Summer Shuffle June 2016

First of all, I'm freaked out that it's 2016. But I'm moving past that, truly. And offering a panoply of tunes to make your June celebratory to the nth degree. 

1. I'm On an Island / The Kinks
From Kink Kontroversy (1965)
Oh, my man Ray Davies, the presiding genius behind the Kinks. And here, even as early as 1965, he was sectioning off the experiences.  I've heard that he will only ever sing this song on Iceland, the island for which he wrote this tune. Damn, I have a whole cabinet of Icelandic experiences, but Lord if I don't want to go to Iceland ONLY to hear Ray sing it.

2. Wake Up / Alan Price
From Rising Sun (1980)
Alan, you'll never know how much of my life was devoted to chasing you down, But here's a taste -- and a pretty good tune to connect to your iPhone alarm.

3. Man in the Bottom of the Well / Bill Kirchen with Elvis Costello
From Word to the Wise (2010)
Elvis, Nick, Bill. Need I say more? I cannot help but dig those majestic riffs, climbing out of the depths of whatevs..

4. Mondays / Killer Tuesday / Black Uhuru
From Liberation: The Island Anthology (1993)
I do love the random logic of the shuffle. Because how else would we get this exTREMEly copasetic track, which does go on and on, but hey, what else did you have to do with your time?

5. I Swear I Saw Christopher Reeve / Jill Sobule   
From Dottie's Charms (2014)
A Midwestern interlude, courtesy of my girl Jill. Who seriously I just. I've never been there but I know the place like the back of my hand. Check it out.

6. Staten Island Baby / Black 47
How much do we love Larry Kirwan's celebration of the Irish-American  experience?

7. Islands in the Stream /Bonnie Raitt and Nick Lowe
Oh, Bonnie my girl. I so love you. And yet -- you sang this with Nick? I can't even.

8. Birds in Perspex Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians
Quirky -- yeah, that's the RH thing.

9. Fire Island / Fountains of Wayne
How much do I love this deeply resonant, yet laidback track? This sums up summer to me.

10. House of the Rising Sun / The Animals
Lord. So much began here. Honor paid to Eric Burdon's iconic voice, but also to the rest of the Animals (including oh yes my hero Alan Price.)

Ten from Fountains of Wayne: "Yours and Mine"

#10

"Yours and Mine" / Fountains of Wayne

If you've been paying attention, you should be a Fountains of Wayne fan by now.  But just to seal the deal . . .    

 

 

From Welcome Interstate Managers (2003)

 

Wistful, plangent, bittersweet -- here's a Fountains of Wayne song that hits all those notes at once. 

 

It's a wisp of a song, only 1:02 minutes, a simple acoustic strum.  It's not telling a story, it's not sketching in characters.  It feels personal, and true. The setting is cocktail hour: "In about an hour the sunlight's gonna fade / And you and me will divvy up the wine / Like everything else here / Yours and mine." I picture white fluffy towels with those cutesy titles embroidered on them, a 1960s cliché of just-wedded domestic bliss.

 

 The other verse switches to Sunday morning, and another cozy scene: "Picking up the paper /  Coffee's been made / It's Book Review and Face the Nation time / Like everything else here / Yours and mine." I'm guessing these aren't suburbanites, but Manhattanites (picking up the Sunday Times from a newsstand, a Manhattan ritual). 

Still . . . is it just me, or do I detect a shadow here?  All this divvying up, the parceling out of whose stuff is whose, taking their separate sections of the paper.  I'm flashing to one of the saddest songs ever written, the Kinks' "Property," in which a divorcing couple splits up their household goods. (I know that the FOW guys know this song; they're longtime Kinks fans.) Maybe this couple isn't there yet, but if their names are still chalked on everything in the apartment -- well, things could go south. 

The song does start with a fading sunset, and listen to how Collingwood's vocal curls sadly downward on "yours and mine." (And spikes upward anxiously on "everything".)

I'd think I was reading too much into this if I didn't know that Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood are such subtle songwriters, and such insightful storytellers. Would they really be content with a simple ditty about a happy couple?  I'd love to know what you think, because I'm still up in the air.

And whichever way you read it -- it's a beautiful little song to close out the weekend. Shall we all pour a glass of wine and toast Fountains of Wayne? 

Ten from Fountains of Wayne: "I-95" and "A Road Song"

#8 and #9

"I-95" / "A Road Song" /
Fountains of Wayne

What?  The only Fountains of Wayne song you know is their one pop hit, "Stacy's Mom"?  Now that's a shame.  Permit me to widen your horizons, with not one but ten FOW tracks that prove their genius...   

You know how rock stars, one they've made it big, love to write self-pitying songs about how hard life is on the road? (Not to mention self-pitying songs about groupies.) 

 

That's not Fountains of Wayne's turf. But these guys have been touring and making music since the early 90s -- they've done their time on the road.  As you'd expect, though, their take on it is somewhat different. 

 

 

 



From Traffic and Weather (2007)

 

Take "I-95," for example. Never once in this song do we hear anything about why the singer is driving on this highway.  All we hear is a numbing litany of things he notices at the anonymous rest stops along it.  You know the stuff -- Guns 'n' Rose CDs, Virginia Is For Lovers t-shirts, and (my favorite detail) Barney DVDs. Ah, the detritus of modern culture, "gifts" that nobody wants, in a place nobody wants to stop. The lagging tempo, the chromatic melody line -- it perfectly captures the boredom of a long-distance drive.

 

In verse two he's back on the road, fiddling with the radio knobs, trying to get a station. (What?  No Sirius/XM?  No iPod port?) For a minute, stars fill the sky and "it feels so cinematic" -- but, you know highway driving: Someone cuts in front of him and the mood is destroyed. 

 

But the melody lifts in the chorus, as we learn why he's doing it: "It's a nine-hour drive from me to you . . . And I'll do it 'til the day that I die / Just to see you." That's so wistful, so sweet, it gets me every time. And there's the coup de grace, that funny little guitar fill between the two "just to see you's," as if he's imagining her reply.  

 

Okay, okay, he could be a traveling salesman, or a long-haul trucker. But in this next song, he outs himself as a musician on the road. 

 

 

From Sky Full of Holes (2011)

 

He even calls it "A Road Song," and admits, "it may be a cliché." But not the way FOW tells it.  

