Year of Songs: It's Hard to Hold a Candle

Whew - last post of the Year of Songs. Let's work our way backwards through the last two months:




December:

Gold Soundz - Pavement
The Air Near My Fingers - The White Stripes

Both these lyricists go for the classic "remember"/"month ending in -ember" rhyme (best exemplified by "Try to Remember (The Kind of September)" from a previous playlist in the series). I love "Gold Soundz," but I found it to be a rather out-of-left-field choice for Pitchfork's #1 song of the '90s. But then again, the folks at Pitchfork sure love them some Pavement.

Horchata - Vampire Weekend
 
Speaking of obvious rhymes, I'm so tired of all these songs that rhyme "horchata" with "balaclava." Sheesh.

Back to December - Taylor Swift

My friend Peter: "There's a great Taylor Swift song from her latest studio album Speak Now called 'Back to December.' I dare you to use it." Game on, Peter!

Love Her Madly - The Doors

Also from Peter: "I just realized that 'Love Her Madly' by the Doors has a Carol of the Bells reference in the keyboard solo." So it does.

Having gone through a major Doors phase in junior high, I still harbor a fondness for the Doors which was rekindled recently by Jimmy Fallon's spectacular interpretation of the Reading Rainbow theme in the guise of Jim Morrison. Unfortunately, the official video has expired, so the subpar video below is the best I can do:



Summersong - The Decemberists

Befitting a band with a month in their name, the Decemberists have made numerous appearances on this playlist in previous months. Lacking a song that actually has December in the lyrics (that I know of, at least), I thought we could use a nice song about summer to shake things up. 

If We Make It Through December - Merle Haggard

Just discovered this one courtesy of the All Songs Considered podcast. Speaking of summer, this one features this sad little line in chorus:

If we make it through December
I got plans of being in a warmer town come summer time
Maybe even California...

And speaking of California...

Long December - Counting Crows

I love the classic Counting Crows song ending: repeating "yeah" over and over again with rapidly depleting energy until the whole thing just falls apart. Perfect way to send the Year of Songs project limping off at the end of its run.

November:

Young Pilgrims - The Shins

The album Chutes Too Narrow, named after a line from this song, was easily one of my favorite albums of the past decade. In case you haven't heard, after five years The Shins will finally release a new album in March.

Hard Candy - Counting Crows

After that Shins interlude, let's keep the Counting Crows rolling, shall we? This is one of the few post-"Long December" songs that I actually like (don't get me started on that Shrek song).

Allerseelen (All Souls' Day) - Richard Strauss

All Souls' Day, also known as the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, falls annually on November 2.

Today the graves are full of lights and flowers,
One day a year the dead shall hold their sway:
Spend on my heart again those lovely hours,
Like once in May.

Congrats to Richard Strauss for being the most represented German art song composer on the Year of Songs playlist (this and "September").

November - Andy Dwyer (from Parks & Recreation)

The character Andy from Parks & Rec wrote a song about a girl named November to try to win his girlfriend April back (makes sense if you know the character). How could any girl, regardless of the month of her namesake, resist a sensitive ballad with lines like "Let's spread our wings and flyyyyyyyy... on a date"? Grooveshark didn't have a copy, so watch the clip below:




On the Radio - Regina Spektor

The last song on this November list is so epic, we need this song just to preface it:

On the radio
We heard "November Rain"
That solo's really long
But it's a pretty song

November Rain - Guns N' Roses

This song came out when I was in 6th grade and it sparked the equivalent of the Team Edward vs. Team Jacob conflict at my elementary school. The popular kids, led by this girl named Kari, literally walked around the playground during recess asking people if they were Team "November Rain" or Team "Rumpshaker," another song that was popular at the time (I was going to link to it, but after listening to it for the first time in almost 20 years I was a little embarrassed - at the time I didn't understand how gross it was, though the title should have been a pretty good tip-off). The two groups got pretty chippy, and I remember making a case that it was possible to like both songs, but my musical eclecticism was too far ahead of its time.

