The Parties I Seem to Live

Happy New Year's Eve to everyone. This song always reminds me of parties that do not come off the way they should. Enjoy and remember it is just one night.

Song: Red Shoes

Artist: Elvis Costello
Album: My Aim Is True

Thinking about the time you drove my car

I grew up listening to WMMR in Philadelphia. Rock radio taught me a lot about how to form my own taste. I decided what I wanted to listen to and what I liked about it. I listened to them from Junior High until College. I think there is a time in everyone should like this kind or Rock N' Roll. You will learn something about music. WMMR will always have a place in my heart. This is a song that I still like and that I would hear on 93.3 WMMR.

Song: Badge

Band: Cream
Album: Goodbye

Comes A Time

Today is my first full day back at my parents house back in Warminster. Before I left San Jose I looked for songs that remind me of living here. For good or for bad, I do not have many songs that remind me of the past. I just did not find a lot of songs that had that strong connection.

I think there is two reasons for this. Back in 1996, two years before I moved, I sold most of my CD collection. I went from having 1000 CDs to having 50. I have also spent most of my life trying not to associate a song with a specific time or place. The songs I cannot do this with seem to slip out of my collection.

Comes A Time is a song that reminds me of being young. It also reminds me of the place I am in my life right now. There comes I time for all things. I have always seen that I would leave here. The question is will there come a time when I come back?

Song: Comes A Time

Artist: Neil Young
Album: Live Rust

Kissing the ground when you land

In a few hours I will be flying from San Jose to Philadelphia. A few years ago I used to really like flying. Not I cannot stand all the waiting in the airport or my restricted movements while I am on the plane. A friend of mine says this it the first song she listens to every time she she gets on a plane. This song goes out to her.

Song: Hit The Plane Down

Band: Pavement
Album: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

An' you know what they said? Well, some of it was true!

A few days ago Joe Strummer died from a heart attack. I have always been more of a Mick Jones guy rather then a Joe Strummer fan. Over the years I have heard people say a lot of things about the Clash. People will say that they are the greatest band since the Beatles, the voice of a generation, the best band to come out of the punk era, and "the only band that mattered." I think that all these ideas can be argued.

Here is what I know to be true. I bought a copy of London Calling the summer before I went away to college. It was number one on Rolling Stones 100 best albums of the 80's. I thought I needed as part of my musical education. Sometime during my first year of college I really started listening to this CD. What I know is that the music I listened to before I owned London Calling I listened to as a boy. The music I listened to shortly afterwards I listened to as a man. I am not saying that London Calling turned me into a man, but there was something about that album that connected to that time in my life.

Song: London Calling

Band: Clash
Album: London Calling

Album of the Year

Jeremy usually makes a list of what he thinks the ten best albums of the year are. I am thinking about putting a similar list on Sad Salvation. If I do make that list, this album will be at the top. I think that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is a brillent record. I do not think anyone could predict that Wilco would make an album like this. It is one of the things that makes it great.

Song: Jesus, Etc.

Band: Wilco
Album: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Retired Songs

I just want everyone to know that I do not have enough web space to keep all of these songs posted for ever. My goal is to keep each song on my site for about a month. I just retired all the songs before November 24th. I guess this will make it less likely people will sue me.

If there is a song you want send me a message, we will work something out.

12 Songs Of Christmas - (day 12 - Other Gifts)

I first heard this song in 2000. I had to work on that Christmas day. The song captures a lot of ideas about being alone in the world. I wish the best to everyone that has to work today.

Song: Sometimes You Have To Work On Christmas (sometimes)
Band: Harvey Danger

12 Songs Of Christmas - (day 11 - What Sings In your heart)

This is my favorite Christmas song of all time. You might recognize it as the song that the kids are singing during the opening credits of A Charlie Brown Christmas.

I like this song because it is just a little bit sad. I have always found important that Christmas is at the darkest part of the year. It is something to break through the sadness of those long winter nights.

I am a huge Peanuts fan. As an adult I can see how growing up in Minnesota effected who Charles Schultz wrote Peanuts. I see that in this song.

Song: Christmas Time Is Here

Artist: Vince Guaraldi
Album: A Charlie Brown Christmas

12 Songs Of Christmas - (day 10 - Christmas Spirit)

There are a lot of people who say this is their favorite Christmas song of all time. This is the one that speaks to their heart. This says something about how we view Christmas. It says something about how our expectations meet reality. I think a lot of people want the good things about the holiday, but get lost in the commerical aspects. We all want to spend the holidays with someone special.

Song: Christmas Wrapping

Band: The Waitresses

12 Songs Of Christmas - (day 9 - Christmas In New York?)

There is a big connection between the Irish and New York City. In my head there is always a connection between New York and Christmas. You put all these connections together and you get a song like Fairytale Of New York. I wonder why there are not more christmas songs about New York City.

