Otherside

So meh about this band. But there they are.

Artist: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Year: 1999
Rating: Lukewarm

Tutti Frutti

It's hard not to take this song for granted, hearing it approximately a bazillion times over the course of a lifetime, but it was a revolution in 1955, and it's still in my head in 2012.

Artist: Little Richard
Year: 1955
Rating: Luke Hot

Note: This performance is from the 1956 film Don't Knock the Rock.

Luke Hot!

I've always been lukewarm about the term I chose in my song ratings system for the degree between "Warm" and "Hot." "Warmish-hot" is so literal, not elegant at all. So I encouraged my readers to chime in and pick a new word or term I could use to designate songs I really really like, maybe even love, that intermediate step between genuinely liking a song (Warm) and thinking the song is The Absolute Shit (Hot!).

Luke Hot is the clear winner, among other ideas I was variously warm or just lukewarm to. Honorable mentions go to "Steamy," "Preter-boil," "Somewhat Sweltering," and "Fuzzy." Shouts out, mazels, congrat's, go to my pal Dave Grenetz, who suggested the winning rating. Here's a Hot Luke picture for you, Dave.

Stay tuned, gentle readers and fellow earworm aficionados. I will be changing all songs rated "Warmish-hot" to "Luke Hot" over the next few days. I'll also be interviewing Dave about the songs stuck in his head in a near-future entry. I think you'll find it Hot!

xo
Sooze

Can't Get Enough

...and then there's just straight-up, unambivalent, hard-rockin' love.

Artist: Bad Company
Year: 1974
Rating: Warm

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

Dreams of Merlin

I had a dream this morning in which my dear friend Marck and I were at an open mic. The performer on stage challenged audience members to stand up and sing if they thought they had a good command of the Eagles' oeuvre. Marck and I simultaneously and defiantly arose. The performer then presented us with the sheet music to a song about Merlin the magician, and proceeded to teach me chords on a banjo.

I woke up, flummoxed to try to find an Eagles song about Merlin; the song that then arose in my brain was "Tin Man" by America, evoking another Arthurian character, Sir Galahad.

In a seemingly unrelated occurrence, I learned via the Facebook this morning that Marck had just been listening to a mix I'd made years ago, entitled "My Fantasy K-Tel Album," on which I clustered an array of enticingly schmaltzy and wonderful 70s and 80s gems. This is surely a piece of evidence that Marck and I are tapped into the collective unconscious. I think today might be ripe for some trans-continental telekinesis experiments.



Artist: America
Year: 1974
Rating: Luke Hot

Disco 2000

Your name is Deborah.
It never suited ya.

Artist: Pulp
Year: 1995
Rating: Hot!

Heaven

I think this entered my consciousness this morning, because I had the occasion to quote the tag line to the film Grand Hotel a few days ago: "People come and go. Nothing ever happens."

Great song.

Artist: Talking Heads
Year: 1979
Rating: Luke Hot

Got My Mind Set On You

I actually don't mind this song, but I fully expect some hate mail for getting what is arguably one of the most pernicious earworms of our time into many of your heads today.

A super special bonus of posting the official video here: do you recognize that guy in the arcade? He's none other than a 21 year-old Alexis Denisof of Buffy/Angel fame. When I realized this a few years ago, I nearly blew a gasket.

Also, I don't know about you, but I had NO IDEA this song was a cover! With actual lyrics! And, not surprisingly, a much more interesting orchestration and vocal performance than the far more popular 80s version. The original artist was an R&B singer named James Ray, who unfortunately died of an overdose shortly after recording the song. He was in his early 20s.



Artist (cover): George Harrison
Year: 1987
Rating: Warm

Artist (original): James Ray
Year: 1962
Rating: Warm

Black Water

Been remiss at updating lately. Life is just too dense with the obligatory right now, including my ever-elusive battle to get to work on time every day. The other thing is that most of the songs I've been waking up with lately have been strictly due to recent exposure (hearing it on a playlist or at the grocery store, etc.) and I've, by and large, refrained from blogging about those particular songs, because, while recent exposure is clearly my number one source for earworms, that phenomenon is just less interesting to me than when a song seems spontaneously to generate from some unconscious depth or memory trigger or other more poetic means. Anyhow, the Doobs entered the neural paths a couple days ago, and I have a moment to share 'em now. These guys just hold so much nostalgic warmth for me. I love 'em. And they happen to be from my home town.

And I ain't got no worries
'Cause I ain't in no hurry at all

I'll throw a question out to you, the reader: where do your earworms come from?

Artist: The Doobie Brothers
Year: 1974
Rating: Hot!