The CMC Czar's Proclamation

I declare the months of June, July, and August as the CMC appreciation season! During this summer season I encourage you to listen to something created by yourself or another member of the CMC. To kick off this summer season, I am going to start with The Beginning (CMC Vol. #1) and make my way through all the albums. Go CMC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ps - Welcome Back Dan!

An Idea

Since there are four members in the CMC, how about we dial it down a bit and try to make it more stress free. I am throwing out the idea of sending out a cd every other month. For example, if member JOE BLOW sends out a cd at the beginning of the month he can give a write up like he normally does with his thoughts and comments . Everyone else has two months to focus on that cd and to comment.

Here is what I am thinking in regaurds to comments. Once JOE BLOW sends out his cd, other members can make comments to the cd whenever. Instead of writing up a huge comment on every song at one time, our write ups will merge into one through a series of comments. Similar to the Reform is Needed? post. It will be more of a discussion that might take different turns and make crazy twists. For example, On the thrid song I really got into the awesome guitar solo......Someone might chime in with a comment about that also and then take it a different direction with another track. The idea is to take the weight of getting comments out, and to make it more of a discussion about the songs and the album over two months time. If we finish commenting in that first month then we have a whole month to just listen to the music before another member sends his out.

Is this too much retoric? Does it make sense? Open to ideas.

CMC - Volume 17: Colors

CMC

VOLUME

17

The first in what I may call my ‘simple themes’ collection. Basically all ten songs linked by a very common thread, in this case by having a color in their title. There’s really not much more too it than that, other than arranging the songs into an order that seems to flow. Whether I succeeded at that I’ll leave it to my reviewers to expound.

As with most collections from me this one remained one of several possible options right up to the last minute and almost wasn’t the choice if I could have gotten the graphics where I wanted them on a different collection. And this is completely different than a collection I hinted at with Dan via e-mail a week or two ago. I just can’t commit until I absolutely have to.

So onto the songs.

Blue Caravan
Vienna Teng
Dreaming Through the Noise – 2006

This song captivated me from the first listen and I bought the album on the strength of that captivation without hearing another song. I was rewarded by a thoroughly excellent album including some hauntingly beautiful songs and some very clever ones, all arranged and produced immaculately. Subsequent to me buying the album, a song called Whatever You Want got some airplay. It’s the story of a woman who after sacrificing her identity to her husband’s soulless corporate advancement decides she’s had enough and burns their house down. It’s pretty clever in its execution.

This is a very simple beautiful song. Members of the CMC diaspora might confuse some of her singing with that of a man, though I doubt it will be as confusing as Sam Phillips was in my earlier collection. At least I hope not. I also hope she’s not singing about a blue Dodge Caravan. That would be really disappointing.

No, the moodiness of this song makes me feel like she’s talking about some lonely desert caravan, traveling by night through vast stretches of empty space under the soft glow of the moon. At the end of that journey she hopes to find a long lost love.

Musically, everything is soft. Soft piano, soft strings, soft vocals; all very much enhancing the mood of the song.

Blue blue caravan
Winding down to the valley of lights
My true love is a man
Who would hold me for ten thousand nights
In the wild wild wailing of wind
He's a house 'neath a soft yellow moon.
So blue blue caravan
Won't you carry me down to him soon

Blue blue caravan
Won't you drive away all of these tears
For my true love is a man
That I haven't seen in years
He said, "Go where you have to

For I belong to you until my dying day."
So like a fool, blue caravan
I believed him and I walked away.

Oh my blue blue caravan
The highway is my great wall
For my true love is a man
Who never existed at all
Oh he was a beautiful fiction
I invented to keep out the cold
But now, my blue blue caravan
I can feel my heart growing Cold
Oh my blue blue caravan
I can feel my heart growing Cold

The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – 2005

This band may be the most successful unsigned band ever. This album was sold entirely by word of mouth – tens or hundreds of thousands of copies. They have since been signed by a label and just recently released the follow up to this album. I’ve only heard one song from their new album, and it was good.

CYHSY has a very strong early Talking Heads vibe to me, particularly based on the lead singer’s voice, but also for the drumming and general feel. Their sound is a little more full than early Talking Heads, which was extraordinarily spare, but still, there’s a connection there.

I’m a big fan of the drumming in this one. In addition to the relentless bass drum part there are a number of really great little high-hat fills.

