Sweet Home Alabama, Redux

Last in my head on July 30, 2009

Immediate upon waking, clear as a freshly pressed vinyl album in 1974.

Artist: Lynyrd Skynyrd
Year: 1974
Rating: Warm

If You Could Read My Mind

This is one of those songs that makes me so deeply grateful that I was a kid in the 70s and got to hear it on the radio in my mom's car, in my sisters' cars, over and over again. The words are so seemlessly embedded in my head and so beautifully constructed that the specific, sad beauty is easily glossed over.

Artist: Gordon Lightfoot
Year: 1970
Rating: Luke Hot

Superball

(You'll have to play this video once to be amused by the hamster, and once to actually hear the song! "Nibbler" is quite distracting, but cute.)

This song has been in my head for weeks, but today was the first time I woke with it. Unbelievably, this is the first Aimee Mann song hitting the blog, despite the fact that she's one of my faves, and that I've seen her at least three times live. This morning, the song was ushered in by a dream: I was having a conversation with Aimee (clearly, we were on a first-name basis in my dream), and with some 20-somethings who had never heard her stuff. I was recommending albums they should listen to. The dream, in turn, I'm sure, had been prompted by a false sense of intimacy I'm feeling with her and with another indie rock hero of mine, Ted Leo, who have been touring together and being all lovey on the Twitter. Damn, wish I'd seen them on stage together.

Artist: Aimee Mann
Year: 1995
Rating: Luke Hot

I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)

I love you and nobody else.

Since I'm not currently in a relationship, nor would I likely profess love to a One-and-Only, since I don't buy into that sort of thing, I have to assume that my unconscious is crooning for the love of coffee.

In and out my life/You come and you go
Leaving just your picture behind/And I've kissed it a thousand times

Oh, coffee.

Artist: The Four Tops
Year: 1965
Rating: Luke Hot

Someday, Someway, Redux

Last in my head on March 14, 2011.

Maybe I'll understand you.

I'm singing this to and about myself today.

Artist: Marshall Crenshaw
Year: 1982
Rating: Luke Hot

Disturbance at the Heron House

Came to me suddenly after having been awake for a couple hours already. I was brushing my hair.

Artist: REM
Year: 1987
Rating: Luke Hot

Lullaby of Broadway

This song is so deeply embedded in the popular culture, and yet, I have no clear mental reproduction of the precise recording I'm summoning. The first appearance of the song was in the film Gold Diggers of 1935, a movie I've never seen. It's quite possible that the version I heard the most while growing up was by the Andrews Sisters, but I'm guessing I just know it from various homages in movies and TV.

Artist: Wini Shaw
Year: 1935
Rating: Warm

Turn the Beat Around

Bonus: Paul Williams intro. Totally unfunny.

Artist: Vicki Sue Robinson
Year: 1976
Rating: Luke Hot

Yet another song from the Bicentennial year!