Random Musical Trends: Weekly Top Ten (10/13/18)
I won’t explain why I’ve been M.I.A (and one day she’ll appear in this countdown, so don’t fret), but I’ve been listening to my tunes again and discovering lost songs that I didn’t know I was missing. It feels like fall, finally, and so open all windows and pull out the flannel. Tennessee is beating Auburn, too, so there’s that.
10. “Get Gone,” The Seratones. From Shreveport, LA, this band plays sounds that defy easy genrefication. I knew nothing about them until I saw them last week on the SEC Network’s new series, True South, featuring Southern Foodways Alliance legend John T. Edge. Check it out each Tuesday night at 7:00 EST. The song here is a plaintive cry for things that we both lust for and dread. Think about that and look for the lead singer to redeem you.
9. “Self-Control,” Laura Branigan. I can’t believe I like this song, but somewhere in the night last week as we were cleaning out my mother’s house, it came to me as I lay thinking in her old bed. I am trying to figure this out and will likely write more one day about the juxtaposition of grief and self-control. Until then, listen and enjoy a song that knows how to sound right. It’s so good to re-evaluate one’s past. Oh oh oh….
8. “The Less I Know the Better,” Tame Impala. One of the best bands of the last few years. Isn’t it time for a new record? Piercing guitars and beautiful vocals anoint this tune. I confess to getting tingly every time they pop up on XMU, and if only I could go dancing again, but where would I go? Driving music, then, and so be it.
7. “Breakers Roar,” Sturgill Simpson. He sounds so old school country, and you know that old school country makes me want to cry all the time. I would kill to see him live, or at least learn to love liver and onions. Tennessee is about to beat Auburn for sure, and the Tennessee twang is ready to shine sharply, but Sturgill is calming my anxious heart and mind anyway. How do people sing like this and write such heartbreaking songs? It’s all a dream.
6. “& She Takes It,” Nihilist Cheerleader. I love this song more than liver and onions and hot pastrami sandwiches. The band’s name is enough but God, listen to it with your best punk ears. From Athens, GA, where American New Wave/Punk was cultivated. Heard this on the Athens segment of True South, and I haven’t been the same, which might say more about me than you want to know. The refrain, however, (She takes sit) could be a commentary on our post-Kavanaugh world.
5. “Only Son,” Shakey Graves. I’m glad I’m not an only son. I can’t imagine settling my mother’s affairs by myself, not sharing her things and the attendant grief. My brother was right there in the process, still is. When this song cued up on my I-Pod last week, I had to stop writing and just listen. I felt rewarded in so many ways, just like I always was being her son, oldest, but not only. Shakey is too young to know all this, except he does anyway. From 2014’s And the War Came.
4. “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” Neil Young. When I bought After the Gold Rush in 1971, I didn’t know what to do or think about immersion Neil. Sure, “Tell Me Why” was catchy, and “Southern Man,” haunting. But this tune? One day I was driving along and thinking of it, when lo and behold, it came on the Classic Vinyl station. The measure of our grief is only commensurate with the measure of our love. Neil gets it, and so do I.
3. “Second Hand Heart,” Dwight Yoakam. As we were driving into Bessemer last week, two songs came on that encouraged my poor old heart. This was the first one, and though it’s a song about betrayal and changing love, I started singing and felt a strange lift from somewhere, a feeling I get when the music is so right, so blessed, and I can’t understand how it’s all possible. Just glad it’s there, Dwight. “It’s better off just not to start. Than have to watch us fall apart….She said when I trusted love I dreamed in color too.”
2. “I’m Moving On,” Dylan LeBlanc. I saw him at the Albino Skink Festival in Greer, SC, a couple of years ago, and he defied what I thought he could do. It had been raining, and the beer was cold. It’s a time-healing experience to listen to someone this insightful, and that his range is so vast is only a bonus. I just hope I can, and I think I will.
As forgotten songs go, this one jolted me out of a funk I knew I was in but didn’t realize how deep I had fallen. It hit just as we turned off I-20 onto I-459, driving into the void, to a empty house, the first time I experienced it since my mother died.
NUMBER ONE
- “Easy Loving,” Freddie Hart. So obscure that you can’t find it on I Tunes. I remember sitting in Mrs. Buck’s homeroom during 10th or 11th grade and overhearing a girl behind me saying that this was her favorite song. I thought, “What? It’s so country.” Exactly. Old country music might be the coolest thing I know now, and if you ever find yourself driving through Atlanta, put on Willie’s Road House, and you won’t mind the traffic anymore. I just wish I knew who that girl in my homeroom was now. I’d like to thank her or kiss her on the cheek. She was far wiser than me.
Next week: the Top Ten worst songs. Get ready.