 

They're been on the road so long, he's got no idea where they are (Wisconsin? Chicago?). In one brilliant rhyme -- "In between the stops at Crackerbarrel / And forty movies with Will Ferrell" -- he condenses all the crappy interstate travel tedium. 

 

In the later verses, though, he gives up the Everyman persona to give us backstage glimpses. "Some kid threw a bottle on stage / He had an arm like a pro" -- it's the little stuff that makes it real. Being a rock star isn't all glamorous -- in fact, he wouldn't even call himself a rock star. "I know it's not what you call necessary / And I know I'm no Steve Perry..." (the lead singer for Journey -- although, I'll admit, I had to Google that, which makes the disclaimer even funnier). 

 

It's not a lonesome song. The tempo clicks along, the melody skips around brightly.  He's working, it's all routine, it's fine. He just -- well, he just wanted to call her. He was thinking of her. No big deal.

 

Even when Fountains of Wayne try to act like rock stars, they end up making it about real people. In this case, them.  

 

  

Ten from Fountains of Wayne: "Hackensack"

#7

"Hackensack" / Fountains of Wayne

What?  The only Fountains of Wayne song you know is their one pop hit, "Stacy's Mom"?  Now that's a shame.  Permit me to widen your horizons, with not one but ten FOW tracks that prove their genius...   

 

 

From Welcome Interstate Managers (2003).

Probably the only pop song ever written about Hackensack, New Jersey -- but since FOW itself is named after a New Jersey garden center, it makes sense. 

Here's the set-up: The singer is sending this song out to an old friend/classmate who is now a celebrity of some kind -- actress/model/singer -- reminding her that "If you ever get back to / Hackensack / I'll be here for you." Sounds like she wasn't even his girlfriend; they had a class together in high school, that's all. But even then, "you were in all my dreams." Ah, the torches we carry!

He's following her career, wistfully, from afar: "I saw you talkin' / To Christopher Walken / On my TV screen." (Score points just for the Christopher Walken name check.) Then he shyly catches her up on what he's been up to: "I used to work in a record store / Now I work for my dad / Scraping the paint off of hardwood floors / Hours are pretty bad." That's how life slowly closes in on you, isn't it?

This guy is just so sweet, gradually sliding into his middle-class mid-American dead-end life. The one thing that keeps him going is the thought of that girl out in L.A. She might still remember him now, but odds are, in five years she won't. And that's why the refrain is so poignant: "But I will wait for you / As long as I need to / If you ever get back to Hackensack / I'll be here for you."

We kinda know she'll never come back; hey, he kinda knows it too. But a guy can hope, can't he?

This isn't a love song, really -- it's a song about modern American discontent, in a culture that teaches us that celebrity is all that matters. And this guy can't be happy in Hackensack so long as he's still yearning after The Girl Who Made It Big.

Suburban angst?  You bet, even though there's no drama or despair.  The track's sound is bouncy, light -- a soft drum track ticking along, the hooky guitar line, Collingwood's slightly flat boyish vocals, those dreamy falsetto back-ups on "I will wait for you." Our pal's life is tripping gently along just like this song. It's not horrible, it's just not . . . Special. And we were all promised Special, dammit.

Now if only the myriad 20-somethings whose life this song describes even knew this song existed . . .

Ten from Fountains of Wayne: "Hey Julie"

#6

"Hey Julie" / Fountains of Wayne

What?  The only Fountains of Wayne song you know is their one pop hit, "Stacy's Mom"?  Now that's a shame.  Permit me to widen your horizons, with not one but ten FOW tracks that prove their genius...   

 

From Welcome Interstate Managers (2003)

Considering how many music listeners hold, or will someday hold, an office job, you'd think there would be more songs about the nine-to-five cubicle grind. (Notable exceptions: the Beatles' "Hard Days' Night" and the Kinks' "Nine to Five.") Fist-bumps to Fountains of Wayne for crafting this perky cha-cha-cha earworm around this underserved topic.

That opening verse sets the gruesome scene: "Working all day for a mean little man / With a clip-on tie and a rub-on tan / He's got me running round the office like a dog around a track / When I get back home you're always there to rub my back." The lyrics clip along at a relentless pace, a two-chord seesaw stuck in a melodic rut. In verse two, it's like a scene out of the movie Office Space. "Hours on the phone making pointless calls / I got a desk full of paper that means nothing at all." And in verse three -- he really hates that boss -- another skewering vignette: "Working all day for a mean little guy / With a bad toupee and a soup-stained tie / He's got me running around the office like a gerbil in a wheel / He can tell me what to do but he can't tell me how to feel." Those deft details completely nail this horrible boss.

I always assumed that Julie's the loyal girlfriend who greets him when he gets home and helps him shake off the stresses of the day. (Does she open the door with a martini ready? Dressed in inviting lingerie?)  But when I saw this video, I realized that it was entirely possible that Julie is in fact his dog. (And a very cute dog, I must say.) Man's best friend, lying on the rug (though really on the off-limits couch), waiting for him to open the door, or to open the next can of dog food. But hey, that's love too, and I can with all honesty that my dog DOES make it all better when I get home.

I have to giggle when I listen to this song, but behind the giggle lies the pathos of an unsung life. Maybe there aren't more pop songs about photocopying and bookkeeping because most rock stars wouldn't be caught dead doing those things. All the more reason why we need Fountains of Wayne to come along and sing our songs, too.


Ten from Fountains of Wayne: "Planet of Weed"

#5

"Planet of Weed" / Fountains of Wayne

What?  The only Fountains of Wayne song you know is their one pop hit, "Stacy's Mom"?  Now that's a shame.  Permit me to widen your horizons, with not one but ten FOW tracks that prove their genius...   

v

 

From Traffic and Weather (2007)

 

Fountains of Wayne doesn't generally go for the stoner audience. But, let's be honest -- American suburbia is full of marijuana smokers. I think of my neighbors in Arlington, Virginia -- long-time civil servants, in a federal agency I won't name here -- who lived for their evening toke.

 

That fuzztone guitar, the clink of glasses, voices murmuring in the background: It's a ready-made party, in two minutes and 46 seconds.

 

What a lovely hippie utopia! "There's no hatred and no greed / Here on the planet of weed / Everyone gets along / It's quite pleasant indeed." He's urging his girlfriend to subscribe, and why wouldn't she?  Except for the little matter of how his weed habit just might be hampering his ability to move on with life. (Love how light-fingered FOW is with this satire -- you're free to check in or check out, no aspersions cast....)