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For those of you who bothered to read these "Year of Songs" posts and listen to some of the music, thanks for indulging me. Special thanks to those who suggested songs for the project - I discovered some cool music thanks to you. Overall it was really fun to put this mega-playlist together month by month, and the final tally is a whooping 95 songs.

Let's go out on a song that mentions every month of the year: Neil Sedaka's 1961 "Calendar Girl." It's a major cheese-fest, but just close your eyes and picture it playing during party scene on Mad Men, and then it will be a whole lot cooler.

Year of Songs: It Started Feeling Like October

Answer me this: why do we have September, November, and December, but we have October? Shouldn't it be Octember? And aren't all the prefixes on these months off by two? "Sept-" means seven, but September is the ninth month. "Oct-" means eight, and it's the tenth month. Shouldn't "November" and "December" refer to the ninth and tenth months, respectively?

Perhaps we'll never solve all the mysteries surrounding Octember... er, October. On to the playlist:

 

October - Broken Bells

I knew I was going to love Broken Bells even before I heard a note of their music. How could I not love a collaboration between James Mercer (the lead singer/guitarist/songwriter from The Shins) and Danger Mouse (producer of some of my favorite albums of the past decade by the likes of Beck, Gorillaz, Gnarls Barkley*, and The Good, the Bad, and the Queen)? Their debut album was one of my favorite albums of last year.  

Annie Use Your Telescope - Jack's Mannequin

A recommendation from Brady Emmett**, who very punctually filed this suggestion back in August:
"I've been sitting on this all year!  My absolute favorite Jack's Mannequin song is 'Annie Use Your Telescope' (Also, saw him live in concert last night.  Awesome!)  'It started feeling like October...'"

Outubro - Milton Nascimento

Milton Nascimento is one of the giants of Brazilian popular music, along with legends like Gal Costa (flimsy excuse to brag about meeting her again).  "Outubro," as you can probably guess, means "October."
 
Gloria - U2

This is from October, U2's second album, released in 1981. There is a track named "October" on the album that would have been more apropos, but it's this dull, mostly instrumental track that I invariably skip over. I much prefer "Gloria," which may be the best rock song with a chorus in Latin.

Miss You - Blink-182

Not a Blink-182 fan, but I've always liked this song. This was also on my "Obliquely Christmas" playlist, due to the line, "We'll have Halloween on Christmas." Speaking of mixing Halloween and Christmas...

This is Halloween - From The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Remains of the Day - From Corpse Bride 

Danny Elfman and Tim Burton bring a very Halloween-y vibe to a lot of their collaborations. Corpse Bride is obviously less Halloween-related than The Nightmare Before Christmas, but I actually like "The Remains of the Day" better than any song in Nightmare. And it is performed by a bunch of animated skeletons, for goodness' sake.   

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah - Tracy Jordan (From 30 Rock)

Forget "Monster Mash" or any other Halloween novelty party songs. This is the Halloween novelty party song to end all Halloween novelty party songs. This was originally a seven second long cutaway gag on an episode of 30 Rock:



Thankfully the writers*** fleshed it out to a full-length song, which you can hear on the playlist above. Mazel tov!

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As always, if you have any song suggestions for November (or December), please leave them in the comments below.

* The Gnarls Barkley song I linked to above ("Online") is built around a sample from "Welcome to the Rain," a minor hit by long-forgotten Portland band Mid Day Rain. (Click here for a side-by-side comparison of the songs.) The song was written in 1970 by the band's bassist, Scott Davis, who I know better as "Bishop Davis." Check out the original song:




Admit it - my bishop is cooler than yours (provided you have a bishop). What's funny is that he had no idea that Gnarls Barkley had sampled his song until a few months ago when I told him and played him a little bit of the track. He said that the copyright expired after 25 years, so he didn't get any financial windfall from the sampling. However, the original profits from the song helped him pay for his mission.

** Happy birthday to Brady on Halloween!

*** "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah" was written by Donald Glover, a former 30 Rock staff writer who is now better known as Troy on Community.

