Mix Tapes From The Past, #2
November 2000

SIDE A: �You�ll bow to pressure�

1. MICHAEL PENN �No Myth��I think it was Rolling Stone who, when this song was released in 1989, described it as a �near-perfect pop song.� Penn could�ve ridden that to great commercial heights, but de didn�t. Instead, he stood aside as grunge steamrolled its way through the early Nineties. He spent the decade laying relatively low, releasing a couple of fine, low-key solo albums and scoring two PT Anderson films. But getting back to the song�this is a near-perfect song, and it leads the mix because it sums up perfectly what these songs are all about: they are all damn fine pop songs, succinct and well-crafted and joyous even when sad. They are little gems I can sing along with in the car. They are timeless; I can listen to them over and over and (almost) never get tired of them. In fact, this tape survived for two years in my car without being recorded over, given to a friend, or thrown away, which is a record lifespan for my mixes.

I liked this song quite a great deal when it first came out, and I seem to remember the video being a high-art sepiatone affair, much like the rest of Penn�s oeuvre. But it was not until my senior year of high school, after reading Wuthering Heights, that I got the reference to Heathcliff in the chorus and enjoyed that little frisson you get from being in on an intellectual pop-culture reference. That�s the thing about Penn and a lot of the other artists on here�they�re not afraid to be a little eggheaded, make literary allusions, use polysyllabic words.

2. THE LOUD FAMILY �One Will Be The Highway��A lament from the band�s swan song, released in 2000. My favorite line captures the drunken solemnity that comes at the end of a late night at the club� �almost empty in the Fillmore / ten or twelve who know the band look like they�ll stay / but I�ll be on my way / heading back to work� ... Like most Loud Family songs, the lyrics are a bit oblique and demand repeated listens, but I�ve always found the attempt to decipher them rewarding. Is this song a eulogy for fallen comrades? a club that�s closing? or a beloved band whose contract with Alias Records has expired? (Or all of the above?)

3. EELS �Going To Your Funeral, Parts 1 & 2��It�s hard to imagine a pop concept album about death that actually works, but this one (Electro-Shock Blues) does. I know that E wrote it after his sister killed herself. Difficult, then, to imagine an album about such a subject that isn�t excessively exploitative, maudlin, or so depressing as to render it unlistenable. A friend told me that the first song�s line �my name�s Elizabeth / my life is shit and piss� is a reference to my literary arch-nemesis Elizabeth Wurtzel. Even if that�s true, it doesn�t diminish my appreciation of the album.

As for this song, I think it�s an especially good example of the album�s aesthetic, or at least one component of it: death and beauty are hardly mutually exclusive and, whether we like it or not, they usually complement each other. E�s rueful, almost bitter sentiments directed at his fellow funeral attendees are laid over a beautiful melody carried by glockenspiel and in turn layered over a distorted bass swagger.

4. SELF �Preschool Days��Amazing what a man can do at home with a four-track, especially if that man is a genius. My favorite line is �and I would always set my sister straight / trash the dollhouse with IG-88 and my Han Solo / in his Hoth Battle Gear clothes.�

5. SOUL COUGHING �Soft Serve��I think this may be Soul Coughing�s first sentimental song, which is where I feel Irresistible Bliss succeeds where Ruby Vrooom is, while brilliant, a bit detached. M Doughty wrote it for a girl in Georgia he was pining away after. Best listened to in the early days of summer in a scenario similar to that described by the song.

6. ON �Feel At Home��Another simple pop song about the early, tentative stages of a relationship. Kind of odd coming from Ken Andrews, who previously led a band (Failure) that paid its bills with remorseless, wall-of-sound guitar rock. Mark�s favorite part of this song is the Rhodes part. Mark is a homo sapiens, which is Latin for �wise homo.�

7. JEFF BUCKLEY �Morning Theft��We were in London, on the train to Windsor, when Jessica got a letter from her mother informing her that her favorite horse, Laddie, had died. She cried most of the trip there. When we got back, she bought a cassette copy of (Sketches For) My Sweetheart The Drunk (so she could listen to it on her Walkman) and the line �I miss my beautiful friend� reminded her of Laddie. That line has its own references for me as well. I won�t tell you what they are.

8. NEW FAST AUTOMATIC DAFFODILS �Why Waste Your Love?��Perhaps the most powerful statement of the New FADs� too-short career. If I were a singer/songwriter capable of playing the guitar and singing, this is probably the first song I�d cover.

9. THE LOUD FAMILY �Self-Righteous Boy Reduced To Tears��I have to admit that, at less than a minute and a half, this song was included here to fill some time. It�s a great little interlude, though. Scott Miller said that he got the title from a phone sex ad he saw in a phone booth, only it said �Arrogant Boy Reduced To Tears.� He changed the title to �Self-Righteous� because the previous song on the album is called �Aerodeliria� and he figured �Aerodeliria� and �Arrogant� side-by-side would make for awkward scansion. Now there�s a man who�s on my wavelength.