 

And after all, it's such a lovely ambiance. "We've got magazines to read / We've got Doritos to eat / So lay back on the couch / And kick up your feet" -- why, yes, I think I will.

 

"There's a movie on TV/ I've been meaning to see / It's by Oliver Stone -- "  And instead of completing the verse, the guitars kick in.  Because -- wow. Oliver Stone. Heavy, man. 

Ten from Fountains of Wayne: "Hat and Feet"

#4

"Hat and Feet" / Fountains of Wayne


What?  The only Fountains of Wayne song you know is their one pop hit, "Stacy's Mom"?  Now that's a shame.  Permit me to widen your horizons, with not one but ten FOW tracks that prove their genius...   

 

 

From Utopia Parkway (1999)

 

It's the old, old story here -- Boy meets Girl, Boy gets Girl, Girl breaks up with Boy, Boy licks his wounds and feels sorry for himself.  Cue up Gene Pitney or Bobby Vinton, bewailing their lonesome fate. 

 

But, being Fountains of Wayne, these guys have to give it their own effervescent twist.

 

There's no way this is going to be a self-pity party -- not with that perky beat, that bouncy melody. When this track dials up on my iPod while I'm out walking, I can hardly keep myself from strutting.

 

Whatever pain and heartbreak our singer is feeling, he's already holding at arm's length, ruefully describing himself:  "I'm just a hat and feet / That's all that left of me / A spot on the sidewalk / A mark on the street / I'm just a hat and feet."

 

Sure, he's been "gutted," to use the Brit slang term. But that image -- the collapsed hat (I picture a straw boater) and feet (picture white bucks) -- is so delightfully cartoony, we can't feel too sorry for him. And neither can he, now.  

 

Cartoony?  It's better than that; it's a classic scene out of silent comedies. something by Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd.  In the second verse, her rejection is "A falling piano / From out of a window." And in the bridge, he laments, "I'm just a sitting duck / That ran out of luck / I'm the unhappy guy / That didn't look up high / I started running when I saw it coming / It got faster and louder till I took a powder. . . . "  KaBLAM!!  When he stands up, there'll be stars circling around his head and a criss-cross of bandaids appearing magically on his forehead.

 

But you know what?  Somehow I think he's going to be just fine.



Ten from Fountains of Wayne: "All Kinds of Time"

#3

"All Kinds of Time" /
Fountains of Wayne


What?  The only Fountains of Wayne song you know is their one pop hit, "Stacy's Mom"?  Now that's a shame.  Permit me to widen your horizons, with not one but ten FOW tracks that prove their genius...   

 

From Welcome Interstate Managers (2003).

What?  Football season already?

Despite having grown up in a Big Ten household, with a father who was a college quarterback, I'm not much of a gridiron fan.  The NFL mostly bores me, and today's ramped-up college football is not much better.  But as autumn rolls around, I still have a soft spot for high school homecoming games (shout out to the Ripple Rockets!) And whenever I hear this song, I picture our high school quarterback, the sublime Dale Walker, going back for a pass.

"The clock's running out / The team's losing ground / To the opposing defense."  Okay, scene set.  Now zoom in on our hero: "The young quarterback / Waits for the snap / When suddenly it all starts to make sense." 

And then, the slow-mo moment supreme. Everything hectic fades away, and he's In The Zone. "He's got all kinds of time /  He's got all kinds of time / All kinds of time."  

How beautifully the melody expresses this. The verses' long yearning scale-climbing lines (just a hint of falsetto reach at the top) resolve in the soothing chromatics of the chorus. The loping, easy tempo has just enough syncopation to remain light and poised.  No marching band here, just a copasetic jazz combo.  

Yes, it's about football -- but it's also about grace.   "He seems so at ease / A strange inner peace / Is all that he's feeling somehow." As he scans the field, he has leisure to think about all his loved ones, the audience watching at home.  A ray of golden light finally shows him his open man -- "just like he planned."  And all the weeks and months and years of practice and conditioning and, yes, innate talent, suddenly yields this effortless moment of perfection.

I won't go on about Keats' "Ode to Autumn," but if you know that poem -- yeah, it's the same idea. Ripeness is all, and ripeness never lasts.  Savor these moments when they happen; they won't come again.

It's sheer poetry, this song. There's a story embedded in it, but it's also simply about This Moment and This Feeling.  Was the pass caught?  Did they score? We never learn -- and yet somehow, I don't even care. The game's already won in my book.

Oh, and by the way?  If you find yourself whistling this gorgeous tune for the rest of the day -- you're welcome.   





Ten from Fountains of Wayne: "Fire Island"

#2

"Fire Island" / Fountains of Wayne


What?  The only Fountains of Wayne song you know is their one pop hit, "Stacy's Mom"?  Now that's a shame.  Permit me to widen your horizons, with not one but ten FOW tracks that prove their genius...   

 

 

From Welcome Interstate Managers (2003).

As we face the end of summer, what could be better than this ode to an American suburban summer?

It's like a party montage from a John Hughes film, a catalog of forbidden teen behavior: "Driving on the lawn / Sleeping on the roof / Drinking all the alcohol" -- good kids gone bad! But wait, there's more: "Cranking up the tunes / 'Til the windows break / Feeding chocolate to the dog / Jumping on the couch /'Til the feathers all come out / While our parents are on Fire Island." (For me, the parents were off at Lake Wawasee, but that's a minor detail.)

This track shimmers with the texture of summer. Each line of the verses ripples up the scale in an eager rush of syllables, while shifting into a new key, like lapping waves on the beach. And that muted trumpet solo in the bridge -- it's a pure shot of sun-gilded 60s-era Bacharachiana, sheer nostalgic magic.

"We're old enough by now /To take care of each other," the kids declare in that yearning bridge. Of course, we know that they really aren't old enough to take care of each other; they're swimming naked in the pool, for chrissakes! "We're old enough by now / Don't worry 'bout a thing," they insist -- "Don't you remember last December / When you went to Steamboat Springs?" Oh, I can just imagine.

I've raised teenage kids; I should be listening to this with horror. But something about this song reawakens the teenager in me. The more I listen, the more layers of adulthood I peel off. It's September now; the nights are getting cooler, and summer is running out. Jeez, I'd better go swim naked in the pool while I've still got time.