Year of Songs: September of My Years

September Song &
September of My Years - Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra turned 50 in 1965, and to mark the occasion he recorded the incredibly reflective and age-conscious album September of My Years. Just a glance at the song titles betrays his preoccupation with his age: "How Old Am I?" "Last Night When We Were Young," "The Man in the Looking Glass." The track "It Was a Very Good Year" (the "when I was seventeen..." song) went on to be one of the songs most associated with Sinatra, but for my money the real showstopper on the disc is his performance of the Kurt Weill standard "September Song." So many other singers interpret this song in a glib way, but Sinatra gives it a gravity that makes it profoundly moving.

"September of My Years" is the the album's one newly composed tune, and I have also included it here. It's a nice song, but a little bit on the nose thematically (and some of the lyrics read as a little bit creepy in 2011).

Into the Fire &
You're Missing - Bruce Springsteen
A very different album that came to mind for September was Bruce Springsteen's The Rising, inspired by and recorded soon after 9/11. As the Rolling Stone review put it, "The music is often fierce in its execution, but in essence it is a requiem for those who perished in that sudden inferno, and those who died trying to save them."

"Into the Fire" contains a lot of grief, but it has a surprisingly uplifting chorus. "You're Missing," on the other hand, is just devastatingly sad - a rumination on the negative space left behind by all the lives lost on September 11th.

September Gurls - Big Star
How about a nice upbeat song for a change?  Sorry Katy Perry, but Big Star beat you to the misspelling of "gurls" by forty years - this song was released in 1974.

Big Star is one of those bands that a lot of my favorite bands name-check when listing their influences, and I only recently decided to check them out for myself and I liked what I heard - very Byrds-y, which is cool by me.

The Bangles recorded a surprisingly faithful cover of this song in the 80's:



Wake Me Up When September Ends - Green Day
This song drove me crazy when it came out, but revisiting it now after 7 years (wow - time flies) it's kind of grown on me.

This song continues the "sleep through entire months" theme from the previous Year of Songs post. Who knew there were so many songs on this theme? I feel pressure to find ones for October, November, and December. My favorite song on this theme, however, has to be Belle and Sebastian's "Sleep the Clock Around":



September in the Rain - Dinah Washington
This is a standard covered by a lot of great singers, but I saw an interview today with Tony Bennett in which he compared Amy Winehouse to Dinah Washington, so I thought I'd pick Dinah Washington's version. And it's great.

Try to Remember (The Kind of September) - From The Fantasticks
This is one of the most common songs that voice teachers assign to beginning students. Having lived in that world for many years, I'm actually a little burned out on it. However, hearing this recording while assembling this playlist was actually the first time that I'd ever heard a well-trained singer doing this song. Guess what - turns out it's actually a nice little song.

See You in September - Frankie Avalon & the Four Seasons
In my high school choir we practiced an arrangement of this song for several weeks, and then the choir teacher was like, "Nevermind. Let's not do that one." That's my sole connection to this song.

September - Jessye Norman
And we'll end with this gorgeous lied by Richard Strauss. By the time Strauss wrote this song in 1948, no one was writing lush, Wagnerian music like this anymore - most serious composers had moved on to writing increasingly atonal music. Strauss himself had been at the forefront of the movement towards atonality with his shocking opera Salome in 1905. However, I think it's kind of beautiful that at age 84, when writing his very last songs ("September" comes from a set that is called Vier letzte Lieder [Four Last Songs] and they are literally his last compositions) Strauss returned to the Romantic style of his youth.

In case you're wondering who Richard Strauss is, allow me to jog your memory with what is no doubt his most famous work:


By the way, I picked Jessye Norman's recording of "September" for two reasons: 1) It's exquisite, and 2) She's probably the greatest singer to ever come out of the University of Michigan. Go Blue!

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As always, if you have any song suggestions for October, please leave them below in the comments. (Especially if you know of a song about sleeping through the whole month of October.)

