Josie

She's the raw flame, the live wire
She prays like a Roman with her eyes on fire

No band today could manage those lyrics in such a goddamned artful way.

Artist: Steely Dan
Year: 1977
Rating: Luke Hot

Note: I'm still not recovered from the fact that my good friends Marck and Emily did not name one of their twin girls Aja.

Radio Song

The studio version with KRS-One is better, but Michael Stipe's voice is so sweet here on the bridges: I've everything to show/I've everything to hide/Look into my eyes...

Still so sad they broke up. It makes perfect sense, sometimes, that good things have to end.

Artist: REM
Year: 1991
Rating: Warm

Note: This entry has been updated. It now features the studio/KRS-One recording; the live unplugged video was removed from YouTube. --s

September, Redux

Last in my head on July 7, 2010.

Artist: Earth, Wind, & Fire
Year: 1978
Rating: Luke Hot

Ramblin' Man

Not sure what dusting the cobwebs outta my room has to do with "rambling," but that's when the song struck. When it's time for dusting, I hope you'll understand...

Artist: The Allman Brothers Band
Year: 1973
Rating: Warm

Itchycoo Park

It's all too beautiful. I guess.

Artist: The Small Faces
Year: 1967
Rating: Warm

You're In My Heart (The Final Acclaim)

This is perhaps the most cheesy and most appropriate song to pop into my head today. Amber and I have called it quits after more than six years together. She's been my lover and my best friend, and she's in my soul. Sigh.

Artist: Rod Stewart
Year: 1977
Rating: Warm

Vogue

I had a dream that Madonna was my "lady-friend" and that I was buying her a pair of heels as a gift. It was all very butch-femme. Only, in the dream, I realized I couldn't possibly afford shoes that Madonna would actually deign to wear.

I woke up with "Vogue" in my head.

Artist: Madonna
Year: 1990
Rating: Warm

Note: Unbelievably, this is the first Madge song that's made it into the blog. I've had other songs of hers in my head over the span of the project, but none upon waking til now.

The Washington Post March

What's funny is the context in which I spontaneously started whistling this tune. It was on a notorious block of Mission Street dotted with pawn shops, divey Chinese restaurants, and ample drug distribution. A very regal march it was.

Artist: John Philip Sousa, composer
Year: 1889
Rating: Lukewarm

Handle with Care

This tune stayed with me all day yesterday; I whistled it en route between destinations during my usual daily hubub. It gives me warm, fuzzy feelings. It's so simple, maybe even facile, but the melody and the pure, arpeggiated guitar lines mingle with the collective nostalgia of a band made up of '60s and '70s rock legends. The entire aesthetic experience produces a down tempo, porch-swinging tune that will forever be in my head.

Artist: The Traveling Wilburys
Year: 1988
Rating: Luke Hot

Note: As an aside, when this song came out, I was in high school, and I hated Roy Orbison's portion. It grated on me, and I found it schmaltzy. Now, his soaring vocal performance literally gives me chills. My arms are all goosebumpy. Maybe I'm tired of being lonely, too.

Never Knew Love Like This Before

Whistled this song on my walk to work this morning. The purest of idealized love songs have the power to make me extremely melancholy lately.

Artist: Stephanie Mills
Year: 1979
Rating: Warm

Note: Mash-up melodies with Ronnie Milsap's I Wouldn't Have Missed It For the World, which mingled with this song on the early-80s airwaves.

Pure Imagination

While pouring myself my morning cup of coffee, the distinctive three-note intro and interlude sequence of this Willy Wonka song came to mind. It's a tense, cautious sort of musical theme carried throughout an otherwise optimistic song about seizing the moment, realizing the beauty that's all around you, creating your own reality:

If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it. Wanna change the world? There's nothing to it.

Those three notes taunt me, dare me to wake from my insular repose, my holding pattern of not-doing. I drink my coffee and start my day, cautiously, optimistically.

Artist: Gene Wilder (music by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley)
Year: 1971
Rating: Luke Hot