Ten From Fountains of Wayne: "Action Hero"

#1

"Action Hero" / Fountains of Wayne

What?  The only Fountains of Wayne song you know is their one pop hit, "Stacy's Mom"?  Now that's a shame.  Permit me to widen your horizons, with not one but ten FOW tracks that prove their genius...    

 

From Sky Full of Holes (2011).

 

For anyone who loves (as I do) the Kinks' incisive portraits of English suburbia -- "Well-Respected Man,""Shangri-La," "Autumn Almanac"-- becoming a Fountains of Wayne fan is a natural. FOW's songwriters Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood have, along with Ben Folds, carved a niche as our top chroniclers of modern American middle-class life. Each of their songs is a finely observed short story;  "Stacy's Mom" is just the tip of the iceberg.  

 

Somehow Schlesinger and Collingwood still remember perfectly what it is to be a suburban teen or twenty-something.  But this lovely track from their most recent album, Sky Full of Holes, shows that they get grown-up life just as well.    

 

Don't be fooled by that title. Our hero is an ordinary sort of family guy, fumbling for his keys in the parking lot. (Predictably, his rowdy kids totally don't get it -- to them he's just a dad joke.) It's only in his mind that he's a superhero. Although, admit it -- in our celebrity-obsessed culture, don't we all long to be larger than life?  And how beautifully this track skates the line between buying into his fantasy and rejecting its premises.

 

But then, they throw in a curveball. In verse two, we learn that our action hero has been visiting Mount Sinai hospital (God is in the details: local NYC-metropolitan reference) for some tests. Suddenly the phrase "racing against time" takes on a whole new meaning. 

 

Gulp.

 

This is where Fountains of Wayne shines: In taking the lives of ordinary just-like-us folks and giving them voice. As that chugging power-pop setting uplifts and resonates, how could we not love this guy, doing the dad thing, cherishing his action-hero dreams, but still coming smack up against the all-too-grown-up reality whatever those scary tests reveal?

 

Do we not all know heroes like this? And do we not love Fountains of Wayne for putting them into song?

A Shuffle for Holt

This is the way life goes: in the end stages of the 52 Girls project, a landmine of sorrow went off under my feet. My brother Holt Hughes died on March 7, after a nearly five-year fight against cancer. His memorial service was on Saturday. 

I went back and forth for days trying to pick one song to post about in his memory, and then I realized -- of course, a shuffle!  Holt was himself a shuffle kind of guy, always moving on to the next thing, his enthusiasms too multitudinous to be ticked off in one box. So here's a random sampling from the four-hour playlist I made for his memorial....


1. "You've Got A Friend in Me" / Randy Newman & Lyle Lovett (1995)
My brother was above all one of my best friends. He was always there for me. And, PS, he loved Lyle Lovett too. (The old John Hiatt connection ran deep for both of us....)

2.  "The Water Is Wide" / James Taylor (1991)
The old angel-voiced folkie, doing one of those old English folk songs about "crossing over," which I always interpret as death. But there's something so warm about James Taylor's voice, like an old pair of jeans, I collapse right into its comfort.

3.   "Strangers" / Norah Jones (2009)
Love the Kinks' original, a Dave Davies beauty; this is my favorite cover of it. (Sorry I couldn't find an MP3 -- it was a bonus track from Norah's album The Fall.) It's about brotherhood, it's about the spiritual journey. "Holy man and holy priest / This love of life makes me weak at my knees" -- my brother was a priest and he loved life. Perfect.

4.  "I Don't Wanna Go Home" / Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (1987)
A great rousing farewell anthem -- "I know that it's getting late / But I don't want to go home." My brother was a chronic night owl, and visiting him always meant we'd be up way past midnight, goofing around. He just never wanted to let the day go.  "I know we had to try / To reach up and touch the sky, baby" -- yep, that was Holt, too.

5.  "Circles" / Ten Years After (1976)
A little hippie-dippie folkie track, full of restless questioning spirit, just like my bro.  Dig that third verse: "I have got what I once dreamed of / As a child, so long ago / But my life just goes in circles / 'Cause one answer I don't know / Does it matter what I do / Who will hear me if I cry? / Does it matter what I do / Does it matter if I die?"  Holt, I hope you have the answers now that you've preceded us into the light.

6. "Here Comes the Sun" / The Beatles
A great message of hope, transformation, and renewal, especially for those of us -- like my brother -- who believe in reincarnation. And the consoling refrain, "It's all right" -- just what we need to hear.

7. "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright" / Simon & Garfunkel (1970)
Another valedictory song, a gentle samba in honor of someone who could "change your point of view." "When I run dry, I stop awhile and think of you" -- yes, that's how I feel.

8. "Just A Song Before I Go" / Crosby Stills & Young (1977)
Okay, really this is a break-up song, but its gentle bittersweetness suits my mood. And those gorgeous CSN harmonies -- I was still stuck in my British rock phase when these guys came along and I generally missed them, but I know my brother listened to this album a lot back in the day.

9. "Daughters" / John Mayer (2003)
Holt loved this song, because he loved his two daughters. "Fathers be good to your daughters" -- and Holt always was.

10. "All Kinds of Time" / Fountains of Wayne (2003)
FoW wistfully captures a moment in time when the golden boy -- in this case, a high school quarterback -- reviews his life as he goes out for the pass. My brother couldn't play football for anything, but his life had this same sort of glorious equipoise. I only wish he had had all kinds of time -- but then again, who does?

Love you forever, Homes.

52 GIRLS

"Hey Julie" / Fountains of Wayne

Considering how many music listeners hold, or will someday hold, an office job, you'd think there would be more songs about the nine-to-five cubicle grind. (Compare this to the number of songs about the stresses of being a rock star, an experience just about none of us will ever have.) So fist-bumps to Fountains of Wayne for crafting this perky cha-cha-cha earworm around this underserved topic.

Now, I'm pretty sure that FoW, being devotees of classic British pop, know they owe a debt to the Beatles' "Hard Day's Night" and the Kinks' "You Make It All Worthwhile" for the particular angle they've chosen -- being grateful to the girl who's waiting at home at the end of the working day. But they bring their own spin to the subject.

