Category: k.d. lang

Songs That Move Me, 10-2

10. Neil Young – Harvest Moon
A beautiful song, with specific recollections of a romance that burned brightly, then ended.
Feeling: autumnal.

9. Crying- Roy Orbison And k.d lang.
As good as Roy’s original is, this one is better. It’s the harmonica. And when lang gets to sing, by herself, the chorus, it is stunning.
Feeling: there’s something in my eye.

8. Biko – Peter Gabriel.
The story of the slain South African is penetrating, but the vocals, the rhythm, and that ending!
Feeling: ticked off.

7. John Hiatt – Have a Little Faith in Me
How does this rate so high? It’s just a guy on the piano. Well, it’s the quality of both. Hiatt remade this song with more orchestration for a greatest hits album; it was not improved, and in fact was somehow diminished. Not so incidentally, a key song on a mixed tape I made for my now-wife.

6. When Love Comes To Town – U2/B.B. King.
From the opening drumming to King’s guitar lines, to King’s and Bono’s vocals, I almost always platy this song twice.
Feeling: struggling with the power.

chops off 1st notes and then too soon.

5. Billy Joel-Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)
As beautiful as it is, the piano on the bridge just lifts it higher. I heard an a cappella version of this, which was lovely.
Feeling: melancholy.
HERE.

4. Roberta Flack – Gone Away.
I was watching the Grammys in the last couple years and discovered someone has sampled this. This song, part of the group of songs I used to play when love went south, really builds after the 1:30 mark, with instruments (a painful guitar line, and is that a tuba?) plus mournful vocals that feature the late Donny Hathaway.
Feeling: brokenhearted.

3. I Only Have Eyes For You – the Flamingoes.
I hear those first three or four chords and I am always surprised how it leads to such a lush tune. My first favorite song, probably for 30 years.
Feeling: loving.

2. Let’s Go Crazy – Prince.
Unfortunate that the video overlays the preach part with the musical beginning, for it’s both elements that I love. The danceability, plus my favorite guitar solo possibly ever. I have a 7-minute version that’s even more fun.
Feeling: let’s get nuts!

So, here are
the rules.
100-91.
90-81.
80-71.
70-61.
60-51.
50-41.
40-31.
30-21.
20-11.

Anyone want to venture a guess as to #1?

(Confidential to T&C, who started before I did, but somehow will finish after: it’s from my top 10 with which one or more of your Top 40 will converge, I’m guessing.)
ROG

ROG

Songs That Move Me, 40-31

40. Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart – the Supremes.
Much of Motown lived on the bottom, and this did too, but had lots of other elements, including a great vocal.

39. Got to Get You into My Life – the Beatles.
The Fabs get soulful. I’d play the (US) Revolver album once through this song, then, if my parents weren’t home, play the song again very loudly. This made Tomorrow Never Knows particularly noisy.
Feeling: hopeful.

38. Barabajagal – Donovan (With The Jeff Beck Group)
It’s jazzy, it rocks, it has those sexy female vocals.
Feeling: love IS hot.
HERE.

37. Hurt-Johnny Cash
If I included my feelings about the video, this would be even higher, maybe even Top 10. Still that insistent keyboard is quite affecting.
Feeling: sadness.
HERE or

36. Season Of Hollow Soul – k.d. lang.
Very sad, very autumnal song from her pop breakthrough album, Ingenue. Unfortunately, this anime video cuts off.
Feeling: hollow.

35. Church-Lyle Lovett.
I feel like I’ve BEEN to church after this. The second song from the CD named after the sixth, seventh, and eighth books of the Bible, Joshua Judges Ruth.
Feeling: righteous.
HERE.

34. Maybe I’m Amazed-Paul McCartney.
A song on the first solo LP as good as anything his old group did. the bridge and the end are especially strong.
Feeling: joyful.

33. Sunshine of Your Love – Cream
Of course, there’s that quintessential opening hook. But it’s also the shared lead vocals, the oddly effective harmony, and the Blue Moon bridge.
Feeling: good.

32. ‘Til I Die – Beach Boys
While the verse and chorus structure is evocative, it’s the end part stating the title, and the vocals wrapped around it that is most moving.
Feeling: reflective.
HERE.

31. Can’t Get Next to You – the Temptations
After David Ruffin left the group, it was the wisdom of producer Norman Whitfield to cop the shared vocals motif from Sly Stone, to great effect.
Feeling: mind-blowing.

