed behind it. I remember jumping rope barefoot in the hot hot streets. I went an entire summer without once wearing shoes, and to toughen my feet I'd run across the sharp gravel behind the church. There I befriended an old Baptist preacher named Brother Dugger -- all the kids loved him because he'd take out his false teeth for us and he'd let us play in his abandoned car. The parents feared something I did not understand at the time -- he was a strange old bachelor who dearly loved children -- but they were dead wrong.

3. "Aa-Shuu dekei-oo" by Huun-Huur-Tu

Huun-Huur-Tu may be an aquired taste -- I've played them for friends and received mixed responses. This band is from Tuva, Mongolia, which you might know by now I'd LOVE to visit. The majority of Huun-Huur-Tu's songs have this horse-rythm; their hooves, their breath, the muscle and soul that makes horse. Which is completely logical -- the Mongolians living in the steppes practically grow up on horseback. But let's not forget their voices! The singers can sustain two notes at once -- the effect is otherworldly, yet it's a sound that comes straight from nature. I was lucky enough to see Huun-Huur-Tu at a teeny little venue in the Santa Cruz Mountains called Henflings. There's no way to describe the power, the volume (no mikes needed) -- the walls could have plausibly caved in and I wouldn't have noticed. ANYWAY, when I was in the Peace Corps, one of my fellow volunteers had served in Mongolia, and we spent many evenings talking about her experience there (don't ever adopt a pet in a developing country). I would love to live in a yurt!

4. "Maggie May" by Rod Stewart

I remember this one playing a lot on my mom's Volkswagen radio, back in the day. Her name was Maggie, and whenever the song came on, she'd turn it up. My favorite line: All you did was wreck my bed, and in the morning kick me in the head. Yep. Lucky for mom, dad was a cop; otherwise she would have gotten a few more tickets. She drove like a fiend, and when he'd chase her with the siren blaring, she'd flip him off.

5. "Raining in Darling" by Bonnie "Prince" Billie

This song is short (one minute, fifty-two seconds) and very asymmetrical -- Will Oldham (a.k.a. Bonnie etc.) begins the piece with something that's part love song and part entreaty. All this builds to the ending where Oldham's voice soars to a melancholy crescendo, brimming with hope and -- really -- illusion. "Raining in Darling" is included in I See A Darkness, which isn't my favorite Will Oldham, but if you're interested in giving him a try, it's a great introduction. I guess many of his fans say this is his best.

Okay, that's just the first five songs. I stop now. Maybe more later?