That opening verse sets the gruesome scene: "Working all day for a mean little man / With a clip-on tie and a rub-on tan / He's got me running round the office like a dog around a track / When I get back home you're always there to rub my back." Now, I've been lucky: I always had good bosses and jobs I enjoyed. But that doesn't matter: I still know exactly how he feels. The lyrics clip along at a relentless pace, a two-chord seesaw stuck in a melodic rut.

Verse two is like a scene out of that iconic movie Office Space. "Hours on the phone making pointless calls / I got a desk full of paper that means nothing at all / Sometimes I catch myself staring into space / Counting off the hours until I can see your face." Or, as Ray Davies would tell us in his song "Nine to Five" (from Soap Opera), "He's caught in a mass of computerized trivia / Deciphering data for mechanical minds / He's lost in the paperwork and up to his eyes / He's checking a list that's been checked out before / And he's starting to lose his mind."

He really hates that boss -- in verse three we get another skewering vignette: "Working all day for a mean little guy / With a bad toupee and a soup-stained tie / He's got me running around the office like a gerbil in a wheel / He can tell me what to do but he can't tell me how to feel." So there, horrible boss!

Listening to this song on FoW's brilliant 2003 album Welcome Interstate Managers, I thought the story was clear -- Julie's the loyal girlfriend who greets him when he gets home and helps him shake off the stresses of the day. We don't actually learn much about her, though, other than her loyalty and her presence. Does she open the door with a martini ready? Dressed in inviting lingerie? Images from the Jack Jones hit from the 60s, the Bacharach/David classic "Hey Little Girl," flood my mind. ("Hey little girl, / Comb your hair, fix your make-up / Soon he will walk through the door / Don't think because / There's a ring on your finger / You needn't try anymore....")

So when I saw this video, I realized that it was entirely possible that Julie is in fact his dog. (And a very cute dog, I must say.) Man's best friend, lying on the rug (though really on the off-limits couch), waiting for him to open the door (or to open the next can of dog food). That line about her rubbing his back could originally have been written the other way around. But hey, that's love too, and I can with all honesty that my dog DOES make it all better when I get home.

I have to giggle when I listen to this song, but behind the giggle lies the pathos of an unsung life. Maybe there aren't more pop songs about photocopying and bookkeeping because most rock stars wouldn't be caught dead doing those things. All the more reason why we need Fountains of Wayne to come along and sing our songs, too.

19 DOWN, 33 TO GO

Hey Julie / Fountains of Wayne

How perfect for Labor Day -- a song about how mind-numbing work can be. (Yes, people, despite all the cookouts and back-to-school sales, Labor Day was originally conceived as a way to honor America's working people.) And because it's Fountains of Wayne, they give it a special sweet spin, thanking the singer's girlfriend -- the Julie of the title -- for being the one bright spot in his office drone life.

So the idea's not totally original -- I'm pretty sure that FoW, being devotees of classic British pop, know they owe a debt to the Beatles' "Hard Day's Night" and the Kinks' "You Make It All Worthwhile." But in the world of modern music, this is hardly an overworked topic. Considering how many music listeners hold, or will someday hold, an office job, you'd think there would be more songs about it. (Compare this to the number of songs about the stresses of being a rock star, an experience just about none of us will ever have.) Fist-bumps to FoW for crafting this perky cha-cha-cha earworm from such mundane material.

That opening verse says it all: "Working all day for a mean little man / With a clip-on tie and a rub-on tan / He's got me running round the office like a dog around a track / When I get back home you're always there to rub my back." Now, I've been lucky: I always had good bosses and jobs I enjoyed. But that doesn't matter: I still know exactly how he feels.

In the end, he doesn't really tell us much about Julie -- he's too tangled up in the hassles of office life. He really hates that boss -- in verse three we get another vignette: "Working all day for a mean little guy / With a bad toupee and a soup-stained tie / He's got me running around the office like a gerbil in a wheel / He can tell me what to do but he can't tell me how to feel." Maybe after the back-rub, Julie will come more into focus, but right now his nerves are still jangled and raw.

Like Ray Davies of the Kinks, Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood of Fountains of Wayne are born storytellers, homing right in on the telling details, like that soup-stained clip-on tie. They're also more invested in ordinary people's lives than in autobiographical navel-gazing. "Hey Julie" is just the upbeat flipside of the bittersweet song "Hackensack," also on their 2003 album Welcome Interstate Managers.

I have to giggle when I listen to this song, but behind the giggle lies the pathos of an unsung life. Maybe there aren't more pop songs about  photocopying and bookkeeping for the simple reason that most rock stars wouldn't be caught dead doing those things. All the more reason why we need Fountains of Wayne to come along and sing our songs, too.

My 2011 Holiday Album Buying Guide

Always a bit bogus, these year-end "best of" lists. To start with, they're based on a completely false premise: Who says you have to stick to 2011 releases when buying holiday presents for your nearest and dearest?  Still, there's something about a glossy new CD under the Christmas tree that's very alluring . It says, "I know you love music, and you're probably just as lost as I am in finding really worthwhile new stuff. So here are the newest tunes you've been too busy tweeting and Facebooking to learn about..."

In no particular order:

John Hiatt:  Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns:  Hiatt's best work in years -- a searing suite of vignettes about the forgotten 99% and the dying American Dream. It starts out with a howl of frustration ("Damn This Town") and ends up with two unflinchingly poignant elegies ("Adios To California" and "When New York Had Her Heart Broke"). Unpreachy, authentic, and full of rockin' righteous rage.    

The Wood Brothers: Smoke Ring Halo: This brother act side-project for Oliver and Chris Wood has turned into something bigger than the both of them, situated at a country crossroads where jazz and bluegrass and Southern rock come to share a drink, swap tall tales, and eventually bay at the moon.  There's a sort of rumpled ease about this album that belies their incredible musicianship; I love it when guys this good don't take themselves too seriously.  Buy, buy, buy.

Black Keys: El Camino: How good are these guys! Their trademark sound -- pulsating R&B-flavored rock, with a gritty low-fi edge -- just makes me bliss out.  It's a recent release, so I'm still wandering around inside its sound, but expect a blog post soon. And as the sticker on the cover insists (yes, I still buy physical product), this album should be played LOUD.