ROG

ROG

Pulling an Eddie Mitchell

The title comes from this post by Lefty Brown, where he defines it as not blog posting as much as you should. In this post, Lefty also wrote: “I want Roger Green to dress up as Cornel West for Halloween…and post a pic on his blog.” Ain’t gonna happen; not only do I not have the hair, but if I walk around looking like Cornel West, NO ONE WILL GET IT.

And in honor of that: Cornel West on what does it mean to be a leftist; it’s only eighty seconds long, unlike some of the other 160-odd pieces about the author on YouTube:

I wrote something nice about the Lefty Side of the Dial podcast – it’s somewhere in iTunes – and Lefty hasn’t podcast since. I’m feeling almost guilty that I may have somehow embarrassed him. Come back, Lefty!

Oh, and speaking of Eddie Mitchell, he did a video-infested post. I want to discuss two:
The Homecoming Queen’s Got a Gun- Julie Brown: Some people seem to think that in a post-Columbine world, it should be banned. I guess I just don’t, though I have no good argument why, except for my general disdain for censorship. Also, the line about throwing down “your gun and your tiara” always cracks me up.
Johnny Get Angry-k.d. lang: I saw this at the time it originally aired. It led indirectly to a shared obsession with lang that I had with my ex. Actually, she was even more k.d.-centric than I. Nice memory.

I’m now watching about an hour of TV a day and taping about two; recipe for deleting programs on the DVR, unwatched.

Please vote for Binghamton, NY, my hometown, as pierogy capital. You can vote every day, once a day, through October 23. Yes, Buffalo, the defending champion, is on the list again, and even enlisted some high-powered female politician who’s running for President to help in the cause, but, believe me, Binghamton needs it more. What IS a pierogy? For one thing, it’s spelled several different ways. For another, it’s a “pocket food” that I first had when I was five or six, growing up in a Slavic neighborhood, as I did.

I love adjectives. Here’s list of eponymous adjectives and one of animal adjectives.

ROG

ROG

THE RULES, Part 2 (of 37) Finding the Tunes

A friend of mine started reading my blog a few days ago and said, “Heavy stuff!” Hmm, this about a blog that has revealed that the creator makes bird noises? OK, something REALLY frivolous, then:
I arrange my CDs (and used to arrange my LPs, before they got moved around so often that they have no particular order) in this way:

  • Classical, by composer (and chronologically within the composer range)
  • Classical compilations, alphabetically by title
  • Pop, by artist (and chronologically within the artist range)
  • Pop compilation, by title

    Of course, these are RULES, so it’s never that simple.

  • Classical means that the composer is more prominent than the performer: Beethoven, Gershwin, Scott Joplin- all classical
  • Pop is defined as “everything else”. I know some folks put their music in categories: folk, jazz, heavy metal, whatever. My problem is that I don’t think the labels really MEAN anything. Recently, I was in a conversation about “punk”. Were the Ramones punk? Was the Clash, or were they too competent? I’ve read the definition of “emo”, e.g., and STILL don’t know what it is.
    Moreover:
    Bruce Springsteen won a Grammy for contemporary folk. Am I to put that album in one category and, say, “Born in the U.S.A.” in another?
    A more striking example is k.d. lang, who started off as a country artist and became a chanteuse. It’s much easier just to look under “L”.

    Besides, an alphabetical list generates a more interesting shelf read: Bill Miller (Native American/popular), Glenn Miller (big band), Roger Miller (country), Steve Miller (rock). “Shelf read”: a librarian must have written that.

    In the pop compilation category, I violate my own rules (but they’re MY rules, so I can do that), in the placement of tribute albums, mostly because I’m having an increasingly difficult time REMEMBERING what they’re called. So I’ve moved:

  • Common Threads from C to E (for Eagles)
  • Complete Stax/Volt Singles from C to S
  • Come Together (both of them, one country, one Motown) from C to B (for Beatles)
  • Enconium to from E to L (for Led Zeppelin)
  • For the Love of Harry from F to N (for Nilsson)
  • Till the Night is Gone from T to P (for Doc Pomus)
  • “Tribute to…” albums from T to the respective artists (M for Curtis Mayfield, V for Stevie Ray Vaughn, e.g.)
  • All the albums starting with “Concert for” under the next significant word (Bangladesh, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)

    You may think this is anal. *I* think this may be anal. But I can FIND items in my collection, which is all a librarian can really want.

    • ROG
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