Year of Songs: August and Everything Before

I seem to have gotten a little bit behind, eh? Let's lump the summer months together:



August:
August Day Song - Bebel Gilberto
Bebel Gilberto is musical royalty in Brazil - her father João and mother Astrud, along with composer Tom Jobim, practically invented the sound of bossa nova on immortal classics such as "The Girl from Ipanema" (I posted my performance of it here). I really like Bebel - she stays true to the spirit of bossa but gives it a nice modern feel.

August - Rilo Kiley
Sure, Jenny Lewis has done pretty well for herself as a member of Rilo Kiley and as a solo artist, but she reached her peak as an artist at age thirteen when she co-starred in the cinematic masterpiece/shameless Nintendo propaganda film The Wizard:



Perfect Blue Buildings - Counting Crows My favorite song off of the once-ubiquitous August and Everything After. Plus, the lyric "so help me stay awake, I'm falling asleep in perfect blue buildings" fits in well with the oversleeping theme in "Lorelai" and "July" (see below). 

I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine - Bob Dylan
Stretching the August thing a little bit, here's a favorite Dylan tune.

July:

Tears of Rage - Bob Dylan and The Band
Tears of Rage - The Band
One Headlight - Wallflowers
Speaking of Dylan, here's a trilogy of Independence Day-related Dylan songs:
• The song "Tears of Rage" opens with the line "We carried you in our arms on Independence Day." Bob Dylan made the demo-style recording of this song heard here with The Band in 1967 without any plans of ever releasing it. It eventually surfaced on the 1975 collection The Basement Tapes, which is probably my favorite Dylan album.
• The Band then reworked the song extensively and released it in 1968 as the first track on their debut album, Music from Big Pink, one of my all-time favorite albums.
• Jakob Dylan, son of Bob, references Independence Day on one of my high school favs, "One Headlight."
Lorelai - Fleet Foxes
Speaking of Dylan again, this July-related song sounds remarkably like the 1965 Bob Dylan song "4th Time Around." It also reminds me of my girls.

July - Low
The previous song said, "I slept through July," but this one takes oversleeping to an even greater extreme: "They'll never wake us in time Maybe we'll wait 'til July Then August, September October, November or December."

If you don't know Low, check out the fantastic "Try to Sleep," released earlier this year. I couldn't stop listening to it for weeks.

1° de Julho (First of July) - Legião Urbana
My favorite Brazilian rock band. A few weeks ago I played a solo acoustic set at Best Buy (yeah, you read that right) and I did a guitar/harmonica cover of their song "Teatro dos Vampiros (Theater of the Vampires)." If songwriter Renato Russo had written his songs in English, we'd rank him among Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Jim Morrison, and the rest of the great rock lyricists.

Christmas in July - Sufjan Stevens
Suggestion from Amy J: "If you hadn't already thought of it, I think you should include Sufjan Stevens' 'Christmas in July' on your upcoming blog post - it feels like kind of a nice mid-year homage to the Christmas playlist that inspired the year in songs."

June:
June is Busting Out - Benny Goodman
The first song that popped into my head when I thought of June songs. This is from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, but in the context of the show it's way to hard to extract it from the surrounding music and have it stand alone. So I'm glad I found this swingin' Benny Goodman version from 1945 (the same year Carousel opened).

Ghost Town - The Specials
Like "Ohio" on the May Year of Songs playlist, this song was written, recorded, and released at whirlwind speed in June, 1981 in reaction to events that left a nation in shock. In this case the song was written about a rash of race riots that raged all over England that summer, causing the police to enforce a strict curfew in some cities. "This town is coming like a ghost town, all the clubs have been closed down... Bands won't play no more, too much fighting on the dance floor."

Despite its unfortunate origins, this song is just all kinds of awesome and I wanted to find some way to sneak it onto this playlist. Easily my favorite song from my birth year.