Nick Lowe:The Old Magic: Nick. Magic. And, yes, old, at least as in retro-styled.  Nick's suave songwriting is as usual right on the mark, working that familiar territory of letdown, loss, and heartbreak (that voodoo that Nick does so well), but the more I listen, the more I'm impressed by the richness of Nick's vocals, ripening as never before in this crooner groove. Just because these songs are instantly enjoyable doesn't mean they don't grow on you. The more I listen, the more I . . . well, I was already in love, but this just twists the knife.      

Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues: No sophomore slump for these guys -- their second effort takes those haunting reverbed harmonies to a new trippy level. It's more ambitious and less spare than their debut album, as Robin Pecknold and company take a step or two away from their folky roots, but never fear, that melodic gorgeousness is still in full flower.  

Nikki Jean: Pennies in a Jar: A great discovery, this album by Philly-based singer-songwriter Nikki Jean reminds you why you first fell in love with pop music. Not the yippy cheesy kind, but the classics, written by the great master pop songwriters who co-wrote these songs with Nikki.  Cool concept: cooler album.

Fountains of Wayne: Sky Full of Holes:  Four years since Traffic and Weather,  FoW's first entry on the YepRoc label was worth the wait. Thirteen finely crafted short stories in song, with wistfulness and whimsy in equal measures; you'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll definitely want to sing along. 

Fionn Regan: 100 Acres of Sycamore: The Irish have always been great poets; singer-songwriter Fionn Regan just sets his to music, that's all.  Wonderful folk-inflected music with a bit of Brechtian cabaret thrown in.  I loved his first album End of History, and this follow-up is just as whimsical and existential.  It takes a listen or two, but then it gets under your skin, like a long draught of Jameson's on a chilly autumn night.

The Jayhawks: Mockingbird Time: The long-awaited Jayhawks reunion album (has it really been eight years since Rainy Day Music?).  The good news is: It's a Jayhawks album, and it picks up right where they left off.  Did you expect new frontiers?  Even Mark and Gary's wonderful 2009 duo album Ready For the Flood stuck to the brand: rich harmonies, melodic hooks, laidback tempos, and more than a touch of twang. Why tamper with a sound -- and a sensibility -- this soul-satisfying?

Foster and Lloyd: It's Already Tomorrow: Waiting eight years is nothing -- try waiting 21 years for Radney Foster and Bill Lloyd to record together again. (Not that I haven' t been perfectly happy, mind you, with Bill Lloyd's somewhat more pop-oriented solo stuff in the meantime.) But this reunion album is a gem, with tuneful, well-honed songwriting. It stays on the right side of the border between Americana and country music; just enough twiddle and twang but never a trace of cornpone.   

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Albums I thoroughly enjoy by artists I love, though not groundbreaking efforts:
Keb' Mo': The Reflection
Ron Sexsmith: Long Player, Late Bloomer
The Decemberists:  The King Is Dead
Death Cab for Cutie: Codes and Keys

RETROSPECTIVES:
Ben Folds: The Best Imitation of Myself: Love, love, LOVE Ben Folds; this 3-disc retrospective is packed with rarities, live tracks, and a sampler of Folds' most memorable tunes.   

Various Artists: Rave On: A Tribute to Buddy Holly: How could this not be a treat, with such talents as Nick Lowe, The Black Keys, Zooey Deschanel, Cee Lo Green, Patti Smith, and My Morning Jacket on board?

Only a few shopping days left until Christmas -- what are you waiting for?  And if you just happen to pick up a few of these for yourself...well, I won't tell.

(Nearly) WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Back again by popular demand -- for this week at least!

1. Flying / The Beatles
From Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
Okay, so it's mostly an instrumental, and a woozy, loungy romp at that, full of organ and bass. But I love it when the Beatles break in with those lusty "La la la las," dissolving into that space-age scrum of random noise--psychedelic, man!

2. Senior Service / Elvis Costello
From Armed Forces (1978)
Vicious jerky rhythms on the verses, insinuating legato choruses, and a riff that roars up the scale like a fighter jet taking off--wowza!  Tons of Angry Young Man aggro here: "I want to chop off your head and watch it roll into the basket . . . ." Nasty as hell, but this song is SO much fun to dance to.

3. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go / Madeleine Peyroux
From Careless Love (2004)
Sometimes I don't even want to hear Bob Dylan's original versions of certain songs. I am quite happy to leave this one with Peyroux's exquisite finger-snapping cover--it's like skipping through Paris with Django Reinhardt in my head.   

4. Gasoline Baby / Marshall Crenshaw
From Jaggedland (2009)
Very few instrumental tracks make the cut onto my iPod, but somehow Marshall's always do. I like to imagine he dreamed this song up while he was at the self-service pump one day -- okay, there's  singing, but it's just variations on "Gasoline baby, gasoline girl, gasoline baby, suck it on down" over and over, with rat-tat drums and a wash of brilliant guitar riffs. Any excuse to listen to Marshall play guitar!

5. I Knew It All The Time / The Dave Clark Five
(1963 single)
Hard to believe this song was just four years before "Flying." One of my fave DC5 numbers, though, with those pounding heartbeat drums (Clark always kept himself high in the mix) playing against a lonesome harmonica. I even love those growly vocals, though it's hard to believe that's Mike Smith. Could it be Dave took over lead vocals on this one?  Anybody?  

6. Love Attack / James Carr
From You've Got My Mind Messed Up (1966)
Same era, but oh, what a different sound! Memphis soul, a slow-dancing seducement that was James Carr's second hit single, peaking at #21 on the R&B charts.  Think Otis Redding with a little extra honey...

7. 36 Inches High / Nick Lowe
From Jesus of Cool (1978)
Oh yeah, and while he was producing Armed Forces for Elvis, Nick Lowe also tossed off his own brilliant LP, lighter on the anger but just as witty. Nick always tucks in a few covers--just to keep himself humble--in this case a Jim Ford gem delivered in lazy, smoky style. It's like he's sitting in a rocking chair, spinning tales of his past as a soldier, a tax man, a king, and why he's only 12 inches high I don't know, but I believe the operative word is "high."

8. Planet of Weed / Fountains of Wayne
From Traffic and Weather (2007)
And speaking of high...how much fun is this track? That fuzztone guitar, the clink of glasses, voices murmuring in the background: It's a ready-made party, in two minutes and 46 seconds. "We've got magazines to read / We've got Doritos to eat / So lay back on the couch / And kick up your feet" -- why, yes, I think I will.

