Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 94

My Top 1000 Songs #264: God's Children

[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 longing for times gone by, and a pushback against modernity, was a frequent theme of Ray Davies' songs. And as with Kinks classics like "Village Green Preservation Society" and "Apeman," he makes these concerns literal, and almost antagonistic, in "God's Children" (off 1971's Percy album).

"Man made the buildings that reach for the sky, and man made the mo...

My Top 1000 Songs #263: Happiness To Go

[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.]

Back in my mid-80s college days, Boston-based rockers Scruffy The Cat were one of our go-to party bands, playing fun little rave-up shows on campus all the time. And "Happiness To Go," off their aptly-titled 1986 EP High Octane Revival, is the ultimate go-to party tune, something to kick off your Saturday night (whether with the band making a live appearanc...

My Top 1000 Songs #262: The End

[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.]

The Doors may be one of the more divisive bands in the classic rock canon. Some worship at Jim Morrison's altar; some think they are terrible. I'm kinda in the middle--I can put together an 80-minute CDR mix that's pretty compelling, but find most of the balance pretty expendable. (I do like them as a live band; some of those posthumous live records are jus...

My Top 1000 Songs #261: Birthday

[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.]

Summer 1988, shortly after graduating college, and I was back home in Chicago at a party with some old high school friends. I got to talking music with my classmate Mark (with a k, to my c); we hadn't been super-close in high school, he was more part of the broader clique I used to hang out with and was dating a girl I was friends with, but he was one of th...

My Top 1000 Songs #260: I Got You

[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.]

Sometimes a pop song is just a pop song. I can't say that New Zealand band Split Enz's 1980 single "I Got You" resonates with me on some deep emotional level, but damn, that hook! The song does manage a brilliant merger between synth-oriented new wave and more traditional guitar-based power pop, which gives it a distinctly early 80s vibe but doesn't feel da...

My Top 1000 Songs #259: Papa Was A Rodeo

[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.]

The Magnetic Fields' monstrously overstuffed 1999 opus 69 Love Songs is riddled with wonderous nuggets. It's hard to pick a favorite, or just a few (my homemade single-CD distillation 23 Love Songs is pretty perfect). But I've always had a soft spot for "Papa Was A Rodeo," undoubtedly the greatest Gay Truckers In Love Faux Country Song ever recorded. It man...

My Top 1000 Songs #258: Mess

[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.]

The original run of albums from the Ben Folds Five has a lot of songs that are just plain fun, making the more emotionally serious ones stand out. "Brick," of course, gets the most attention from that latter camp, and it's undeniably a great song (we'll get there on this list). But I've always had a soft spot for "Mess," off 1999's Unauthorized Biography of...

My Top 1000 Songs #257: Down In The Tube Station At Midnight

[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 awhile, when I first got into the Jam back in high school, I found "Down In The Tube Station At Midnight" to be one of the band's most enjoyable songs. Like most of their third album, 1979's remarkable All Mod Cons, there was a huge leap forward musically and sonically. You've got the sound of the trains, the punchy yet restrained verses with that rivet...

My Top 1000 Songs #256: The Obedient Atom

[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.]

Does it really make any sense to talk about a song pretty much nobody has ever heard? One that even many die-hard Feelies fans are unlikely to be familiar with?

No! It's dumb! Get back to songs we know and love!

But for those of us truly obsessed with music, not just as listeners but as collectors (hoarders, even), the elusiveness of a song can sometimes be p...

My Top 1000 Songs #255: History Lesson Pt. II

[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 surprisingly endearing little ditty from the legendary Minutemen. Tucked in amongst the barrage of brief yet densely-packed punk, hardcore, and jazz-infused indie rock proclamations on their sweeping 1984 landmark Double Nickels On The Dime, "History Lesson Pt. II" was a wonderful anomaly. Accompanied by a sweet, catchy, folk-tinged acoustic guitar riff, ...