Song: Fairytale Of New York

Artist: Pogues and Kirsty MacColl
Album: If I Should Fall From Grace With God

12 Songs Of Christmas - (day 8 - What do you mean by Christmas Song?)

I am not sure this is even a Christmas song. I have listened to it for years and I am still not sure what it is about. Even reading the lyrics, I am still not sure. I keeps on finding its way on collections of Christmas song. I like the lonely aspects of this song. I like it enough for it to make my 12 Songs of Christmas.

Song: 2000 Miles

Band: Pretenders
Album: The Isle of View

12 Songs Of Christmas - (day 7 - That would make Jesus a Capricorn)

I can never get enough Wally Pleasant. Here is a great light hearted Christmas song. It even mentions John Larroquette. What more could you ask for?

Song: Christmas Time Again

Artist: Wally Pleasant
Album: Welcome to Pleasantville

12 Songs Of Christmas - (day 6 - About Family)

How often to get to hear a christmas song sung by a husband and wife. I think this is pretty cool.


Song: Christmastime

Artists: Aimee Mann & Michael Penn

12 Songs Of Christmas - (day 5 - Up North)

Canadians sing the best Christmas songs, just ask Anne Murray. I really like what they do with this version of this song.

Song: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Band: BarenakedLadies

12 Songs Of Christmas - (day 4 - Holidays Blues)

My family gift shopping has been done for weeks, but I still have to shop for friends. I how that I do not sound like this too often.

Song: Christmas Griping

Band: REM

12 Songs Of Christmas - (day 3 - mistletoe)

I have not excuse for this, but it makes me laugh. That is what is important.

Song: Christmas

Band: Beat Happening
Album: 1983-85

12 Songs Of Christmas - (day 2 - Summing it all up)

I have always loved this song because of its opening lyrics: So this is Christmas, and what have you done, another year older and a new one just begun. This has always said something to me. Lots of people use Christmas to look back on their year. I keep on asking myself what have I done with my past year. I am not always happy with the answer.

Song: Happy Christmas (War Is Over)

Artist: John Lennon
Album: Lennon Legend: The Very Best of John Lennon

12 Songs Of Christmas- (day 1 - What kind of Santa are you?)

The idea was that I was going to post my favorite Christmas songs of all time. I realized that I do not own all of my favorite Christmas songs of all time. I guess I will just have to go the best of a bad lot.

This song makes me wonder if there are women with Santa Fetishes?

Song: Santa's Beard

Band: They Might Be Giants
Album: Lincoln or Then

Is this what the Carpenters meant?

I think I should follow the last song with something a little more upbeat.

Sometimes I hear a cover song and it just shocks me to no end. When a cover song is done just right, it was like there was always this other meaning the song was carrying. The other meaning was just hidden in the notes and cords. It was waiting for just the right person to find that meaning. When they find that meaning, it is like that song was written for them. This is one of those songs. If I did not know better, I would think Shonen Knife had this song written for them.

This song reminds me that someone can live there life in incredible happiness and incredible sadness at the same time

Song: Top Of The World

Band: Shonen Knife
Album: If I Were a Carpenter

Icons of Sadness

Mark Eitzel was once asked what this song was about. He said that it was about Karen Carpenter. She could not cut herself off from the problems of love, so she cut herself off from food. It was one key element of life for another.

I was a big American Music Club fan while I was in college. They were my favorite band for a while. I now find out that all the sad bands I liked in college were in a single genre, Sadcore. If I knew this then, I could have had a whole radio store around that idea.

Song: Sick Of Food

Band: American Music Club
Album: Everclear

Lyric:
I was sick of love
so I just stopped feeling,
but I couldn't find anything
to take its place.

Beautiful Songs

I used to have a collection of songs with Michael Stipe is a back up singer. It seemed like he spent much of the late 80's and early 90's appearing on other people's albums. It is as close to a solo career has he has had so far. I think this is the best one.

Song: Your Ghost

Artist: Kristin Hersh
Album: Hips and Makers

Reminds me of a friend

About this time last year Jeremy told me I would like this Microphones album. It was one of his top albums of 2001. He said that this song is the spirit of this album. When I listen to this song I think of Jeremy. I wonder what will be on his list this year.

Song: I Felt Your Shape

Band: Microphones
Album: The Glow, Part 2

Radio Songs

I remember hearing this song on the radio a few years ago. It is almost like a sugary sweet treat. The song walks that line between pop and novelty. I think I would have loved this song if it came out when I was a disaffected high school youth. I guess I like it because somewhere in my head I think someone might take it seriously. Now that would be really funny.