Surfin' U.S.A.
"We can't wait for June!" A few months ago I taught a group guitar lesson to nine kids ranging from 8-11 years of age and we learned this song. My song choice at a previous group lesson hadn't gone over very well ("Love Me Do," since the majority of the song has just 2 chords), so I was thrilled that some of them had actually had heard it before - they had learned it in school - and that they liked it (Hey Mikey!).

June Hymn - Decemberists
Back in January they gave us "January Hymn," and now "June Hymn." Even their name is month-y.

A Couple of Swells - Fred Astaire and Judy Garland
A song that lumps the summer months together, just I have done in this post: "In June, July, and August we look cute when we're dressed in shorts." This is most famously used in the film Easter Parade (mentioned in a previous Year of Songs post):



Bonus June Track:
I'll Be On My Way - The Beatles
As I have noted in the past, Grooveshark doesn't seem to have any Beatles recordings in their catalogue. This is a nice little rarity from the Live at the BBC collection released in the '90s. As the album title suggest, this Lennon/McCartney original was recorded live for a radio show, and the Beatles never did make a studio recording of it:

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Believe it or not, September is an extremely fertile month for songs, so hopefully I'll get that one up before the last day of the month. As always, if you have a song suggestion for next month, please let me know in the comments below!

Year of Songs: The Merry/Lusty Month of May

As I mentioned in my previous post, I started a new position at work recently, which has been a little stressful and exhausting. Plus my internet at home has been a little sketchy, so my apologies for not getting this up during the actual month of May. However, at least one blog reader mentioned to me that she noticed on the sidebar that I had added all these songs before May ended, so I'll accept partial credit this month. (The lowest score gets dropped anyways, so it shouldn't affect my final grade.)

Given the wealth of songs about April, I thought I would find a similar amount for May. However, that doesn't seem to be the case, unless you go back to the Renaissance and early Baroque era, when they thought May was the bomb.



Month of May - Arcade Fire

The first song to come to mind, off The Suburbs, the reigning (and surprising) Grammy winner for Album of the Year.

Now is the Month of Maying - The Kings' Singers
The Sweet and Merry Month of May - The Kings' Singers

My two favorite madrigals about May. I could have added several more, but I didn't want to bog down the playlist too much. Like I said above, those madrigalists sure love them some May.

The Lusty Month of May - from Camelot

'Nuff said.

Ohio - Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young

Neil Young wrote this song in response to the Kent State Massacre on Monday, May 4, 1970, when four student protesters were killed by national guardsmen. This raw and emotional recording was recorded live just days after the event and rushed out as a single while the tragedy was still fresh on Americans' minds.

Mammy - Al Jolson

Happy Mother's Day. Al Jolson is so affectionate towards his mom that it's actually a little creepy.

Rapture - Blondie

Alas, May 21st passed and we're all still here. Guess we'll have to keep kicking around until October 21st.

Peach Trees - Rufus Wainwright

"Is true love a long walk through Bryant park, or being held in the month of May under the peach trees?"

Mai (May) - Gabriel Fauré (Op. 1 No. 2)

I performed this piece on my first dissertation recital, which was entitled "A Novel Approach." Befitting the theme, French composer Fauré sets a text by novelist/poet Victor Hugo:

Since May, all in bloom, invites us to the meadows
Come! never tire of mingling with your soul
The countryside, woods, the charming shady places,
The moonlight on the bank of the sleeping waters,
The path that ends where the road begins,
And the air, and Spring and the boundless horizon,
The horizon that this world fastens, humble and joyous
Like a lip at the hem of the sky’s gown!

Pretty flowery, huh?

My Girl - The Temptations

"When it's cold outside, I've got the month of May."

P.S. - I mentioned in my last post that I needed to pick out an alias to sign my English-language Yahoo! responses. I had a few criteria for choosing a name:

1. Something fairly unique and memorable
2. Something reflecting my origins on the Yahoo! Brasil team
3. A female name, to supposedly score higher on customer satisfaction surveys

And the winner is: Amelia. It satisfies all of the above and also has some sentimental value, since the name of the first opera I staged with my student opera group was called "Amelia Goes to the Ball."

