This one seem much more of a hodgepodge. And, as I was early into this weekly mix exercise, I probably included a lot of songs that I had been long familiar with. Now, a new mix is at least half-filled with songs I've just discovered.
We start here with Outkast's wonderful Parliament pastiche "The Whole World". Then, just as exuberantly and other-worldly, Olivia Newton-John's "Xanadu". This was a huge hit song when I was in 5th grade, and a girl named Peggy McDonald danced alone on stage and lip-synced it, with mirrored sunglasses, for our annual talent show. If anyone can find her, I would still like her hand in marriage.
Goldfrapp covers Olivia with "U.K. Girls (Physical)", and...we're going in order here, why not? Early disco anthem "Fly, Robin, Fly" by Silver Convention, "I LUV U II" by British rapper Dizzee Rascal, who seemed destined for big things in 04. But so did Silver Convention once upon a time, I'm sure.
Back to grammar school nostalgia with "Head Over Heels" by The Go-Gos. I won't embarrass myself by talking of the depths of my pre-pubescent crushes on these women. I'll stick to the girls who were my age.
Appropriately enough, next is "I Didn't Mean To Turn You On" by Robert Palmer. One of the cooler overlooked dance tracks of the mid 80s. Yes, I know his videos are beyond cheesy. But this has the brilliant Jam/Lewis production team, who made amazing albums with the talent-free Janet Jackson.
Keeping the groove: The Neptunes' production for Snoop Dogg's "Beautful" with that great, amateur falsetto from Pharrell Williams. Then, Nas' uplift-the-chilluns anthem "I Can." A Prince b-side that works better as a joke than a song: "Movie Star."
Then, the happy, happy, happy 1976 hit "Right Back Where We Started From" by Maxine Nightingale. Many people associate this song from the Paul Newman hockey movie "Slapshot" but this just reminds me of listening to AM radio as a toddler in the back of a big American car.
"Lost In The Supermarket" is the rare Mick Jones lead vocal from The Clash. Apparently, Joe Strummer asked him to write about his childhood. This mix is chock full of songs from my own, including Air Supply's beautiful "Lost In Love."
My odd memory of that song is hearing it on the radio in my father's convertible, the heat warming my legs as the cold air whipped through my hair one night after a White Sox game. It was not long after my parents' divorce, and my father was telling me how "evil" my mother was. Somehow, these dulcet harmonies have always carried a bittersweet tone for me since then.
Maybe "All You Need Is Hate" by The Delgados is my inside joke as the subsequent track. No irony here: "Hold Me Now" by The Thompson Twins reminds me of 8th grade "social dance" class in my tiny Catholic school. Eileen O'Meara, where are you?
I would think by now, as I've learned over and over again, it's best to avoid those Irish Catholic girls.
I had, outside my day job, a brief and ignominious spell as a dj at a bar years ago, about the time these mixes were birthed. I remember playing this next track "Here You Go Again" by Dolly Parton (how in the world would did I think that be a crowd-pleaser?), and getting a sweaty and grateful hug from a gay friend of a friend. Of course, someone is probably singing this in a piano bar somewhere in the world right now. It's just a perfect song, regardless of your orientation!
The Ghostworld soundtrack turned me on to early 20th century recordings, an interest I've taken to fairly absurd lengths over the years, and this one off that album:"Let's Go Riding" by Mr. Freddie, is great.
Modern-day folk: Beck's "Asshole", which probably could not have gotten far in the 20s.
Now a trio of tear-jerkers. "If I Fell", by The Beatles, with lead vocals by John Lennon, is perhaps their best early love song. Love the reference to their hit from just months before: "I've been in love before/And I've found that love is more/than just holding hands".
We had Gord's Gold, the greatest hits album from Gordon Lightfoot, in our house when I was growing up, so I've long enjoyed his sensitive-man ballad "If You Could Read My Mind". When I was a freshman in college, I had an upperclassman across the hall teach me to play this on my guitar. Not sure women appreciate songs like this these days, but they should!
The last song here "The Only Living Boy In New York" is a fairly obscure one from the Simon & Garfunkel catalog. Years after, I must point out, this mix was made, this song gained new popularity by making the soundtrack of a silly self-important hipster movie. (I did not see it, but reserve the right to judge movies I know I'd dislike!)
Instead of discovering it that way, I had read an interview with Liz Phair where she mentioned this as one of her favorite songs. And perhaps in the winter of 04, I felt like the only living boy in New York.