Once - The dogs have quit their barking
"Son," - my neighbor said to me.
"Know the emptiness of talking blue
the same old sheep."
Run - I'll do no more this walking
Haunted by a past I just can't see
Anymore
Anymore

But let me tell you I have never planned
To let go of the hand that has been
Clinging by its thick country skin
To my yellow country teeth

Far - Far away from West Virginia
I - Will try on New York City
Explaining that the sky holds the
Wind the sun rushes in and a child
With a shotgun can shoot down
Honeybees that sting
BUT THIS BOY COULD USE A LITTLE STING!

Who - Will get me to a party?
Who - Do I have yet to meet?
You - You look a bit like coffee
And you taste a bit like me
How - Can I keep me from moving?
Now - I need a change of scenery
Just listen to me I won't pretend to
Understand the movement of the wind
Or the waves out in the ocean or how
Like the hours I change softly slowly
Plainly blindly oh me oh my!

Red Oyster Cult
Guster
Keep it Together – 2003

Guster is probably my favorite local band. This is far from my favorite song of theirs – mostly it fit the theme – but it does display some of their trademarks. Good harmonies, good drumming, and interesting lyrics are found throughout their catalog.

The first album of theirs that I heard anything from was called What You Wish For and had a number of songs that got radio play, at least out here, including Barrel of a Gun and Fa Fa Fa. That album featured all hand percussion – mostly bongos – and was universally excellent. This song features some of those bongos in the instrumental bit at the end and scattered here and there throughout.

Doesn't it bring you down
So many lights and sounds
Call your mom on the telephone
Tell her you're coming home
Tell her there's not a chance
You're ever going to change the world
If you want to be free, take a sip of this tea
Join the red oyster cult
If you drink the whole cup, you will never grow up
You will never grow old
Remember when you were 14
You'd paint every picture so green
Call your mom on the telephone
Tell her your muse is gone
Tell her there's not a chance
You're ever going to change the world
Just a few drops away, you're never gunna change the world
If you want to be free, take a sip of this tea
Join the red oyster cult
If you drink the whole cup, you will never grow up
You will never grow old
Call your mom on the telephone
Tell her you're coming home
Tell her there's not a chance you're ever going to change the world
Just a few drops away
You'll never have to change

Obviously this a nod to that 70’s rock band Blue Oyster Cult with a perhaps more modern sense that rock and roll isn’t going to change the world. Cynical, if you read to far into that, but as Guster keeps putting out albums there must be some sense of hope in the act of making music for them.

Pink Triangle
Weezer
Pinkerton – 1996

Weezer is nothing if not a fun band. They have remained steadfastly irreverent throughout their career from The Sweater Song on. I don’t know that they do many things musically that really stand out, they’re solid. They are all about clever lyrics, and this song fits that mold quite well. I like the ‘but married in my mind’s no good’ line particularly.

When I'm stable long enough
I start to look around for love
See a sweet in floral prints
My mind begins the arrangements
But when I start to feel that pull
Turns out I just pulled myself
She would never go with me
Were I the last girl on earth

I'm dumb, she's a lesbian
I thought I had found the one
We were good as married in my mind
But married in my mind's no good
Pink triangle on her sleeve
Let me know the truth
Let me know the truth

Might have smoked a few in my time
But never thought it was a crime
Knew the day would surely come
When I'd chill and settle down
When I think I've found a good old-fashioned girl
Then she put me in my place
If everyone's a little queer
Can't she be a little straight?

I'm dumb, she's a lesbian
I thought I had found the one
We were good as married in my mind
But married in my mind's no good
Pink triangle on her sleeve
Let me know the truth
Let me know the truth
Let me know the truth

I'm dumb, she's a lesbian
I thought I had found the one
We were good as married in my mind
But married in my mind's no good
Pink triangle on her sleeve
Let me know the truth
Let me know the truth

I'm dumb, she's a lesbian
I thought I had found the one
We were good as married in my mind
But married in my mind's no good
Pink triangle on her sleeve
Let me know the truth
Let me know the truth
Let me know the truth
Let me know the truth

Silver
Pixies
Doolittle – 1989

Two months in a row with the Pixies. Crazy. This song isn’t quite as ‘beautiful’ as Havalina, but it is similarly spare in its execution. This song sits on an album with what ‘hits’ the Pixies had, namely Here Comes Your Man and Debaser. HCYM is the only one that I ever hear on the radio. The whole album is good and worth a listen. This song feels like it should have been the closing track, but they squeezed in a slightly more up-beat track after it.