Happy D-Day, everybody!

Year of Songs: April After All

April is such an inspirational month for songwriters that it took me all month to compile this list. There were so many choices that I was able to divide the list into thematic subcategories.



I. Overture:

Avery Island/April 1st - Neutral Milk Hotel
Neutral Milk Hotel is one of those bands that I just discovered within the past few months and wondered, "How come it took me so long to discover this?" Their 1998 album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea sounds like it could have been made today and so can hear its influence over current indie rockers. The band is quite fond of instrumentals such as "Avery Island/April 1st", none of which is cooler than this untitled instrumental off the aforementioned album, featuring the rockingest uilleann pipes solo ever:



II. April Holidays:

April Fools - Rufus Wainwright
This April Fool's Day was extra special in that it was my grandpa's 95th birthday. No foolin'!

It was also fun because I showed up at work that day rocking this suave look:

My boss did a legitimate triple take when she saw me. I had never seen a triple take outside of a Cary Grant movie.

Like Ron Sexsmith below, I discovered Rufus Wainwright through Elvis Costello's fantastic interview/concert show "Spectacle" on the Sundance Channel.

Start - The Jam
I wanted to include The Beatles' "Taxman" for Tax Day...



...but unfortunately Grooveshark has no Beatles tracks. So we'll have to settle for "Start!", the Jam's blatant ripoff of "Taxman." The Jam are one of those "huge in Britain, never really broke through in America" bands (think Arctic Monkeys or Robbie Williams) and they have plenty of great tunes that aren't direct ripoffs. Apparently the British public had no qualms about the overt plagiarism because this was a #1 hit in 1980.

Easter Parade - Judy Garland and Fred Astaire
I am the Family Home Evening co-chair for my ward and last week for FHE I pulled a gutsy move and did a Brian Presents:-style showing the 1948 Fred Astaire/Judy Garland classic Easter Parade. I knew that we would lose tons of people after the lesson, but I imagined that we might have 10-12 stick around. Wrong. Just 4. And two of them were me and my co-chair. And another one only stayed because her ride left and I had to take her home afterward.

III. April Tragedies:

Pride (In the Name of Love) - U2
MLK - The King's Singers
Bono has a huge Martin Luther King fixation that comes out in "Pride (In the Name of Love)" and "MLK." It always bugged me how Bono rewrites history in this song, unless Bono's definition of "early morning, April 4" is liberal enough to include 6:01 p.m. I actually prefer the King's Singers cover of MLK to U2's original, probably because I sang this arrangement in my high school choir and have an emotional attachment to it.

April 14th, Part I - Gillian Welch
Draws connections between the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the sinking of the Titanic. Thanks to Amy J. for the recommendation.

IV. April in Paris:

April in Paris - Billie Holiday
April in Paris - Count Basie Orchestra
Two versions of this tune that totally different. The Count Basie version for its "string of self-initiated encores"* and for Count Basie and his Orchestra's cameo in Blazing Saddles.

*Source: Musicologist Peter Shirts

Une Américaine à Paris - Rupa & the April Fishes
A fun musical discovery at the suggestion of Amy J.

V. April Showers:

April Showers - Al Jolson
This song was requested both by my aunt Barbara and my friend Peter. Though it has been performed by dozens of popular singers of that era, I went with the Al Jolson (best known for his blackface performance in the first-ever "talkie," The Jazz Singer) at Peter's suggestion.

Little April Showers (from Bambi) - Disney Chorus and Orchestra
This was actually the first thing that came to mind when I thought about April songs.



April After All - Ron Sexsmith
Canadian singer/songwriter that I discovered through Elvis Costello's "Spectacle" show on Sundance Channel.

My Own Way - Duran Duran
Thorn of Crowns - Echo and the Bunnymen
Sometimes it Snows in April - Prince
Within this "April Showers" category there's a little '80s sub-genre. Prince raises the stakes though and elevates the showers to snow, which unfortunately happens sometimes.

