Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 76

My Top 1000 Songs #436: Broken Arrow

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Like "Expecting To Fly," another standout on 1967's timeless Buffalo Springfield Again, "Broken Arrow" is a Buffalo Springfield song in name only. Once again, it's just Neil Young in the studio, aided by producer Jack Nitzsche and an orchestra (though bandmate Richard Furay later added some backing vocals). 

The six-plus-minute multi-part suite gives a glimp...

My Top 1000 Songs #435: People In Cars Don't Face Each Other

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Ok, an obscure one here, but this song, from indie folk/electronica act Lovers, dug its hooks into me on first listen, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. I wrote about the song, and the album it appeared on (2002's long out-of-print Star Lit Sunken Ship) a while back, so you can go check out that write-up. But, in short: "People In Cars Don't Fa...

My Top 1000 Songs #434: Sweetness And Light

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

At this point, I think I've now hit on all the core songs that captured my law school era (1988-1991) fixation on shoegaze/dreampop/Madchester and early Britpop. Stone Roses, House of Love, Ride, My Bloody Valentine, Happy Mondays... and now Lush. I first snagged this ethereal, effervescent 1990 single on a CD called Gala, which collected a few of the band'...

My Top 1000 Songs #433: Dear Prudence

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

I don't know if it's still true in the digital age, but for those of us who grew up on physical media--in my case, vinyl--there are certain records where we'll never be able to forget that initial rush of bringing home some new treasure and dropping it on the turntable for the very first time.

The Beatles' White Album was pretty monumental for me. I was prob...

My Top 1000 Songs #432: Weirdo

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

I fell in love with New Order early on in college--"Temptation" was a dorm-room anthem of sorts--but went through a particularly acute New Order phase starting in '86, after sophomore year. I remember driving around cranking my cassette of Power, Corruption & Lies and Low-Life (ah, those halcyon days of 90-minute Maxell XL-II tapes, perfect for taping two b...

My Top 1000 Songs #431: A Shy Dog

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

"A Shy Dog" is deep cut from Yo La Tengo's 1987 sophomore LP New Wave Hot Dogs--an album I think is a little underappreciated, but admittedly still finds the band in basic college radio territory, not yet having found the distinctive voice that saw them rise to the top of the indie rock cognoscenti in the 90s. I don't think a lot of Yo La Tengo fans would p...

My Top 1000 Songs #430: Before They Make Me Run

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Ok, I can't objectively say that this one, from the Rolling Stones' 1978 "comeback" album Some Girls, truly deserves a place atop the Stones pantheon--not with so many greats from Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers and Exile (not to mention that extraordinary run of 60s singles) still to be accounted for. Still, Keith Richards is a towering figure in rock & ro...

My Top 1000 Songs #429: Two Daughters & A Beautiful Wife

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

For obvious reasons, most the entries on this list are songs I'd be happy to listen to every single day if time permitted. But then there are the ones so emotionally gut-punching that I only pull them out on rare occasions; they're just too much to bear, and I never want them to lose that almost physical impact.

So, this is one of those latter songs. Off the...

My Top 1000 Songs #428: Eyes Of The World

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

After pivoting from primal psychedelia to rootsy Americana circa 1970, the Grateful Dead again broadened their palette by the time of 1973's terrific, underrated Wake Of The Flood LP, introducing a smoother, jazzy vibe to some of the music. This is most noteworthy on the incessantly pleasant "Eyes Of The World," one of the key tracks that helped me pivot fr...

My Top 1000 Songs #427: I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

There are songs I enjoy more on Wilco's groundbreaking fourth album, 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot--the beautiful ballad "Jesus Etc."; the upbeat, slightly skewed rocker "I'm The Man Who Loves You"; the whimsical nostalgia of "Heavy Metal Drummer." But the album-opening "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" feels like a rousing statement of purpose, a brazen decl...