Star Bodies

For you there's not any warning.

Artist: New Pornographers
Year: 2005
Rating: Luke Hot

Fire and Rain

Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you.

An old favorite, but a weird head space, nonetheless, to conjure up the calling out of one's own name in such a melancholy lyric.

Artist: James Taylor
Year: 1970
Rating: Luke Hot

(Just Like) Starting Over

I did hear this song on the radio the other day, upon the occasion of John Lennon's would-be 70th birthday. It feels relevant to my emotional space these days, so filled as it is with dramatic endings and nascent beginnings. Artist: John Lennon Year: 1980 Rating: Luke Hot Note: Some of the old Jewish youth group crew might remember that I used this song for my intro-aisle walk when I delivered the State of the Region address in 1990. It's special to me.

Fuck and Run

Liz Phair - "Fuck And Run (LIve At Matador 21)"

Matador | Myspace Video

Had the privilege of seeing Liz Phair live on Sunday night at the Independent in San Francisco. The above performance is from the recent Matador 21 show, with indie fave Ted Leo doing backing vocals and a bitchin' tambourine. This song has been in my head constantly since Sunday. It's unique for me, as far as earworms go, because I actually know all the words to the song from endless replays during my college years. So when it's in my head, I'm usually running the song all the way through. I've been whistling it and singing it out loud on my bike, too!

Artist: Liz Phair
Year: 1993
Rating: Hot!

Song 2

It's not my problem.

Artist: Blur
Year: 1997
Rating: Warm

The Captain of Her Heart

Cheesy McCheese. Followed somehow from Arcade Fire's Sprawl II, which had been lingering in my head for several days until I employed the good old Mozart reset trick.

Artist: Double
Year: 1986
Rating: Cold (though the melody on the refrain is indeed catchy).

Send in the Clowns

This might very well be the most random song I've had in my head since starting the blog. The melancholy '70s ballad floodgates are now fully open!

Artist: Judy Collins
Written by: Stephen Sondheim
Year: 1973 (original); 1975 (Collins)
Rating: Lukewarm

Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

Just the other evening, I was hanging out with my friend Michael, and he decried people who compare any female indie singer to Björk or Kate Bush. Though it pains me to fall into a cliché, I actually think the comparison to Ms. Bush is apt with Régine Chassagne's vocal performance here. I'm really loving Arcade Fire's The Suburbs, particularly their ability to weave an album concept so skillfully through lyrics and mood.

Artist: Arcade Fire
Year: 2010
Rating: Hot!

Note: This song is now the most recent release I've blogged about, inching out 2009's No You Girls.

Jump

My strongest association with the song "Jump" is an argument my friend Julie and I had the summer after our senior year of high school. It was about six years after the song's release in 1984, and thus, well into its influence on the rock radio canon. I had argued that the song paled in comparison to the brilliant music of Phil Collins. Julie contended that "Jump" was a better song from a musical standpoint than any Phil Collins song, hands-down.

I wouldn't argue that a Phil Collins song could beat up a Van Halen song behind the bleachers after school; my argument contended that Phil Collins's songs, including, naturally, the Genesis repertoire, were more robust from a sort of quasi-intellectual standpoint. I was basically just arguing against butt rock in favor of art rock. My argument, of course, was dashed from its inception, since by 1990, Phil Collins had long abandoned unconventional prog for soulless pop like Sussudio and insultingly vague altruism like Another Day in Paradise.*

Julie's argument, however, contained actual substance. A student of voice and music theory, she lectured me on the musicality of "Jump," the complexity of the arrangement, the layered instrumental elements, and the tonality of the entire composition. From her words emerged the grey scale picture of Collins's work placed next to the dynamically technicolored break out single on Van Halen's diamond-certified 1984 album.

I was bested.

Either that year, or a couple years on, Julie and I found ourselves at the same New Year's Eve party (at our friend Jen's place). We were listening to our local rock station's New Year's countdown of the "Top 100 Songs of All Time" (or perhaps the Top 105 Songs, or the Top 1,045 Songs). Imagine the cosmic comeuppance Julie felt when Van Halen's "Jump" was announced as the Number One song.

Julie was right: my esteem for Phil Collins only plummeted with the passing decades, and although I couldn't call it the Number One song of All Time, "Jump" has serious staying power. In my head.

Artist: Van Halen
Year: 1984
Rating: Luke Hot

* (Note to the earworm gods: please don't put either of those songs in my head now. Thank you.)

And We Danced

I've tried to avoid blogging about the songs that have made it to my head just because I've heard them on the radio recently, but I figured this one deserved attention. It's one of those '80s standard rock tunes that got lots of airplay back then but hasn't received lasting attention. I heard it on KFOG's 10@10 several days ago and can't get it out of my head. It's such a facile pop song, but so pleasing to my ears. Yes, The Hooters is an awful name for a band, but I like to think of it in the "hootenanny" sense as opposed to the "boobs" sense. I think that's what was intended, after all.

Artist: The Hooters
Year: 1985
Rating: Luke Hot