Opening Lines

It's All About the First Impression.

A reader emailed me to ask about my favorite opening line for a song.

It depends on my mood. Sometimes I love lines like "I was born in a crossfire hurricane." Sometimes I'm in the mood for Robyn Hitchcock's intricate wordplay.

But, right now, off the top of my head, here's my list of Top 11 Opening Lines I love. (Tomorrow the list would be different and I might even be able to limit it to 10.)

11. The Nerves -- "Hanging on the Telephone"
I'm in the phone booth, it's one o'clock uh huh.
Yes, kids, before cell phones there used to be phone booths. Just ask Superman. (And, yeah, this song existed even before Blondie covered it.) It's the "uh huh" that gets me.

10. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers "I Need to Know"
Well the talk on the street says you might go solo.
Slick Hollywood posturing and powerful music covering up a broken heart.

9. Badfinger "Day After Day"
I remember finding out about you...
My second-favorite Badfinger song. (And a pretty great George Harrison slide-guitar solo, too.)

8. XTC "Dear Madam Barnum"
I put on a fake smile and start the evening show...
Best romance-as-circus-act metaphor ever.

7. Immaculate Machine "Broken Ship"
We are sailing on a broken ship and only one of us can survive.
Stripped-down instrumentation, simple sparse lyrics, and an emotional vocal that tries desperately to be hopeful despite the pervading sense of doom. (Plus, how can you resist a song that includes the line "cello, play us off"?)

6. Warren Zevon "Werewolves of London"
I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand walking down the streets of Soho in the rain.
I know I've had days like that... and I'm pretty sure you have, too.

5. Paul Simon "Kodachrome"
When I think back on all the crap I learned in High School it's a wonder I can think at all...

4. Joe Jackson "Is She Really Going Out with Him?"
Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street...
Just. Freaking. Perfect.
There isn't a guy alive who hasn't had this thought.

3. Graham Parker "You Can't Be Too Strong"
Did they tear it out with talons of steel?
Haunting song that explores a controversial issue from a point of view that's usually ignored.

2. John Lennon "God"
God is a concept by which we measure our pain...
The "dream is over" song... still beautiful and visceral 40 years later.

1. Billy Bragg "Life with the Lions"
I hate the asshole I become everytime I'm with you.
It's funny because it's true. And I know we've all been there.



So... there's my list. Tell me the ones you think I should've included.

The Year-End List

Ah yes, that time of the year.

Many of my favorite music blogs are publishing year-end best-of lists. And while I admire the idea that someone could rank their favorite albums of 2009 (or, in some cases of this decade-without-name) and come up with a coherent top 10 (or, in some blogs, top 17, top 20, or even top 100), I couldn't do it.

Partially, that's because I couldn't think of 10 (let alone 17, 20, or 100) new albums from this year that I'm passionate enough about.

But mostly, as even the most casual readers probably realized, this is not that type of blog.

So... instead... here's a list of the top 8 posts I never quite got around to posting this year. In the true spirit of this blog, this list probably makes almost no sense to anyone but me (but I swear I'll get around to these posts someday and then they'll make a little more sense to you):

8. The Shins rescue me from talk radio
7. There's no such thing as heroes/Just a bunch of ones and zeroes
6. The New Pornographers through the rabbit hole
5. Chris Stamey and Glenn Tilbrook write different versions of the same song
4. Jane mourns Keith Moon
3. The singer's gone but the group carries on
2. I take the "dork bullet" for Don Dixon
1. In which I use Graham Parker for evil, not good

Autotuned Out

I'm Talking to You, 67-Year-Old Rock Stars.

My unsolicited advice to a certain beknighted ex-Beatle?

Here's a list of 10 things you might want to avoid:

10. More plastic surgery. Seriously, dude, your face is looking more and more like Angela Lansbury's every day.

9. The reappearance of your 70s mullet. (C'mon, you're worth a half a billion dollars. Get a haircut that's less than 30 years old.)