VI. Apocalyptic April:

Country Disappeared - Wilco
April Skies - The Jesus and Mary Chain
Mad About You - Sting
Most songs about April are about rebirth and spring, but for those of you who like a little bit of apocalyptic imagery in the mix, here are three songs that you might enjoy. Peter Shirts recommended many songs for this list, but surprisingly he did not recommend the Sting song, since he is the man who has written the entry on String for the new edition of Grove's Dictionary of American Music (trust me, it's a big deal).

VII. April and Beyond:

Both of these songs start with April and progress through the coming months.

April, Come She Will - Simon & Garfunkel
Another Peter suggestion.** This was used recently in a very sweet scene on the show Parks and Recreation. (Mild spoiler alert if you're a few weeks behind on your Parks and Rec)

That´s Life - Frank Sinatra
Sinatra, Count Basie, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Billie Holiday, Al Jolson - this playlist has got a lot of old-school legends on it. They must all like April or something.

**Maybe you're noticing a pattern at this point - if you suggest songs to me I will most likely put them on the playlist. So, if you've got suggestions for May song, and there's a lot of them out there, or have any April songs to add to this playlist (even if they don't fit neatly in the predetermined categories), please leave a comment below.

Year of Songs: Songs for Casimir Pulaski Day

Happy Casimir Pulaski Day tomorrow! Casimir Pulaski Day, you ask? Quoth Wikipedia:

Casimir Pulaski Day is a holiday observed in Illinois on the first Monday of every March in memory of Casimir Pulaski (March 6, 1745 – October 11, 1779), a Revolutionary War cavalry officer born in Poland as Kazimierz Pułaski... The day is celebrated mainly in areas that have large Polish populations, such as Chicago. Chicago Public Schools, Cook County government offices, the Chicago Public Library, Springfield Public Schools, and state-wide public and private schools close on this holiday.

(I know at least one of my readers might be affected by the holiday. You know who you are.)

1. "Casimir Pulaski Day" - Sufjan Stevens
This song is a devastating short story about bone cancer taking the life of a teenage girl and shaking the faith of those left behind. The tale reaches its sad end in a hospital room on the eponymous holiday:

In the morning in the winter shade
On the first of March, on the holiday
I thought I saw you breathing

2. "Águas de Março (Waters of March)" - Elis Regina & Tom Jobim
This song has been recorded by practically every major Brazilian artist, and by many non-Brazilians as well, but this wonderfully playful and spontaneous duet is the definitive version. It's a marriage of two of the most beloved figures in Brazilian music: singer Elis Regina and composer Tom Jobim. March is the end of summer in Brazil, and it's when the rainy season starts, hence the refrain "it's the waters of March closing the summer, and it's the promise of life in your heart."

The song on its own is incredibly charming, but this video of the recording session pushes it over the top (especially around 2:53):



3. "Água de Beber (Water to Drink)" - Incognito + Omar + Ana Caram
I randomly picked up this CD at the library recently called "Red Hot + Rio" simply because it had Rio in the title. Turns out it's this charity album from 1996 full of these funky, very mid-nineties-sounding reworkings of bossa nova standards by a bunch of artists you've either completely forgotten about (remember P.M. Dawn?) or never heard of (i.e. Incognito, Omar, and Ana Caram). The collection overall is quite uneven, but I dig this version of "Água de Beber," another Tom Jobim composition, that incorporates a fragment of the aforementioned "Águas de Março" at the beginning.

4. "The Wild Hunt" - The Tallest Man on Earth
I discovered this Swedish folk singer whose voice is definitely an acquired taste on NPR's All Songs Considered podcast (which I highly recommend - it has introduced me to all kinds of fantastic music). It begins:

There is a crow moon coming in well you keep looking out
It is the hollow month of March now sweeping in

5. "Liberty Bell March" - John Phillip Sousa
A march by the March King for the month of March. Try and guess why this is my favorite Sousa March - I'll give you a little hint:



6. "Backwards Down the Number Line" - Phish* This is my favorite birthday song and today, March 6th, is a day when a very special person has his birthday: Casimir Pulaski.

