David Duchovny

Apologies for the poor video quality, but if you squint hard, you'll see a bevy of celebrities paying homage to the eponymous star.

Artist: Bree Sharp
Year: 1999
Rating: Luke Hot

Debaser

Got me a movie, I want you to know
Slicing up eyeballs, I want you to know...

Artist: Pixies
Year: 1989
Rating: Hot!

I Know You

I just don't like this song. I don't like Andrew's voice on this track; he's more suited to the punk-inspired rather than balladesque. The lyrics and phrasing are not as tight as if Chris, Patrick, or Jay might pen them. With 30 songs on this otherwise brilliant record, you'd think they could've edited. Plenty of love for Andrew-as-drummer, though.

Artist: Sloan
Year: 2006
Rating: Cold

No Time

This song of rejecting love and moving on is in my mind simultaneously with another song of a different era and genre conveying pretty much the opposite sentiment.

Artist: The Guess Who
Year: 1970
Rating: Warm

I Don't Want to Get Over You

This song about pining for lost love is in my mind simultaneously with another song of a different era and genre conveying pretty much the opposite sentiment.

Artist: Magnetic Fields
Year: 1999
Rating: Hot!

Note: Magnetic Fields are now tied with Sloan for the most prolific band in my head, at seven entries each. It's also noteworthy that five out of the seven Magnetic Fields songs I've blogged about have been from a single album.

Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)

Must've been in my head 'cause I insisted that Amber give me sleepy embraces before she left for work this morning. Did not know this was a Gary Glitter cover til writing this entry. It's pretty true, 'cept faster and harder. Expect no less from Joan Jett.



Artist (cover): Joan Jett
Artist (original): Gary Glitter
Year: 1980/1973
Rating: Luke Hot

Love, Love, Love

Yummy.

Artist: Mountain Goats
Year: 2005
Rating: Luke Hot

My Guy

Ah, the rich and lovely voice of Mary Wells doing a pop gem written by the prolific and terrific Smokey Robinson.

And for your further viewing/listening pleasure, I submit to you this version of the song performed by none other than Ms. Carrie Fisher, guest-starring on, you guessed it, Laverne & Shirley back in 1982. The show at this point shoulda been called "Laverne Sans Shirley" since Cindy Williams had long since defected from the show. In an absurd but decently funny turn, Laverne (Penny Marshall) and her new friend Kathy (Fisher) are trying out for none other than Hugh Hefner to be his new Bunnies.



Yep, this is the second song association with a L&S episode in the last month. I do want to pull back the curtain a bit here at The Songs in My Head and admit something to you, though. When I said that I'd bet some more Laverne & Shirley references would come to mind eventually, My Guy had already come and gone. Yes, that, my friends, is the artifice of writing about fleeting thoughts, particularly when the writing lags significantly behind the neuronic firings of the mind. I pulled one over on you, and I'm admitting my folly now. Any crestfallings are and will be totally my fault.

xo Sooze

Artist: Mary Wells
Year: 1964
Rating: Warmer than warm; not quite approaching hot.

Arms of Love

Had a meeting with colleagues last night to discuss a presentation on polyamory that we're planning for a psychology conference. Love was on my mind, so on my ride home on BART, I searched my ipod for songs with "love" in the title and listened to this one first. It was still with me on waking.

Artist: Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians
Year: 1991
Rating: Hot!

Mothers Talk

An odd pick from my unconscious this morning. Not my favorite T4F song. I think it came to my head after Amber mentioned the weather. Kind of mundane.

My features form with a change in the weather...we can, we can work it out.

Artist: Tears for Fears
Year: 1985
Rating: Warm

Too Drunk to Dream

Great live performance of this playful but morose little ditty from the Magnetic Fields' most recent studio album. The banter between Stephin Merritt and Claudia Gonson is classic - I could watch them bicker all day.

Artist: Magnetic Fields
Year: 2008
Rating: Hot!

Turn Me Loose

"Eeeee!! Fabian!!"

I was a teenager in the '80s, not the '50s, and since this song hasn't proven to have legs like some other '50s pop hits (it's pretty hokey), I had to encounter it in some way other than listening to oldies stations. In fact, the only way I'd ever heard this song, which has apparently stuck around in my head for the last, oh, 25 or so years, is because it appeared on an episode of Laverne & Shirley, which I probably saw in rerun a few years after its original airdate in 1977.

The premise of the episode is that the girls, huge Fabian fans, miss out on getting tickets to his concert and so sneak into his hotel room to snap his picture and get an autograph. What's fantastically absurd about this scenario is that the show takes place in the late '50s, but is produced, of course, in the late '70s, and so Fabian, guest-starring as himself, is in his mid-30s in the episode when really he should be a teen idol.



There are a few more songs that have stuck in my head over the years as a result of having been featured on Laverne & Shirley. And now that I've opened up the L&S neural pathway, I'm betting the other songs will make their way into my conscious mind at some point…

Artist: Fabian
Year: 1959
Rating: Lukewarm

Parades Go By

A song of you and me and what and why
For time is all I have to keep
Between these walls and half asleep

Artist: Magnetic Fields
Year: 1999
Rating: Warm

Tell It to My Heart

Not my usual genre - but the ubiquity of this sort of '80s dance-pop ensures its permanent place in my neocortex. I blame Barry, really.

Artist: Taylor Dayne
Year: 1987
Rating: Lukewarm

You or Your Memory

The video cuts off the first line of the song:

I checked into a bargain priced room on La Cienega...

Pensive, simple song opening the autobiographical album The Sunset Tree. The reference to Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers dates the scene to the '80s or early '90s, probably when John Darnielle was in his late teens/early 20s and reflecting on the events that the album describes. I've always thought about the song as a half-assed suicide attempt (what harm could baby aspirin and wine coolers do?) and a marker for the character to make changes in his life.

Artist: Mountain Goats
Year: 2005
Rating: Hot!

Hearing Aid

Came to me in the shower this morning. It erased a nameless classic rock tune I'd woken with and can't remember now.

Don't say the electric chair's not good enough...

Artist: They Might Be Giants
Year: 1990
Rating: Luke Hot

Talk to Ya Later

View video here.

I was like, "What's this fucking BTO song in my head?" and was shocked to realize that this is actually The Tubes, who, in my mind, are more a mash-up of new wave, glam, and carnival antics. But apparently, some of their songs are straight-up cock rock. I'll just see you around.

Artist: The Tubes
Year: 1981
Rating: Warm