8. Sucking up to Simon Cowell on the X-Factor.

7. Mugging for cameras. (Do you even know these days that you're doing it?)

6. Playing the ukulele. Seriously.

5. Rereleasing your albums in "deluxe editions" months after they first appear so your die-hard fans (who waited for Starbucks to open to buy the album in the first place) have to buy it again. Again, you're worth a half a billion dollars -- you don't need to do this.

4. Indulging in endless revisionist history about John Lennon. Yes, yes, you were cool too in the 60s. We get it.

3. Refusing to admit that your vegetarian lobbying stems from being attacked with a ham sandwich thrown by Suzanne Vega's punk boyfriend in the 1970s.

2. Writing and recording a protest song to promote "Meat-Free Monday" in under 5 minutes and then expecting people to take your message seriously.

1. Autotune. As great as it is that the Good Evening New York CD/DVD is the full concert, some of the songs are autotuned half to death. No one expects you to sing perfectly live (especially at age 67)... but it would be nice if you sounded human. (And fuck that "Citi Field" bullshit. It's Shea Stadium.)

Come to think of it, though, I'd rather see a non-autotuned concert for a few hundred people in a record store in Hollywood than an autotuned stadium show shot with 15 High-def cameras.

Paul McCartney Live at Amoeba Music 2007:

Top Five Psychedelic Rock Songs

As my cat would say: did you ever really look at your paw?

When I was growing up, just before corporations bought up every last radio station on earth and programmed it to within an inch of its life, I used to listen to a DJ named Peter Cole on a station out of Hartford.

Every Friday afternoon, he'd play a long set of psychedelic rock (even though that type of music was never heard on the radio station at any other time). I wanted to be Peter Cole when I grew up.

But instead, decades later, I'll settle for a semi-random Top 5 that were regularly featured in those Friday afternoon sets:

5. Count Five -- Psychotic Reaction


4. The Amboy Dukes (with Ted Nugent) -- Journey to the Center of Your Mind


3. Small Faces -- Itchykoo Park


2. Strawberry Alarm Clock -- Incense and Peppermints


and number 1: The Electric Prunes -- I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)
Later covered by Stiv Bators in his brief punky power pop period (which unfortuntely came right before his long dead period).


Feel free to argue and suggest alternatives.

End of Summer II: Top Five "Summer" Songs

It must be summer, cause the days are long...

It's too hot to be completely coherent... so here we go...

I've seen quite a few blog posts this past week about the best songs from the summer of 2009. Out of dozens of different songs posted, I think I've heard one or two. This depresses me (and not just because it's yet another sign that I'm not as hip as I was -- or at least as I thought I was).

Back when people listened to the radio all the time, you couldn't get away from certain summer songs -- they were everywhere and they served as an unconscious soundtrack to the time. (This isn't a post about that, but if you want one, Charley Sommers at Throck Manash posted his a few months ago.)

Rather than dwelling on songs from this summer (or the best summer sons of all time), I decided to make a list of my favorite songs that have the word "Summer" in their titles.

5. The Lovin' Spoonful -- "Summer in the City"
An edgier sound (well, edgy's a relative term with the Lovin' Spoonful) that brings me back to growing up on the east coast with 90% humidity that makes you sweat through every last stitch of clothing.

My first apartment after college had no air conditioning and I remember one night coming home after work and finding the temperature inside was over 100 degrees. So naturally I sat in the tub for a long time listening to an oldies radio station (which played this song twice in the same hour).


4. B-52s -- "Summer of Love"
It might be hard to imagine now, but for a few shining moments, the B-52s were rock stars.

Or maybe they weren't rock stars, they were rock lobsters.


3. The Ataris -- "Boys of Summer"
The Ataris kick Don Henley's song up a notch, from the great So Long Astoria album.

Some would argue that changing the lyric "Deadhead sticker" to "Black Flag sticker" destroys the irony of the song, but I'd argue that just having that argument is (in itself) ironic.