9. Hangin' Your Life on the Wall / Guy Clark
From Dublin Blues (1995)
One of the great storytellers, and totally underrated.  Here Guy duets with Ramblin' Jack Elliott on a wry-but-wise Verlon Thompson song. Like two cracker-barrel philosophers, they recall foolhardy past glories -- as lover, bullrider, baseball player -- chuckling as they push back their Stetsons and put their boots up. "I used to be forever chasing firetrucks / I sure could raise me some hell" -- emphasis on the past tense.

10. Kansas City / Sir Douglas Quintet
From Soul Jam (compilation)
Must be my day for sorta-instrumentals. For years, all I knew was the Beatles' cover of this Leiber/Stoller standard, but now that I've heard Doug Sahm's swinging version--dig that horn section!--I'll never go back. Only problem is, there's just not enough of Doug's soul-shivering singing on this track.  I always want more Doug.

SATURDAY SHUFFLE

There is a light at the end of the tunnel -- spring vacation is here, and possibly, just possibly, I can get back to regular blogging very soon.  Until then . . .

1. Seeds and Stems (Again) / Commander Cody and The Lost Planet Airmen
From Lost in the Ozone (1971)
Now here's a little time machine for you: This track effortlessly induces a contact high, every time.  It isn't just nostalgia -- I never had the pleasure of listening to this great stoner rockabilly stuff back in the day -- but thank god I found them since.   

2. More and More and More and Then Some / Nina Simone
From Pastel Blues (1965)
Here's a two for one -- Nina Simone working a Billie Holliday song, and adding her own extra throb of bluesy desire.  I certainly wasn't listening to this in 1965; I wouldn't have known what to make of it, anyway. But oh, what fine stuff this is, a shot of moaning late-night melancholy that's just about perfect.  

3. Bingo / Madness
From The Liberty of Norton Folgate (2009)
Ska-flavored music hall soft shoe, full of Cockney smart-arse patter -- all in the service of a downright Dickensian panorama of London low-life.  A seriously brilliant album, criminally unheralded this side of the Atlantic. I think I can safely say that anybody who loves the Kinks would totally dig this stuff.  

4. She Said / Collective Soul
From Dosage (2008)
Funked-up loungy rock, craftily laden with hooky riffs, and cue the strings and synths. I love how Collective Soul pitches to their female audience with sensitive-guy "I understand your pain" lyrics, meanwhile baring their chests and tossing their long hair... 

5. Live Alone / Franz Ferdinand
From Tonight (2009)
Talk about hooks -- these Scots rockers pump 'em out recklessly, along with charged-up tempos that sweeten the minor-key desperation of their songs. "I want to live alone / Because the greatest love is always ruined by the bickering / The argument of living..."  

6. Nobody Told Me / John Lennon
From Milk and Honey (1984)
What a amazing groove John hits here, loose and comical and reconciled.  "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange days indeed!" He's just sitting back shaking his head, amused by the absurdity of it all.  When I think that this was where he'd gotten, finally, and then to be shot down -- tragic. 

7. Rain Coloured Roses / The Beatstalkers
From The Beatstalkers (1968)
Serendipity!  Put together Franz Ferdinand and John Lennon and what do you get?  "Glasgow's Beatles" -- or so this band was touted at the time. Sorry I can't post a link, as I only got these tracks from my Glasgow connection (thanks, Davy!). But they were clearly the peers of most British Beat bands of the period (even recorded some early Bowie compositions) and really should be better known.    


8. Profoundly in Love With Pandora / Ian Dury and the Blockheads
From Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Best of Ian Dury (compilation)
Last week I finally watched Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, the brilliant recent biopic of Ian Dury, so I'm very happy to have this 1985 gem shuffle up. "My mother's heart and soul have gone halfway up the pole / My father's on the dole / It's taking its toll..."   As if Dury's clever subversive lyrics weren't enough, this band was an incredibly tight jazz-ska ensemble.  Man, do I love them. 

9. Further On (Up the Road) / Johnny Cash
From American V: A Hundred Highways (2006)
Late Johnny Cash, gravel voice and all.  The fierce distilled intelligence of Johnny Cash at the end of his career is not to be rivaled -- talk about raging against the dying of the light!

10. Retrieval of You / Minus 5
From Down With Wilco (2003)
Scott McCaughey and Peter Buck's other other job, when they're not playing with Robyn Hitchcock.  I love the copacetic groove of this "pop collective," which this time round enlisted Wilco to jam with them. It's all good.

BONUS TRACK!!!  (Because I can't resist these guys...)


11. All Kinds of Time / Fountains of Wayne
From Welcome Interstate Managers (2003) 
Clever AND tender -- that's the special thing about Fountains of Wayne. They gently satirize the football hero in slo-mo exultation at the height of his achievement, and yet make us feel wistful about how fleeting this moment is.  It really is "all kinds" of time...

SECOND BONUS TRACK!!!  (Because...well, it's Johnny.)

12. Learning How To Love You / John Hiatt
From Bring the Family (1987)
My very first Hiatt post  -- loved it then, love it now.


And now I promise I'll stop -- even though Graham Parker's next...

SATURDAY SHUFFLE


Huge work project, apartment renovation, crappy weather -- I've got a dozen reasons why the daily blogs just aren't happening.  But when all else fails, we've always got the shuffle!

1. Hot Potatoes / The Kinks
From Everybody's In Show-Biz (1972)
Though everybody thinks of Muswell Hillbillies as the Kinks' "country album," plenty of twang was still hanging around for their next album, Show-Biz. If there's a theme on this album, it's about the hassles of life on the road:  Here he longs for home cooking, specifically potatoes -- "boiled, french-fried, any old way that you want to decide."  And whatever else she's serving...

2. Yolanda Hayes / Fountains of Wayne
From Traffic and Weather (2007)
Did you know that Fountains of Wayne re-united after recording the Kinks "Better Things" for a tribute album? To me, these guys carry on the Kinks spirit in so many ways. Somewhere in New Jersey there probably really is a drivers' license bureau clerk named Yolanda Hayes. I wonder if she knows that Adam Schlesinger (or was it Chris Collingwood?) read her nametag and wrote this utterly charming song while waiting in line...

