Springsteen Gems

So, I'm tooling around on YouTube and somehow come across...

Jon Stewart praising Bruce Springsteen at the 2009 Kennedy Center Awards?  Awesome.



The Sting performance at the end is fine but I had just watched Springsteen sing it himself so it unfortunately paled in comparison.


Eddie Vedder doing this though?



Made me tear up just like Bruce.

All of the songs in this post are from Springsteen's 9-11 album "The Rising," which I tend to forget about because it makes me cry. I should add it back onto my ipod. They are very beautiful songs.

Song Loop!

Am I the only person who gets a song in my head and then happily listens to it over and over and over and over again on repeat?

I do it all of the time.

My current obsession?


(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYn8a1ZVoNo)

Huey! Oh, I love this song. For the last year, it's been getting heavy rotation on one of the internet radio stations my uncle listens to in his office and every single time I heard it I would sing and dance along and declare "I NEED this song. I love it." Yet, I'm a fickle bitch so I did nothing about it.

Until today. Now I can play it to death on my ipod.

Apparently, Jesus Walks

I woke up this morning with Kanye West rapping Jesus Walks in my head for no apparent reason that I can discern. (I also woke from yet another dream in which I was being pursued by a serial killer).

And then it continued. All. Damn. Day.

So, in an effort to get the earworm out of my brain... I pulled the song up on my ipod. And after it was done, Jesus Wrote A Blank Check by Cake started to play and, being a moron, my first thought was "Gosh, my ipod's found religion" and then my second, far more reasonable thought, was "...or I've got the shuffle feature turned off."

Want to know exactly how many songs starting with "Jesus" I have on my ipod? Three.

The best, and last to play, was Wilco's Jesus, Etc. I love singing that song.

So, how religious is your ipod?

Man, I want to see this movie. I'm such a sucker for underdog "man with a dream" tales. We all know how I feel about "Hustle and Flow." I'm sure if it's playing around New Years in Ithaca that A. would go see it with me.

Also, that Springsteen song playing over the trailer? Damn.

"Tell me, friend, can you ask for anything more?"

I know that if you dissect Springsteen songs up, they're mostly very simple, repeating melodies with easy rhyme schemes. But that's always been the key to Springsteen. I like to think of them as lean, instead of simple. It's like there's nothing superfluous or showy tacked on that doesn't belong there. It also helps that Springsteen's got such a full voice that it ebbs and flows and fills in any gaps. Man, I love that voice.

Proof? I downloaded a goddamn Christmas song the other day because of Bruce.

I even managed to find a single youtube video featuring the version I downloaded. My favorite part is when he can't stop laughing at the member of his band doing the "ho, ho, ho" bits.

One of these days, you'll get an entry without youtube videos. Probably not soon, though.

I know I've been posting a lot of videos lately... but this one's particularly hilarious.

They changed the words to Aha's "Take On Me" to match what's going on in the video and sung them to the original tune.

So funny.

Especially "Watch out for them. They're gonna beat you up with that pipe wrench."

Enjoy.

Song Of The Day

A new feature for the blog: song of the day.

The song of the day usually being something that played on my i-pod that just struck me.

The inaugural song of the day is an old Springsteen ditty.

"Badlands"



Like most Springsteen songs (and really, most songs in general), I have no real idea what it's about. However, I still love the way it sounds.

My favorite passage is easily:

"Workin in the fields till you get your back burned
Workin `neath the wheels till you get your facts learned
Baby I got my facts learned real good right now"

The horror!

Now, crap-tastic music is always playing in the store. "Mambo #5" was playing when I was in the bathroom the other day. And I had to listen to "beating down the walls of heartache, bang bang, I am the warrior" every damn day for four months.

But the other day, it reached a new low. So low, in fact, that I was certain my ears were going to spontaneously bleed from the torture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wJ-VPqFzy0

Yeah...

Now, it's well known that I'm not a fan of John Mayer. Elliott once asked me why I didn't like him but then answered the question himself with "Ah, the misogyny, right? Yeah, I see that." Force me to listen to even a few seconds of "Daughters" and I'm ready to punch holes through walls out of anger.

But that?! Ugh. Whole new level of awful.

Just watch the cheesy 80's Tom Petty music video. You'll feel cleaner, I promise.

Paul Simon, Obviously

I was at work the other day when the customer I was helping started to hum and tap his fingers on the counter. This actually happens all of the time.

But then I realized he was humming along to "You Can Call Me Al" by Paul Simon.

And I had an epiphany.

There was no Paul Simon in my life! (And by life, I mean ipod, obviously.)

Thus, here are my four favorite Paul Simon songs.