2. Ben Folds Five -- "Where's Summer B"
(Sound is a bit tinny on this video) From the first Ben Folds Five album, a perfect amazing slice of power pop that emerged so fully formed and so completely out of touch with what was popular at the time.

A friend from work gave me a cassette tape of this when it first came out; she said she thought I'd really like it. Knowing her musical taste, I assumed it would suck and didn't listen to it for several months. When I finally listened, I didn't stop listening to it for several months after that. It's just that good. (And still sounds great today.)


1. Fountains of Wayne -- "It Must Be Summer"
(Again, sound's not great on the video, but you get the idea). From the great album Welcome Interstate Managers, a great example of the I'm-chasing-this-girl-and-she's-oblivious sub-genre of power pop.

Although, come to think of it, if you get rid of the I'm-chasing-this-girl-and-she's-oblivious sub-genre, half of rock 'n' roll would vanish into the ether.

Top Ten Facts About the Weakerthans

Leaning on this broken fence between past and present tense.

The Weakerthans, whom I've mentioned here and here, performed last night in L.A. Much of the crowd sang along for good portions of the band's 100-minute set, which reminded me again of the sheer power and joy of great music played well.

In honor of the show, here's a list of my 10 favorite facts about the Weakerthans:


10. Head Weakerthan John K. Samson is the Seth Green of Canadian Rock. While his bandmates jump around like goofy and gleeful teenagers doing ironic impressions of arena rock moves, he stands still, vaguely amused by the chaos swirling around him (like Oz waiting to tell Giles and Buffy that he's really the one in charge of the Scooby Gang).

9. It's hard not to love a four-piece band that tours with a fifth musician who plays keyboards, guitars, and trumpet.

8. Their Spring 2009 tour was called the "Rolling Tundra Revue."

7. Their song "Aside" was the third-best thing about the movie Wedding Crashers. (Here's a taste, in a fan-produced video that's gotten nearly 150,000 hits.)


6. The band's second album Left and Leaving was voted the 6th best Canadian album of all time (behind two Neil Young albums, and one each by Broken Social Scene, Sloan, and Joni Mitchell. Their third album is even better. And the latest one is even better than that.

5. They have written the first (and perhaps only) great rock song about curling:


4. Samson collaborated with Inuit throat singer Nikki Komaksiutiksak on a song called "Keewatin Arctic" for Canada's "Record of the Week" club where musicians from different backgrounds are put together semi-randomly and given one evening to right and record a song, which is mixed and made available for download that same night. Hear (or buy) "Keewatin Arctic" here.

3. Crowds around the world will sing along to any song that has a simple, memorable chorus, like the one in "One Great City": "I hate Winnipeg" (with Londoners happily singing in this video).

2. The "Civil Twilight" video, which I've posted before, is shot in one continuous take. A penguin (although perhaps not the same one who taught Samson French in the song "Our Retired Explorer") makes a cameo as one of the bus riders.

1. There's nothing quite like crowding with hundreds of people in a small Hollywood club on a day when it's 105 degrees (but a dry 105 degrees) to hear a Canadian band singing songs about winter in the Great North. Good thing Los Angeles is an irony-free zone (with great air conditioning).

Ten Top Problems with Top Ten Lists

Again, I scour the internets so you won't have to.

While hunting for a digitized version of Bruce Springsteen's "Held Up Without a Gun" (the studio version that only appeared as the B-side of the "Hungry Heart" single and has never been on an album and never appeared on CD, not the live version), I stumbled upon a wealth of musical Top Ten Lists.

And realized there are a lot of problems with many of the Top Ten Lists online. So many problems that I came up with a Top Ten list of Problems with (musical) Top Ten Lists:

10. You gotta actually number the list. (And I'm talking to you, ThrowawayBlog!) Yes, people will quibble with your placement of the Top 10 Science Fiction songs of all time... but isn't that why you posted them? Besides, it fools no one when you include 11 songs in your Top Ten and think no one will notice just because they're not numbered!