3. Fluorescent Adolescent / Arctic Monkeys
From Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007)
Is this band officially defunct?  I liked the whomp and jangle of their first two albums, and Alex Turner's guttural Sheffield vocals -- not that I ever thought they were the second coming, like some folks did. ("Bigger than the Beatles" . . . yeah, right.) 

4. Selfless Cold and Composed / Ben Folds Five
From Whatever and Ever Amen (1997)
Don't be deceived by the smooth jazz grooviness of this tune -- Ben is telling this bitch off, in a storm of piano arpeggios and riffs and a few of his trademark vulgarities.  Yes, the fine art of sarcasm is alive and well.

5. Twisted / Richard Thompson
From Henry the Human Fly (1972)
Jumping back in time -- same year as the Kinks' Show-Biz, as it happens -- another sarcastic kiss-off, this time dressed up like a robust English folk song.
 
6.  In A Space / The Kinks
From Low Budget (1979)
The Davies brothers again -- with the album that re-launched their American popularity (for the third time).  I've never quite gotten this song. It's like a mash-up of Dave's cosmic perspectives with Ray's neurotic desire to escape, cranked up like a punk anthem (listen to Ray's growled vocals).  Enter the arena rock years...

7. Sure Pinocchio / John Hiatt
From Little Head (1997)
Word in the Hiatt camp is, this is his worst album.  Doesn't mean it hasn't got some good songs on it, though, and I love this one, which was actually written by bassist Davey Faragher (now part of Elvis Costello's Imposters). Another spiteful kiss-off song.

8. Town Called Malice / The Jam
From The Gift (1982)
Paul Weller puts on his soul shoes, channeling his inner Supremes. Yeah, the satiric edge is still there, but the tunefulness of this track totally leaves punk behind.

9. Paper Sun / Traffic
From Mr. Fantasy (1967)
Ah, when psychedelia was young, and all that sitar and tabla and reverb seemed fresh and new. But if you want a hazy lush sound, turn loose Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi. Their first single, seemingly out of nowhere -- you could get a contact high from this one.

10. Didn't Want To Have To Do It / The Lovin' Spoonful
From Daydream (1966)
And only a year before, this was the sound of the moment: gentle jug-band music, filtered through a mellow Southern California high. (Different drugs.)  The opposite of a sarcastic kiss-off, John B. is sending that girl out the door so tenderly -- "I didn't want to have be the one to say 'the end' (the end, the end...)"

The Christmas Shuffle

Not Wednesday, sorry! Lately it seems I'm either a day behind or a day ahead of myself at every turn.  Perhaps it's best that I waited until today for this, though -- so you can hold this seasonal collection of tunes in your head all the way through Christmas day.

1. Postcard From London / Ray Davies with Chrissie Hynde
From The Kinks Choral Collection (2009)
Don't worry -- Ray and Chrissie were never in the same room when they recorded this "duet." Nevertheless, it was a brilliant move to have his ex add her vocals to this poignant number. Ray scores an emotional trifecta, wrapping three of his favorite themes -- Christmas, London, and long-lost love -- in one song.

2. I Told Santa Claus / Fats Domino 
From Christmas Is A Special Day (1993)
Mmm, this laidback boogie-woogie is one of my favorite Christmas classics. Fats has one request for the Man In Red -- he wants his baby to marry him. Yessiree -- "We'll have a boy for you / And a ten-pound girl for me," he croons happily. Was life ever this simple? Listening to Fats, you believe it could be.

3. "We Call It Christmas" / Keb' Mo'
From Christmas Calling (2003 various artists compilation)
I love it when Keb' gets his social conscience going, putting the blues on a back burner and reaching into his gospel/protest folk bag. Just listen to him testify about the power of the holiday season -- "It's bringing out the very best in all of us."  Amen, brother!

4. "Merry Christmas Baby" / The Beach Boys
From Christmas With the Beach Boys(1991 re-issue)
Man, did the Wilson brothers love holiday numbers -- maybe it's that seasonal Southern California yearning for snowy climes.  I've got their whole Christmas album in my iTunes, and I can never get enough of it.  Here Mike Love pleading with his ex to make up in time for Christmas -- like "Help Me Rhonda" with a wreath and spray-on snow.

5. "Merry Christmas, Baby" / Charles Brown and Bonnie Raitt
From A Very Special Christmas (2003 various artists compilation)
An entirely different song, Charles Brown's stellar contribution to the contemporary Christmas catalog.  Could this song be any sexier? Here's my original post...

6. "Christmas for Cowboys" / Jars of Clay
From Maybe This Christmas Tree (2003 various artists compilation)
A John Denver song, I think, but I love the way Jars of Clay earnestly lope their way through it.  These guys pretty much own the Christian alt-country niche as far as I'm concerned, and they never let it go corny. 

7. "Valley Winter Song" / Fountains of Wayne
From Welcome Interstate Managers (2005)
Wouldn't you know that FoW -- our great troubadors of suburban pop culture -- would have a Christmas song or two up their sleeves.? Okay, technically not a Christmas song (for that, you'd have to go to their "I Want An Alien For Christmas", from Out-Of-State Plates), but this sweet little song shimmers like a fresh snowfall.

8. "Get Behind Me, Santa" / Sufjan Stevens
From Songs For Christmas (2005)
No surprise that the defiantly unconventional Sufjan would release a five-disc Christmas album, mostly featuring sincere arrangements of traditional carols. But then there's this insanely fun original tune, subject of my very first Christmas song blog.

9. "Sock It To Me Santa" / Marshall Crenshaw
From A Home for the Holidays (1997 various artists compilation)
Add Marshall to that list of artists who really love Christmas novelty tunes -- I've got several MC numbers on my playlist, courtesy of a bootleg disc of Crenshaw rarities.  Here he has some rockabilly fun with a Bob Seger tune, featuring the inimitable James Brown reference,"Christmas ain't gonna be a drag / Santa's got a brand new bag!"  Take my word for it, Marshall's version knocks Seger's down cold.

10. "Zat You, Santa Claus?" / Buster Poindexter and His Banshees of Blues
From How Cool is Christmas (2006 various artists compilation)
Gotta love Buster's infectiously fun take on the old Louis Armstrong classic. Buster (aka David Johansen, aka Sri Rama Lama Ding Dong) has no shame about being theatrical, which is exactly what this jump-jive number craves. Merry Christmas, Buster!