Song: Popular

Band: Nadasurf

Quote:
You don't need date insurance
You can go out with whoever you want to
Every boy, every boy, in the whole world could be yours
If you'll just listen to my plan
THE TEENAGE GUIDE TO POPULARITY

Feminist Thoughts

My Favorite Suzanne Vega album is 99.9 F°. I was talking to a friend about it. I told him that I was surprised that I have not heard that many more albums that tried to do what this album did. 99.9 F° takes a industrial sounds and feminist themes and combines them. She touches on subjects such as medicine, health, religion, law enforcement and relationships between women and men.

My friend said that he had always thought of 99.9 F° as one of her less feminist albums. He said the album misses the social justice and typical political themes that her other albums cover. This is a really interesting idea to me. I see feminism as those house to house battles that effect the way you live your everyday life. My friend see feminism as a political system that is used to change the way the world works. I think we both need to think like the other person without losing the way we already think.

Song: Blood Makes Noise

Artist: Suzanne Vega
Album: 99.9 F°

Quote:
I think that you might want to know
The details and the facts
But there's something in my blood
Denies the memory of the acts

Stuck in my head

I cannot explain a band like Belle and Sebastian. Most of my friends know who they are, but I never see them in the media. I know lots of people who like them, but they are no one's favorite band. Some of my friends think that there is something pretentious and overly hipster about liking them.

Electronic Renaissance is a song that I cannot get out of my head once I hear it. It will be bumping up there for hours. I will hum it to myself and I know no one around me had any clue what I am doing. It is one of those songs that is addictive in a good way.

Belle and Sebastian is clearly one of those bands that is influenced by the Smiths and New Order. They are almost designed to be liked by people who would still like something outside the mainstream, but do not want to work at it.

Song: Electronic Renaissance

Band: Belle and Sebastian
Album: Tigermilk

I Thought You Were Saying Good Luck

This is the song that makes me thing that I can see any song like J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. He has one of those unique voices. I really love to sing Like A Prayer like I am him. You will have to catch my karaoke act to hear that one.

Song: I Misunderstood

Band: Dinosaur Jr.
Album: Beat Retreat: Songs of Richard Thompson

As Real As A Gun

When I first hear Shoot Out The Lights, I thought it was about Linda and Richard Thompson's relationship. This is the title track of an album that has an amazing cover. The picture just speaks of a conflict between a married couple. Many of the review I had read of this album that talk about that conflict. It was the last album they made together.

A few years ago I heard and interview with Richard Thompson. He said that the song was about a child in Afghanistan trying to hide from Soviet tanks. It was based off a story that he heard. I have been thinking about this song lately because the happenings in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. The cycles of these things never stop. It makes me sad how the song could be written again and still be current.

In the end, this song is about both the conflict between a single married couple and the conflict of war. I like that a song can hold both those contexts at once.

Song: Shoot Out The Lights

Artist: Linda and Richard Thompson
Album: Shoot Out The Lights

Quote:
Keep the blind down on the window
Keep the pain on the inside
Just watching the dark

What's your favorite Beatles song?

One of the things to love about the Beatles is how many great songs they have. There are so many songs that are timeless and good. Songs that hold up and still have something to listen to. You can listen to the Beatles without nostalgia.

My favorite Beatles songs keeps on shifting around. I have a favorite for a while. It is my Beatles song of choice. After a while I hear something new in another song and put the old favorite away. I keep on doing this and it never gets old. Right now She Said, She Said is that favorite song.

Song: She Said, She Said

Band: Beatles
Album: Revolver

Quote:
She said,
"I know what it's like to be dead.
I know what it is to be sad."
And she's making me feel like
I've never been born.

The Calm Bay

We were sailing on the San Francisco bay. He had taken a day trip out to Angel Island. There was almost no wind and it was very calm. The sailors in the crew where still trying to catch what little wind there was.

It was a good day. The kind of day where I have to slow myself down so I see the little things. I try to breath a little more and remember what was happening.

It had gotten late because we did not have the wind. All of the land around us was covered in grey fog and clouds. There were no boats around us. Everything seemed so far away. San Francisco seemed like a model of a city. It seemed like we were all alone in the world. That moment felt like something out of a movie, not something out of real life.

I looked at the sun just sitting on top of the Golden Gate. The sky was red, gold, and blue. I could not stop humming Lonesome Sundown to myself.

Song: Lonesome Sundown

Band: Halo Benders
Album: The Rebels Not In

I hate love songs....

...unless of course they are a little sad. There has always been something about this song that captures me. I can understand the ideas so well. It is too bad I have not had anyone to sing love songs since before this song was released.

Song: Ghost

Band: Indigo Girls
Album: Rites of Passage

Best Quote:
and I guess that's how you started
like a pinprick to my heart
but at this point you rush right through me
and i start to drown

Hong Kong Fun

Every once in a while you just have to have fun with a song. You have to let go and sing at the top or your lungs. This is one of those songs.

Song: Kung Fu

Band: Ash
Album: 1977

Best Quote:
I haven't been the same since my teenage lobotomy