Last Time in Love

I had a conversation with an old friend about love the other day. She had relayed a piece of advice her mom had given her, which went something like, "Finding people to fall in love with is easy; finding the person you can live with is much harder." This song has such a lovely, romantic quality to it that I can't deny, even as a poly person, that when you find "the one," you've fallen in love for the "last time." There is an undeniable beauty and a loss in that process, recognizing you'll never have those fireworks, that blissful limerent feeling, with anyone else again. I'm grateful, in my life, that I give myself permission to fall in love, in lust, when my animus moves me, and when it moves in my chosen partners. I don't have to sacrifice that newness. But the allure of exclusivity, of belonging to someone wholly, is indeed a powerful one. I also don't deny myself the opportunities, when they arise, of digging down deep and doing the work of intimacy. If love were just the easy fire of limerence, well, it wouldn't be love, now would it?

Artist: Sloan
Year: 2006
Rating: Luke Hot

Fading into Obscurity

Probably the last post for 2011, making it an even 100 for the year. A self-aware song about a welter-weight pop star rapidly becoming a has-been. One of my all-time faves from Sloan, the boys still topping the charts in my head.

Artist: Sloan
Year: 2006
Rating: Hot!

Witch's Wand

Been nine months since my last Sloan entry. Still, somewhat surprisingly, the top band in my head. I have one of my favorite Canadians to thank for that.

Artist: Sloan
Year: 2008
Rating: Luke Hot

Before the End of the Race

Listen to the iLike sample.

I took the advice, afforded the price
and I woke up amused in the arms of another

Cavalier about love in such a pleasing meter. And a catchy guitar hook, to boot.

This is my 15th entry about my favorite Canadian indie rockers, Sloan. They show no signs of slowing down as the leader of the pack of bands firing off in the neural pathways of my long-term memory.

Artist: Sloan
Year: 2006
Rating: Luke Hot

I Understand

And again with the Sloan.

Artist: Sloan
Year: 2006
Rating: Luke Hot

Note: I'll probably write about every song from Never Hear The End of It, eventually. (Hats off for tagline inspiration from Matthew Perpetua at PopSongs.)

Burn For It

Something just doesn't ring true about Patrick, or any member of Sloan singing the lines:

I've got a barbed wire heart
And you can't handle it.

I love 'em to death, but emotionally hardened they ain't. The very structured power-pop formula of this song belies the sentiment.
Artist: Sloan
Year: 2008
Rating: Warm at best

I Can Feel It

I got a thing for you, too, You can have it, you can have it. Artist: Sloan Year: 1994 Rating: Luke Hot Note: This clip from 2006 features the Yoko Casionos. The original single duet was with Jennifer Pierce of fellow Canadian indie band Jale.

Cheap Champagne

Sloan continues to dominate all bands in my head. This one from their last full-length recalls sweet '70s contemporary pop while staying true to writer/singer Jay Ferguson's clever indie rhyme schemes.

We said you've changed
She said, you've not
And that's when I realized
I should have connected all the dots

Artist: Sloan
Year: 2008
Rating: Luke Hot

Unrelated? Maybe...

Addendum to She Says What She Means from yesterday:

Sloanmusic, the band's official Twitter i.d., made the studio version of the song available on the web about eight hours after I tweeted my entry and directly alerted them to it. Listen to the track I intended you to hear here!

Coincidence? I dunno, but thanks guys!

She Says What She Means

Frustrating experience today: the above performance is great, but I had originally wanted to embed a studio version of the song for the Sloan-uninitiated out there. It's hard to love the raucous frenzy of these guys unless you can properly hear their smart lyrics and hooky riffs. My hopes dashed on the YouTube, I attempted to create a simple still shot video with audio track in iMovie, which I've never used before. After a couple hours of effort, frames not synching, song cutting off at 30 seconds in, etc., I finally got my ultra low-budge vid to work properly. Then I tried uploading it to said video hosting site, and the upload failed every which way I tried it. It wouldn't take as a .mov file, nor as an mpeg. My entire morning, down the Tube.

But I don't know what I would stoop to
Have you got another jump I could hoop through?

Artist: Sloan
Year: 1998
Rating: Hot!

Alive

This one's in my head 'cause it was referred to in a Beth Lisick/Tara Jepsen sketch I saw last week in which our ladies of irony played douchey beer-drinking dudes who sang Pearl Jam's Jeremy and then bled unknowingly into Alive as if it were the same song. It was a pitch-perfect example of my historical like/meh relationship with Pearl Jam, which Sloan encapsulates in a line about Consolidated: "It's not the band I hate, it's their fans," though admittedly, we are probably talking about two very divergent fanbases, indeed.

Artist: Pearl Jam
Year: 1991
Rating: Lukewarm

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

Who Taught You To Live Like That?

Just before I woke up this morning, I was dreaming that I was at a Sloan show, but for some reason, guitarist and sometimes-singer Jay Ferguson was missing in action. I approached the stage and asked Chris Murphy, bassist and usual lead singer, if I could sing one of Jay's songs. We picked this one, a favorite from from 2006's Never Hear the End of It. I sang it, and the crowd went wild.

Artist: Sloan
Year: 2006
Rating: Hot!

Losing California

Fun live version from a talk show appearance in '99.

Artist: Sloan
Year: 1999
Rating: Hot!

Noteworthy: With this entry, Sloan becomes the most frequently referenced band in my head so far (with Genesis close behind, albeit Genesis entries are dominated by one particular song).

Ana Lucia

Ana Lucia by Sloan

Fandalism Free MP3 Hosting

For some reason, this song always strikes me as appropriate for a Wes Anderson soundtrack. One of many songs that I love from Sloan's fantastic album Never Hear the End of It.

Artist: Sloan
Year: 2006
Rating: Luke Hot

Believe In Me

One of my favorite cuts on the last album. Perfect blend of cock rock and indie confection. And I need to believe in me right now, too.

Artist: Sloan
Year: 2008
Rating: Hot!

The Lines You Amend (redux)

Still in m'head.

Last post: 2/14/09
Year: 1996
Rating: Hot!

All I Am Is All You're Not by Sloan

This one appears on Sloan's album Parallel Play, released last year. It's a fine tune, though not as memorable as some others on the album. It's a weird one to have in one's head, 'cause the chorus is strong and pedantic, and the verses are almost labyrinthine and hard to keep track of. So mostly I'm just singing in my head, "All I am is all you're not/All you want is all I've got" over and over again. And as Sinead O'Conner has said, "I do not want what I haven't got, so that's all I got.

Year: 2008
Rating: Warm

The Lines You Amend by Sloan

Sloan is fantastic at writing the catchiest numbers with the most sullen material. This is the cutest song you'll probably ever hear about suicide. "My friends, the lines you amend/Like what's so bad about dying anyway?"

Year: 1996
Rating: Hot!