10. STONE TEMPLE PILOTS �Sour Girl��I am always rooting for STP. Once or twice an album, the songwriting gods reach down and anoint Messrs DeLeo and Weiland. And they usually have the prescience to release these songs as singles. No exception with this one. I even enjoyed the video featuring Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Postcript: I am watching/listening to Dave Letterman as I write this. He�s got George Clooney on, plugging Solaris (which I promised Jenn I�d see with her, since she lent me her copy of the book). They just went to commercial and Paul Shafer�s band began playing �Sour Girl.� God, that would be a fun band to be in.

11. QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE �In The Fade��Believe it or not, these guys rocked even before Dave Grohl signed on. This album was on the jukebox in the Pub in Grinnell and I loved playing it because it was just so goddamn LOUD.

SIDE B: �Every morning when he wakes�

12. BLUR �Tender��This is a side of Blur I�d like to see more of. Then again, they haven�t done anything in three years, so I guess I�d like to see any side of them. Call it ... postmodern gospel Brit-pop.

13. SELF �What Are You Thinking?��When Wes first turned me onto Self three years ago, this song was everything we wanted Speed Of Sauce to be at the time. Winter break 1999, all Mark and I did was listen to Breakfast With Girls and play JetMoto. Would it be silly to try and recreate such a tableau this winter? Probably.

14. JAPAN �My New Career��Gentlemen Take Polaroids was the apotheosis of Japan�s short lifespan. On this, as on every one of the album�s non-instrumental songs, David Sylvian's voice had not yet fully matured into the shaman�s baritone it is today, so his lyrics had a coy tonality that suited the band�s music.

15. ELLIOT SMITH �In The Lost & Found��My favorite line from this song provided the title for this side of the tape: �Day breaks / and every morning when he wakes he thinks of you ... � It�s so simple, but it�s beautiful. I like to think it�s about a guy who inadvisably broke up with a girl years ago and still regrets it. Then again, I think that�s what about 99% of Smith�s songs are about.

16. DUNCAN SHEIK �November��This isn�t really a perfect pop song. I don�t think it�s much of a pop song. It�s too quiet, too mournful. It�s a beautiful song nonetheless, but somewhat seasonal, as you could probably guess. The middle section revisits the theme of the previous song: �But something stays / so who am I to say / there�s nothing more between us?�

17. FIONA APPLE �The Way Things Are��I think my favorite song from When The Pawn Breaks is �Paper Bag� (in part because of the brilliant video directed by her boyfriend PT Anderson). But this song has a kind of dark resignation to it. And it might be Matt Chamberlain�s best performance on the album. My favorite moment is at 2�08� right after she sings �How can I fight? / we�re on the same side / how can I fight beside you?� and the song releases into the next section with a strident Hammond and the tympani-like floor-tom drop that punctuates the song throughout.

18. SOUL COUGHING �Lazybones��The end of this mix tape begins here, as this and all of the following four songs make excellent finales. But I tried to sequence them in order of end-of-story sentimentality. Do you think M Doughty felt a little cheap when he was teaching this song to the band and walked in with a two-note guitar part? Probably not.

19. DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE �405��There�s something touching about the fact that the only percussion they bothered to put in this song is a hi-hat playing eighth notes. They could have taken it out, but I�m glad they didn�t. This is by far my favorite Death Cab song.

20. SEAL �Just Like You Said��There�s a whole story behind the last Seal album, Human Being. It was released when I was living in London, and every tube station had these huge posters of Seal nude, his intimidating musculature a purplish hue, advertising the new album right before it dropped. Every time we passed one, I would say to my companions, �That new Seal album better be good.� This was a testament to my somewhat embarrassing appreciation of Seal and the fact that it takes him like, twelve years between albums.

So the night the album came out, I actually took the tube to the Tower Records at Picadilly. I probably could have found it closer to our flat, but there was something about the ritual that made me haul my ass all the way over there. And it proved to be my favorite Seal album. I listened to it constantly that winter. In the years since, he�s been on record as saying that he regrets some of it because it�s �too dark,� which makes me wonder, what�s his next single? �Kiss From A Rose II�?

21. JASON FALKNER �Goodnight Sweet Night��Can You Still Feel? was released the spring of my senior year of college. As such, this song was one of a handful that I appropriated to help get me through a strange transitional period. It was the end of an era, the end of a relationship, the end of my formal education. Maybe that�s a bit sappy. I should have instead chosen Vitamin C�s �Graduation (Friends Forever).�

22. ELLIOT SMITH �Bye��Another time-filler. This two-minute piano instrumental closes Figure 8. At the end, you can hear him shutting the lid on the keyboard.

0 Comments

Back & Forth