another rerun

Song Suggestions or a Meditation on Love

An extract from an email to a friend who was trying to put together a live act:
Caetano Veloso - "London London", a song about being exiled and lost in London. Simple, but a wonderful song. If not for [...] hearing Caetano Veloso perform this in Chapel Hill would have been the highlight of my 2007.

Arthur Russell - "A Little Lost", a song of nervous uncertain infatuation. A beautiful off-kilter song.

Jens Lekman - "I saw her in the Antiwar Demonstration." - best lyrics I've heard in years:
"You're looking for me in the demonstration
Well I have already lost patience
And you might find me sitting by the pavement
Or maybe not, 'cause I have shrunk
I fell in love with a punk and she took my breath

Now there's nothing left
Of blood enough to feed a family
Well I just wanna feed Emily
With lukewarm English beer and vegan pancakes "

Sam Phillips - "Reflecting Light", a lovely world-weary waltz. about religious ecstasy or falling in love or both.

[...]

Mary Margaret O'Hara - "Help me Lift You Up" - a great odd song with a weird time-signature. Caroline Crawley's version on the This Moral Coil album, _Blood_ is good too. My musical taste owes a lot to _Blood_

Chris Bell - "I am the Cosmos" - quite possibly the most depressing song I know. I have no idea if you can make it work. I think my adolescent self thought this is what being lovelorn would sound like. It doesn't. Love is about hundreds of anticipations and hundreds of disappointments, and a couple of stray moments of happiness, not ridiculously overwrought sentiments and drawn-out dramas. I've outgrown this song, but I'll throw it out there.

Bruce Robison or Kelly Willis - "What do you think" - a lovely song about being in love with a friend who cries to you and her not noticing. Not a whole lot of songs about this. But...

John Johnson - "I said 'these are lonely days'" a snotty stoned old-timey jazz number about the same subject as the last song. Really funny.
"Women talk so sadly when they speak of the men in their lives
So why do these girls continue with worthless guys
Hey, when you wake up in the morning
and take a look around and it is storming
Know that no one loves you like I do...

Well maybe if they were lesbians
Then it wouldn't be bad that they just want to be friends
Now I'm stuck at home with boxed wine and magazines
While you've gone out with him to break up all of my dreams

Hey, and if you call me in the morning
And try to tell me about it with no warning
Know that I won't listen 'cuz you're dumb"

Billy Bragg - "Greetings to the New Brunette" - A song sung by a soccer hooligan without much ambition who has hooked up with a liberated college girl. Some great lyrics:
"How can you lie there and think about England when you don't even know who's on the team. "

Billy Bragg - "A New England" - Another great song. This one by a poor guy to a rich girl who he has been sleeping with, whose parents disapprove of him and who seems to be losing interest in him. But also about being kind of direction-less and wondering whether you're growing up. From the first lines, you know you're in the presence of genius:
"I was twenty-one years when I wrote this song
I'm twenty-two now, but I won't be for long
People ask when will you grow up to be a man
But all the girls I loved at school
Are already pushing prams

I loved you then as I love you still
Though I put you on a pedestal,
They put you on the pill
I don't feel bad about letting you go
I just feel sad about letting you know."

[...]

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As far as I know, the friend did learn to perform the Billy Bragg songs but no others.