smacky and bucky

I received an iTunes gift card for Christmas, put the credit on my account, and pretty much forgot about it. Last night I logged in to update my podcast subscriptions, and noticed the credit, so I decided to browse the store. I ended up downloading songs from my past.

What they were, and what they once meant to me:

Fleetwood Mac: Gold Dust Woman. Fantastic song. Between Stevie Nicks's growl and the slide guitar from Lindsey Buckingham, there's a real undercurrent of bitterness that they probably felt toward each other when they did this song (they were breaking up during the recording of the album). If you've ever broken up with anyone and wished them ill will, this is the soundtrack to that feeling.

Shawn Colvin: Witchita Skyline. I listened to this song a lot in Africa. The melody and the lyrics speak of loneliness and isolation, both of which I felt in waves now and again over there.

Crosby, Stills, and Nash: Just a Song Before I Go. First girlfriend freshman year of college. Lesson learned: Long distance relationships suck!

David Bowie: The Man Who Sold the World. Like the version by Nirvana? This one is better.

The Eels: Mr. E's Beautiful Blues. "Goddamn right, it's a beautiful day."

J. Geils Band: Angel in Blue. From the album Freeze Frame, which had the title track and Centerfold, but this song was my favorite. Sixteen years old, driving around in a 1966 Chevy Malibu at night listening to this song. Four great lines: "We met in a bar out on Chesapeake Bay," "When I whispered 'I thought I could love her,' she just said 'Baby, don't even bother to try,'" "All her friends did her favors that were really just loans," and "And she never had dreams, so they never came true." (I keep adding to the number of lines I like from this song. Just read the lyrics to the entire song here so I can stop!)

10cc: The Things We Do for Love. This song doesn't mean to me what a love song like this should, mainly because I was a tiny tot when it was a hit on the radio. I just hear this song and remember singing along at age four or five. How could you not sing along to this song, even today?

Elliott Smith: Needle in the Hay. First song I ever heard by Elliot Smith, and I had to track down the CD after I heard it. His double-tracked vocals on the repeated line, "Needle in the hay" is chilling. About a year later I heard it in the movie The Royal Tenenbaums. The song plays as Luke Wilson's character stares in the bathroom mirror and says "I'm going to kill myself." Elliott Smith of course later stabbed himself to death.

Tears for Fears: Pale Shelter. From their angst filled album The Hurting. This was their first album, the one released before Songs From the Big Chair made them American Megastars. This one is better, and fits the angtsy mood of a middle school-aged Smacky, who didn't realize it was actually going to get worse before it got better. Just wait until high school, sucker. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

311: All Mixed Up. Wow, after all the gloom and doom, how about something peppy? 1996. Smacky (Bob Dole syndrome, much?) is in grad school, getting an MA in English. Averaging a paper every two weeks for over a year, working as a research assistant for two professors, building up to the thesis defense. Bring it on. This song--their entire "blue" album--kept me up and kept me going. The repeated line, "keep me coming, that is the gal that will kill them stunning," I always thought they were singing "e. e. cummings, that is the gal that'll keep me sunning." Guess I was hearing authors' names everywhere that year.