White Winter Hymnal

This live performance just brought tears to my eyes. I've never even understood what the song is about, but the imagery is so arresting, and the harmonies so emotionally evocative. Here are a few suggestions as to the song's meaning.

Artist: Fleet Foxes
Year: 2008
Rating: Hot!

Sax Rohmer 1, Redux

Last in my head on June 13, 2011.

The lyric resounding in my head this morning:

Every moment leads toward its own sad end...yeah.

Artist: The Mountain Goats
Year: 2008
Rating: Hot!

August Wrap-Up

I've had a lot of songs in my head over the last few weeks, but haven't had time or sufficient mental focus to post them. A quick inventory of the backlog for August follows, with notes where I'm moved to write them:

Stacy's Mom by Fountains of Wayne arrived on my brain after hearing a review of the band's new album on NPR's Fresh Air. Aside from the inanity of this 2003 radio hit (a band's gotta have one to make the collective radar) I kind of dig them, and it occurs to me that this band is totally the American version of Sloan (not that that would mean anything to more than, like, two people reading this blog). Sadly, Sloan has no analogous annoying radio hit of their own (in the States).

David Duchovny by Bree Sharp (A rerun, last blogged on 8/31/09).

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, popularized by the Platters, came to me in a most ethereal way, a familiar tune I couldn't identify until looking up the fragments of lyrics I woke with one day. It seemed significant to me when I learned that the song originally appeared in an operetta called Roberta, which was my mom's name. When a lovely flame dies/Smoke gets in your eyes. The synchronistic throat lump supplied by the song's lyric shouldn't be lost on anyone reading who knows me. My mom died last year of complications of lung cancer. Smoke, indeed, gets in my eyes.

Stop Draggin' My Heart Around by Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty. Pretty typical sooze-fare, nothing noteworthy about this one.

Give Me Back My Man by the B-52s. I'm relating to Kate Pierson's plaintive wail, I'll give you fish/I'll give you candy/I'll give you everything I have in my hand!



And then there was a song snippet that entered my consciousness somewhere between dream state and waking that was a bit peculiar. At first, I thought it was the theme from the film Ordinary People, but when I looked for the music for the film on YouTube and heard Pachelbel's Canon in D major I had to probe a different area of my memory banks. Then it just hit me: this is the theme from The Incredible Hulk TV show, which I'm sure I hadn't seen in more than 25 years. The memory is indeed mysterious, and I wonder how I was able to make the leap between a classical composition from the 17th Century and a spare piano riff from 70's TV. The song may bear some similarity to the melancholy musical themes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I'm currently re-watching.

Song: Stacy's Mom
Artist: Fountains of Wayne
Year: 2003
Rating: Lukewarm

Song: David Duchovny
Artist: Bree Sharp
Year: 1999
Rating: Luke Hot

Song: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Artist: The Platters
Year: 1958 (originally recorded by Gertrude Niesen for the Operetta Roberta in 1933)
Rating: Warm

Song: Stop Draggin' My Heart Around
Artist: Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty
Year: 1981
Rating: Luke Hot

Song: Give Me Back My Man
Artist: The B-52s
Year: 1980
Rating: Hot!

Song: The Lonely Man Theme (from The Incredible Hulk television series)
Artist: Joe Harnell
Year: 1977
Rating: n/a

Border Song

An odd song - not one that immediately springs to mind, or one I'd think I'd have spontaneous recall of. Nevertheless, the lines "Holy Moses, I have been deceived/Now the wind has changed direction, and I'll have to leave" have some painful resonance for me. I don't feel I've been deceived, though; rather, my own perception or expectation of a situation has been uprooted, forcing me to change direction. In the vast scheme of things, in which I want to live authentically, the pain seems necessary to endure.

Artist: Elton John
Year:1970
Rating: Warm