Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

It’s fun, this iPod randomising thing. And, as Rol of the excellent Sunset Over Slawit blog pointed out in a comment (I do like comments), my iPod does have good taste. So here’s today’s lot, though it’s a 8-track experiment, iPod having suggested two songs I just recently posted, by Josh Rouse and Miles Davis, and Ingrid Michaelson’s “Keep Breathing” which I just recently downloaded from the fine Don’t burn the day away blog, whose thunder I didn’t want to steal.

Foo Fighters – Statues.mp3
I love Foo Fighter’s new album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace. It might well have replaced The Colour And The Shape as my favourite Foo album, even if the new set has no “Everlong” on it. Clearly, my iPod loves Foo Fighters as well, having featured Grohl’s lot in the first random experiment. “Statues” is turning out to be one of the best songs on the album, a fine piano driven number which however reminds me of some other song I cannot place. The line “we’re just ordinary people” is driving me mad, I’m sure I’ve heard it before.

Serge Gainsbourg – Cargo Culte.mp3
From 1971’s Histoire de Melody Nelson, a mindfuckingly great album on which the music tells you everything you might not understand from the French lyrics (the album is about our dirty old friend picking up young English girl Melody and, guess what, seducing her). Someone once said that listening to Histoire de Melody Nelson is like being fucked by Gainsbourg (don’t worry, it doesn’t mean you’re gay). Listen to this incredible track to know what my pal meant. It drips with sex, especially when Melody introduces herself 5:40 in. Is that what the “Porn Groove” category on WinAmps ID3 Tag manager refers to?

Ron Sexsmith – Whatever It Takes.mp3
When I watch the Grammys and see how the music industry celebrates boring old dinosaurs (hello Mr Clapton), mediocre young boredom merchants (good evening Ms Jones) and assorted overrated nonentities (sorry, but who are you again?), I despair for all these great artists whose music stands well above these clowns, but receive recognition only in the blogosphere and, perhaps, on hip soundtracks of TV shows. Why is there no industrial felatio administered to the likes of Josh Rouse, Ben Folds, Joshua Radin or Ron Sexsmith. The latter has been around for more than a decade and a half, but while his fuckwitted compatriots Twain, Lavigne, Morrissette and Dion found fame and fortune, he remains a best-kept secret (one with the most magnificent surname). I love Sexsmith’s immensely warm and intimate voice, his songcraft and his variety. “Whatever It Takes”, from 2004’s excellent Retriever, has a great late ’70s soul influence, melodically rather than in its arrangement. It is a happiness-inducing song.

Howie Day – Collide.mp3
I don’t like the man’s name. It sounds like he might be a singer in a boy band. That he is not. Howie Day is, in fact, a singer-songwriter type. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of much of his work though there are three or four songs I really rate, and nothing I might despise. “Collide” is a very good, catchy tune. I think he sings it very well. It is Mrs Major Dude’s cellphone ringtone, and it reminds me of somebody I once knew. My favourite blogger in the whole world did the guitar tabs for the song. Check them out here.

Warren Zevon – Lawyers, Guns And Money.mp3
Everybody knows “Werewolves In London”, and maybe “Excitable Boy”. Fine songs both, but I think 1978’s “Lawyers, Guns And Money” is even better (though, perhaps, not as good as “Jeannie Needs A Shooter”). The powerful guitar and keyboard chords that drive the song grab your attention from the go, then Zevon tells his story about how “the shit has hit the fan” in a Central American cold war spy intrigue (which, one suspects, might be a huge bullshit story the waster scion tells his rich Dad). I love the “heya” at 1:35 and the “ugh” at 2:32, and the other assorted yelps, groans and exclamation marks. A fantastic driving song. If you don’t know much about Warren Zevon, try to get his live album, Stand In The Fire.