*Got a text from my friend John the other day: "I'm at a Trey Anastasio [lead singer of Phish] acoustic solo show right now, he just played Backwards down the number line for me. Reminded me of you :)" Like you do.

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As always, please use comments to tell me about any great March songs I might have missed, or if you have any suggestions for April (so far there's only been one person who has made any suggestions and I've used them all). As we get into the spring it seems to be a more inspirational time for songwriters so I'm sure there are tons of great song ideas out there.

Year of Songs: A Most Ingenious Paradox

Remember my 'Year of Songs' project I announced in January? Yeah, me neither. With all the craziness of February it got put a couple burners behind the back burner. But there are still a few hours left in February, so I'm getting my assignment turned in just before the deadline. Too bad it's not leap year, or else we would have had a full day to drink in these February Jams. For as we learned from The Pirates of Penzance:

For some ridiculous reason, to which, however, I’ve no desire to be disloyal,
Some person in authority, I don’t know who, very likely the Astronomer Royal,
Has decided that, although for such a beastly month as February,
One year in every four his days shall be reckoned as nine and twenty.

1. "When You Had Left Our Pirate Fold" - Gilbert and Sullivan
The above-quoted trio from The Pirates of Penzance explains how the protagonist, though he has lived for 21 years, has only had five birthdays since he is "the victim of this clumsy arrangement, having been born in leap-year, on the twenty-ninth of February."

2. "País Tropical (Tropical Country)" - Gal Costa feat. Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil
"I live in a tropical country, blessed by God and naturally beautiful. In February there's Carnaval, I have a VW bug and a guitar." The original version is by Jorge Ben, but I prefer this more raucous version by Gal Costa (maybe because I met her). This is a great song for winter - just start it up and suddenly the snow* melts away and you're sipping coconut water on a palm tree-lined beach (maybe because February is the middle of the summer in Brazil).
*If there were any snow in Portland. Best winter ever.

3. "President's Song" - The Simpsons
Fantastic President's Day musical number from the immortal Valentine's episode "I Love Lisa" (think "I Choo-Choo-Choose You").

4. "My Funny Valentine" - Elvis Costello
This 1937 standard by Rogers and Hart has been covered by all the usual suspects (Sinatra, Ella, etc.), but I like this unorthodox cover by Elvis Costello from 1979.

5. "Loomer" - My Bloody Valentine
The February-related name of this late-eighties/early-nineties shoegaze band was a barrier for entry for me for many years; however, when I finally gave them a chance a few years ago I fell under the spell of their unique sound: dreamy vocals floating over a guitar maelstrom. (Bands such as Smashing Pumpkins and recent indie darlings Sleigh Bells have since co-opted the Bloody Valentine formula.)

6. "I Got You, Babe" - Sonny & Cher

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Did I miss any great February songs? Any suggestions for March? Leave a comment!

Year of Songs: January Jams

I had a fun time putting together my "Obliquely Christmas" playlist and just after Christmas I came up with a similar project that might become a monthly feature on my blog for the next year: a playlist for every month of the year with songs that either explicitly or passingly referenced the current month. A lot of obvious selections sprang to mind: "November Rain," "A Long December," "September Song," etc., but like the "Obliquely Christmas" set I wanted to mix in some out-of-left-field choices as well.

I was all excited to launch the series at the beginning of January, but I ran into a snag: January doesn't seem to be a very inspirational month for songwriters. At least not inspirational enough to assemble a full-length playlist. So here we are, nearing the end of January, and I have only a few songs to offer, but even if I only have 3-4 songs for a particular month, by the end of the year it will be one big, healthy playlist. I hope these selections add to your enjoyment of the final days of January:



CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: February is looking to be a pretty paltry month for songs as well, so I need your help to fill out the playlist. If you have a favorite February jam, please tell me about it in the comments (or if you have any January suggestions to add to this playlist).