(If I could figure out how to post audio rather than YouTube videos, I would. However, these particular videos are pretty interesting. Two are actual cheesy music videos and two are live performances. The Zimbabwe dancers in #3 are particularly awesome.)

4. Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard



3. Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes



2. You Can Call Me Al



1. The Obvious Child

Silly Kids

You've been desperately waiting for me to update this damn blog with something other than a book review.

And you're in luck!

Kids stories it is!

Also, for children's safety sake, I'm going to refer to the wee ones (to steal Laura and Carrie's phrase) from here on out as Big Man and Little Man. Quick catch-up: Big Man is seven, is in first grade, likes to pretend he doesn't love that I give him a kiss on the cheek every morning before I go to work and every evening when I get home, and is kinda my favorite of the two. (What? I didn't birth them. I'm allowed to have a favorite. We have a bond.) Little Man is five, is a walking sound-effects machine, is so skinny you can see every one of his ribs, and likes to beat up the puppy something fierce.

Ok, so the story involves me painting my room last Wednesday, picking Big Man up from school, and letting both boys play in there while I finished up. (Which really just meant that at the end of the day I ended up with a homemade Lego Tie Fighter sitting on my dresser. )

Anyways, I left the boys in my room while I went to wash paint off my hands and, as I was standing there at the sink, I heard a pretty tinkling noise. I quickly realized that Spoon's "The Underdog" was blaring from the i-pod hooked up to the speakers in my room and all made sense. That is, until I remembered that there's really no chimes or bells or anything in that song. Brass horns? Yes. Chimes? No. So, I popped my head into the room only to find Little Man, sitting on the floor with his head against the speaker, playing along to the song on his toy xylophone.

Yeah, I said "toy xylophone." You're head totally exploded from a cute overdose, right?

Seeing as that toy's a "baby toy" he grew out of years ago, the song must have just warranted it.

Yeah. Seriously. Too fucking cute. He does shit like that all the time, too.

TV Karaoke Kills Us With Awesome

Yeah, I ran across this clip and had to post it because it is, in fact, one of the best moments in Gilmore Girls history. And, really, that's saying a lot. Also, I've been pining and yearning for Gilmore Girls pretty intensely since it went off the air (oh, nearly a whole damn year ago) so you're likely to see a slew of other related entries by me in the future. Because this blog just wasn't fucking girly enough already.

Anyway, yeah, here's the clip:

I mean, at first it's just a cute little bit where Lorelai drunkenly sings a song at Karaoke night to her daughter who is about to graduate from college. Lorelai is all awkward and stumbling and happy and cute and the whole thing's pretty realistic yet adorable. Then, you add in the fact that she's singing a Dolly Parton song, and the awesomeness quotient starts to sky-rocket.

Then, Luke walks in. And Lorelai suddenly finds herself trapped on stage in front of the entire, and incredibly nosy, town while drunkenly singing "I Will Always Love You" in front of her ex whom she's extremely emotionally attached to and has complicated feelings for. And you can see her totally freak the fuck out. But it's Dolly, and you can't escape Dolly, and she just keeps on trucking through that beautiful, bittersweet little song, pouring her heart out.

Dude. So damn amazing.

Mama Mia!

I haven't really liked a musical that was made in the last forty years or so. I mean, I fucking hated Grease, really didn't care for Hairspray at all... Moulin Rouge and Chicago were dramas, which really don't appeal to me at all.

Yeah, not really a fan.

I want to see this movie so badly! So badly!





Abba! Meryl Streep dancing and singing in overalls! Lily Kane!

It just looks pretty and sweet and funny and awesome.

Want to see, so badly.

And now, "Mama Mia" will be in your heads all week too! Hah!

Oh, musics...

I was trying to describe the types of music I like the other day and completely and utterly failed. "Umm, I don't like rap... I'm sorta into folky indie rock... um, like Wilco! You don't know who Wilco is? Well, crap... um, I did really like that latest Nelly Furtado album... and Bruce Springsteen... I just love him... yeah, I know he's old."

Really, conversation went nowhere. And I'm perfectly aware that my inability to communicate like an intelligent human being was the primary cause. Irregardless, my taste in music is still pretty difficult to describe. So, "like" and "don't like" lists it is!

I tend to like: soft edges, pretty and/or soothing vocals, funky lyrics, horn parts I can sing along too (and I ALLWAYS do), hooks, and lyrics I can sing along to

I tend not to like: extensive instrumentals, discordant and or harsh sounds of any kind really, whining, and emotionally cloying garbage

Those lists should be much longer. One day, they probably will be, that's just all I could think of at the moment.