A complicated musical request
J. Osner has made a peculiar request of me:
list 4 songs (by different artists please) that meet the following criteria: (a) You have not listened to the song in a long time. I'm thinking like 2 years minimum but adjust this limit at your discretion. (b) You can hear the song in your head, just by closing your eyes and willing it. (Well you know what I mean; it's debatable how strongly "will" enters into this activity.) (c) You would gladly listen to it right now. Optionally, write a little squib about the song, why you like it, why you have not listened to it, where you know it from, etc.
I'm not sure I could be very certain that I haven't listened to any particular song in two years. Two is a lot of years! And I don't necessarily have a lot of memory, so to a large extent this list is going to be created by looking through my playlists and finding the first things that meet the criteria. The easiest ones to produce are the bad EBM/goth-like songs that I know I haven't listened to in a long time because I deleted them.
- Current 93, "Hitler as Kalki". This song is about 16 minutes long, and not exactly melodic, so I can't hear that much of it in my head, except for David Tibet's voice intoning the chorus and "But not in Bethlehem" (and, since I had to look up the lyrics online to get the city name (not because I don't know what Bethlehem is, but because the last one in the list is Chorazaim, and who can remember that?), I can get him singing the other lines, too), and the sound of the somewhat hypnotic guitar filling the whole thing. When I got this album I was disappointed because it's a bigass double album and this was the only song I liked.
- Bauhaus, "She's in Parties". See what I mean? I actually still have the C93 on disk, but actually I still have this too, along with four other Bauhaus songs and a Bauhaus cover by Faith and the Muse. How about that? It turns out I haven't deleted the three Covenant tracks I have either. Bizarre.
- Syd Barrett, "Terrapin". This and "Golden Hair" are the only Barrett tracks I've heard that I like.
- The Pixies, "Hang on to Your Ego". I have no idea if I've listened to this in the past two years. Probably. Also, I don't like it much. But I'm listening to it now, so I guess I wouldn't mind listening to it now. This one might not count, though, because I've certainly heard the Beach Boys original somewhat recently. So a fifth:
- Smog, "Dress Sexy at My Funeral". I got Dongs of Sevotion not long after it came out but didn't like it much, aside from this track.
Comments
on 2006-04-08 11:52:21.0, rone commented:
"Hang On To Your Ego" is on Frank Black's first solo album, not on a Pixies album.
and, further, on 2006-04-08 14:24:40.0, Jeremy Osner commented:
I thought of putting a Bauhaus track on my list, I prolly would have picked "In the Flat Field" if I had done so.
Is "Terrapin" the one that starts out, "Groovin' around in a trenchcoat with, satin entrail"? That's a fun song.
and, further, on 2006-04-08 16:27:47.0, ben wolfson commented:
No, it begins "I really love you, and I mean you / The star above you, crystal blue / Well oh, baby, my hair's on end about you".
and, further, on 2006-04-08 18:10:03.0, Jeremy Osner commented:
Oh yeah.
and, further, on 2006-04-10 7:25:08.0, Kriston commented:
There's another song I like from Dongs, but "Dress Sexy for My Funeral" is so damned catchy, it's hard to summon any other lines from that album.