Elizabeth Mitchell - Little Bird, Little Bird

No, not that Elizabeth Mitchell.

If you've heard this one, then you're probably watching Futurama. If not, it featured in a perfect little scene at the end of last week's episode that was heartbreaking and beautiful. It's a kids' song so if you're reading this and you have little ones, go buy this album.

Clem Snide - Faithfully

So, first of all, I'm not talking about that other thing at all, because whatever.

I mentioned the AV Undercover series in this post. Someone finally got around to doing "A Rush and a Push..." and it was a complete abortion. Like I said, the series has mostly been a disappointment but there are a few gems, and I am as shocked as you are that I'm putting this song into that category. It turns out that the song has a pretty solid skeleton and, with the awful 80's production stripped away, it's actually kind of nice.


Clem Snide covers Journey

Melodians - Rivers of Babylon

When I went on my trip a few months ago, I brought this book with me to read. Well I mean, I didn't "bring it with me", it was just the book I was reading at the time and hadn't finished. Anyway, I had my iPod on shuffle and this song came up. It's based on a couple of Psalms - 137 in particular, and also 19. That passage from 19 comes up at...some point during the year, so that even a completely unobservant Jew like me knows it:

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight,O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

So anyway, the point of this long and rambling story is that, as that song was playing, I happened to be reading the exact part of the book where he mentions one of the Psalms listed, and I can't remember which because the important part is that he mentions the song too, that the words of the Psalm features prominently in a song from the The Harder They Come soundtrack. Get the book (it's a fun read, at least I think so), you'll see. I laughed, the people on the plane probably thought I was a crazy person. I couldn't figure out if it was a good or a bad omen, but it was a weird coincidence.

R.E.M. - Cuyahoga

Lol Cleveland. The only thing the Cuyahoga is on fire with tonight is #23 jerseys and also maybe tears because if you lived in Cleveland you'd probably drink and then your tears would be made of alcohol and they would burn and you would have a lot of tears because again, you live in Cleveland.

Donovan - Hurdy Gurdy Man

So you've all been waiting with bated breath all morning for a post from me, and this is what you get. Jokes on you, suckers! Mostly I would like to apologize to Landon Donovan for thinking he was kind of a nancy. Forget the Algeria goal, the first goal against Slovenia was the tits.

One of the things that I really enjoy in this world is when (good) movies take innocuous and semi-famous pop songs and reappropriate them for sinister purposes. Probably the most famous modern example is "Stuck in the Middle With You" by Stealers Wheel. I'm also partial to the "American Girl" scene in Silence of the Lambs and this one, which figures fairly prominently in Zodiac, a film that I'd be willing to defend as one of the best of the aughts.

The Business - Maradona

Because he is. (Sorry it's some English wankers. Good luck finding an interesting American soccer song. Just count your blessings I didn't post "World in Motion" again.)

Placebo - Humpty Dumpty

So funky.

Spoon - Mystery Zone

I've been meaning to do a Spoon song for a while, and I was listening to this one today realizing that it's pretty interesting if you interpret it as being "Lost" related. Yes, I know that Drew already did a "Lost" post but that guy sucks. Anyway, I've decided that Britt Daniel had some sort of insight into the finale and that's why he wrote this song and also it's a good song so suck it.

Quasimoto - Come on Feet

So I'm sort of semi-following the theme this week, since this is based on this sample. Apparently Madlib has a thing for Fantastic Planet.

The National - Afraid of Everyone

Here's one for the "faith in humanity" file. Is this the quintessential "I'm so excited to be a new parent!" song? (It is.) If you're really lucky, becoming a parent leads to something as transcendentally awesome as this. But, occasionally, one time in a million, the parent thing can actually lead to something good. So, this.

The Smiths - A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours

IT'S TIME TO BREAK THE MOZ SEAL UP IN THIS MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!

I've been following this series which has been mostly completely underwhelming and kind of irritating (although the one I linked was pretty solid, and the undisputed champ so far is, I shit you not, the Ted Leo cover of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". ). This one's on the list, and if they don't do the "RRRRRRRRRush" growl then fail. Fail.

Fu-Schnickens - What's Up Doc?

Let's celebrate one of the world's least-beloved vanity rap careers. Shaq's media career has been mostly met with aggressive indifference; the man apparently recorded five rap albums (meaning that the Shaquille O'Neal section at your local record store is exactly as deep as the A Tribe Called Quest section), and his two feature film starring roles are punch lines for hacky comedians the world over. He's clearly a charismatic guy, and hell, Michael Jordan's one big starring credit was a big hit, and that guy's personality is something akin to a rancid hunk of bologna. I think there's something just kind of off-putting about Shaq - the monotone voice, that constant smirk, the jokes that aren't nearly as funny as he (and his sycophantic beat writers) seem to think they are. He's self-aware but almost too self-aware, someone who would never let himself display anything resembling a genuine human emotion. He's kind of the anti-AI (whose vanity rap career never even got off the ground), a man who's just too self-possessed, too in control. He went from precocious man-child to crusty old Brit, without passing through any of the horrible bits of self-doubt in between that define the rest of us.

Sebastien Tellier - Look

Hypnotizing.

Neko Case - Deep Red Bells

I'm co-opting this one, since we don't have a song of our own yet; or at least, not a good one. It's 3 years today, if you didn't know.

In the 80's in Tacoma, the Green River Killer was still just a phantom to the young women of the area, a cautionary tale about being picked up by strange men on the highway. Of course, the monster turned out to be a pasty factory worker with a dodgy mustache - he escaped the death penalty by agreeing to cooperate with investigators on the unsolved murders that they couldn't directly pin on him, but he'll never get out of prison and he'll never murder another girl. That fear though, that psychic wound that people like him inflict on their community, that lasts much longer than they do.

Bessie Smith - St. Louis Blues

Malcolm McLaren ended up forging a slight but interesting second career as a musician in his own right. As someone who latched on to whatever looked to be the hot new thing, he naturally drifted into hip-hop after the dissolution of the Pistols - this song was a minor hit and, more famously, formed the basis for Mariah Carey's "Honey". But this is about him sampling, not being sampled. "About Her" shows up near the end of Kill Bill, it's basically a combination of "She's Not There" by the Zombies and this song, Bessie Smith's version of "St. Louis Blues," featured in the short film of the same name. It's a fascinating little slice of early sound cinema - mostly just an excuse to get Bessie Smith on film, there's some genuine craftsmanship on display, along with some genuine amateurism.

David Bowie - Rebel Rebel

My second and last Las Vegas-related post. There was a very nice girl named Sophie who went by the nom de plume "Rebel" and we were all pretty sure she was named after a gas station.

Nico - Vegas

God bless the Ice Queen, for sparing me from having to post some horrible, generic Sinatra or Elvis song.

The Box Tops - Cry Like a Baby

I've seen "The Letter" a whole bunch, and the Big Star stuff (and "Alex Chilton," of course) but I don't think I've seen anyone who did this one. Maybe because there just isn't a decent video on youtube but hey, a cat liked this one, so who am I to argue? It's still pretty mind-boggling that that's a teenager singing.

Mingus Dynasty - Better Git It In Your Soul

This is the song that always plays in my head when I see Reno's avatar. I forget if we discussed this video and Mike Richmond's awesome 'stache and molester sunglasses, or if I just did that in my head. This was a bunch of guys who played with Mingus, and then formed a cover band after he croaked. I think it's still around, although it's sort of like the Ship of Theseus at this point.

The Fall - L.A.

Turns out today is Mark E. Smith's birthday. And the "this is my happening and it freaks me out" line is from the legendary, Ebert-penned Beyond the Valley of the Dolls