9. Don't confuse best and worst. When you're making a list of the Top Ten Best Band Names of All Time, you want "the Mr. T Experience," when you're making a list of the worst band names of all time, not so much.

8. Don't forget that not all of your readers will be named Stacey... especially when you're making a list of Top Ten Best Songs About Your Mom.

7. Yeah, it was weird when Run-DMC and Aerosmith teamed up on the remake of "Walk This Way," but it actually worked. So maybe that wouldn't belong on the list of Top Ten Weird Musical Collaborations. On the other hand, the James Brown/Pavarotti collaboration is so bizarre it might just deserve two places on the list.

6. You gotta start at Number 10 and work your way down to Number 1. Otherwise people see that you selected "Pac Man Fever" as your Top Novelty Song of all time and just stop reading.

5. Number 6 is especially true with a bizarre list like the Weirdest Songs Played at Funerals (and please, reporters, verify that someone really played "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" and you weren't just hearing a joke from the weird cousin no one likes).

4. If you have a wide-ranging list, such as the Top Ten Weird Al songs, you might want to state how you chose them. Otherwise it's just random.

3. Speaking of Weird Al, can you really have a list of Top Ten Songs to Munch On and only include one of Weird Al's food songs? Although what can you expect from someone who thinks Pop Tarts suck toasted? :)

2. Don't be afraid to include items on your list that don't really belong but are still cool. But don't be surprised if this upsets people. And don't say things like, "if I put MP3s on the headless Barbie USB drive, it would sort of fit in the list"! (On the other hand, the fish-stick drive would be a great way to store all the songs from Number 3.)

1. No one can possibly believe deep down in their heart that the accordian is geekier than the theremin.

Laziest Rock 'n' Roll Books

Christmas Product: Books



It's hard to imagine there are lazier excuses for books than Paul Simon's Lyrics 1964-2008 (which contains a very brief introduction and then his song lyrics laid out for $36) or Ringo Starr's Postcards from the Boys (which reprints postcards sent to Ringo over the years by the other Beatles for $25).

At least Paul Simon wrote these lyrics (and even if it's absurd, you still get more than 400 pages). Ringo's book repackages other people's artwork and other people's words (with a sentence comment on each postcard) in a book that's barely over 100 pages.

These books are so lazy that I can't even work myself into a good lather of outrage. (I mean, if Paul Simon and Ringo Starr are too lazy to write a real book, I'm too lazy to mock them mercilessly.)

So, if you've got $61 burning a whole in your pocket, don't buy these books... go buy some music!

Merry Christmas.

Top Ten Signs You Might Be a Music Snob

The Top Ten Signs You Might Be a Music Snob

Are you a music snob? Here are the top ten signs:

10. You’ve broken up with someone after examining his/her music collection.

9. When asked to name your favorite band, you subdivide your answer into categories such as “Post-British Invasion,” “Neo-New Wave,” “Pre-Grunge Garage Rock, Semi-Melodic,” etc., and continue listing your favorites long after the other person has stopped listening.

8. You alphabetize your albums by producer, not band name.

7. You know what song was #1 when you were born (and what other song from the Hot 100 blows that #1 song out of the water).

6. You’ve investigated copyrighting your iTunes playlists.

5. You easily pontificate on the artistic value of band reunions (the Animals, the Buzzcocks, the Police, Sex Pistols), but can’t be bothered to voice an opinion about the Who.

4. Tired of the lame cell-phone ringtones you hear all around you, you downloaded software to make your own ringtones of your more obscure favorite songs.

3. You regularly read at least 5 MP3 blogs (but only comment on 2).

2. Not only can you easily differentiate between the “Jangle” and “Power Pop” genres, but you can readily cite examples of people who misuse those terms.

1. As you read this, you mentally composed your own, much better list.