learning silence to better speak

Random Rules Wednesday

first five random songs off the ipod.

1. Sting Me - The Black Crowes. I hugely dig the Black Crowes. This is a great song off a great album, but not something I listen to much lately. I think I burned out on them.

2. Tin Man - America. One of the pivotal songs of my childhood. "Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man/that he didn't, didn't already have." This song, and actually, most of America's catalog, has this mid-seventies burned-out sadness, as if all the hedonism of the 60's just left them hollowed out and melancholy. And, as anyone will tell you, melacholy is one of my favorites.

3. Cinnamon Girl - Prince. Not my favorite song off Musicology, but it's Prince, which means that it's better than most of the crap out there right now. Another burnout album. Part of the problem I have with music is that, if I like something very much, I'll listen to it to the exclusion of anything else. Over and over, several times in a row, learning all the words, memorizing song titles through sheer repetition. Used to drive my wife crazy. As I may have mentioned, she banned several genres ("sad bastard music" which included Death Cab for Cutie, Pedro the Lion, and Starflyer 59, "all reggae" which she said she couldn't listen to unless she was in the carribean) and artists (Weezer, Todd Rundgren) outright because I listened to them over and over. Just an example of my addictive personality. The only thing that saves me is my ADD, which means I shortly get bored.

4. Holy Water - Soundgarden. Music from my youth. Ah, the sweet dulcet tones of Grunge. I put this on my ipod in a fit of nostalgia, but I haven't listened to it all that much. Some things no longer speak to us the same way they did.

5. Budge - Dinosaur Jr. Yet again, the music of youth. This one aged quite a bit better, for some reason. Maybe because I didn't listen to it constantly over a period of several months. Mr. Macis's voice is whiny, but he plays guitar like a beast, and his songs are always rocking. Except when they drag.

They say that most people stop listening to music at a certain age, that the music one listens to in, say, college, is the music one will be listening to for the rest of one's life. I don't know how people can do that. I get bored, and I'm constantly looking for new music, new thoughts, new sensations. For example.

6. The New Face of Zero and One - The New Pornographers. Now this is good stuff. Fresh sounding, energetic, very much of the moment, with great melodies, unusual structures and progressions. Great stuff.

posted by Scott @ 11:27 AM