Like Havalina, this song has a strong western feel. Silver particularly feels like it could have been in one of the spaghetti westerns starring Clint Eastwood. It has a dry, dusty, salon door swinging, tumbleweed tumbling feel to me.

in this land of strangers
there are dangers
there are sorrows
i can't see this lady
it is shady
i am leaving tomorrow
tomorrow
tomorrow

even there's a reason
it's silver
it's gone
in this land of strangers
there are dangers
there are sorrows
sorrows
sorrows
sorrows

White Girl
Soul Coughing
Irresistible Bliss – 1996

At the intersection of jazz, punk and pop there was Soul Coughing. They were almost a spoken word trio if it weren’t for an infectious pop sensibility. This track is more spoken word than some of their songs though it has all the elements that make up virtually all their songs. Building on a foundation of upright bass and excellent drumming, decorated with some very quirky samples, loops and random noises, and then infiltrated by some very strange lyrics, often repeated as if they were more percussion than anything, a Soul Coughing song is created.

This comes from their second album. Their first, Ruby Vroom, is superior in many ways though my perception of it is colored by a very fun road trip I took with some college friend when it was played repeatedly. As we’ve learned repeatedly from our clogging friend, experience often cements our opinions of songs to the point of irrationality.

White Girl,
Market at Van Ness,
Heels to drag,
Discombobulated.
Air all soft around,
Hear the man singing,
Inclines and wires,
Telegraph Avenue.

Look away and she's eastbound, out of sight.

Dropped here,
By the hand of the Astronaut,
Builder of the pyramids,
The man from outer space.
Innocent farmgirl,
Raised by the aliens,
Out in Northridge,
Out in the larger world.

Look away and she's eastbound, out of sight.

The only song I can think of that makes ‘discombobulated’ work into the lyrics.

Gold to Me
Ben Harper
Fight for Your Mind – 1995

Ben Harper puts out solid slightly bluesy, rock and roll records. He usually manages some radio airplay. This one of those solid songs with some interesting guitar parts and some good lyrics.

You look like gold to me, and I'm not too blind to see.
Oh, you look like gold.
Said, you look like gold.

And you make me want to sing with all the joy you bring.
Oh, you look like gold.
Oh, you look like gold.

Like the rays down from the sun when a new day has just begun.
You look like gold.
You look like gold.

And now, look here 'cause,
I've been fooled before,
But now I know,
I've made the mistake in the past,
But now, now I know the difference from gold,
from gold and brass.

It's not the kind of gold that you wear but the kind that can feel my care.
Oh, hey, you look like gold.
Oh, now you look like gold.

Some shine when the day is new but they fade when the day is through.

But not you, you look like gold.
I said, you look like gold

Oh but, but I've been wrong before,
But now I know I've made the mistake in the past,
But now, but now, I know,
Now I know, now I know,
Now I know the difference from gold and brass.

You look like gold to me, and now I'm,
I'm down on a bended knee.
Oh, you look like gold.
Oh, you look like gold.

And I just, I just want you to know,
To me you mean so, so, so much more than all the gold.

Oh, you look like gold.
Oh, you shine like gold.
Said, you look like gold.

Green Arrow
Yo La Tengo
I Can Feel the Heart Beating as One – 1997

CMC pays off for YLT as Volume 16 finally gets me to buy a YLT album. More are likely to follow.

As a bonus to just meeting the theme criteria, this song puts me in the mood for warm summer nights. The nature sounds and the languorous music really make me want to lay on the grass and look up at the stars. And as we’re having another exquisitely crappy spring, I am ready for summer all the more.

Orange Colored Sky
Nat King Cole
The Unforgettable Nat King Cole – 1992 (originally recorded in 1950)

This song appeals to the part of me that grew up in household that watched a lot of Broadway musicals from the era that produced things like Oklahoma and Guys and Dolls. I’m a bit of a sucker for those big swing orchestra arrangements especially when done well. And what can I say about NKC’s voice. It’s smooth and used to remarkable effect.

This song, unlike lots from that era, really uses the band to great effect, and was probably written that way. All of the ‘sound effects’ really add to the punch of this very fun song. Throw in NKC singing some rapid-fire and clever lyrics and you’ve got a winner.

I was walking along, minding my business
When out of an orange-colored sky
Flash! bam! alakazam!
Wonderful you came by

I was humming a tune, drinking in sunshine
When out of that orange-colored view
Wham! bam! alakazam!
I got a look at you

One look and I yelled timber
Watch out for flying glass
cause the ceiling fell and the bottom fell out
I went into a spin and I started to shout,
Ive been hit, this is it, this is it!

I was walking along minding my business
When love came and hit me in the eye
Flash! bam! alakazam!
Out of an orange-colored sky.

Olive
Ken Nordine
Colors – 1995

This is likely the inspiration for this collection as it comes from an album devoted entirely to songs about colors. Ken Nordine has a program on NPR (in some areas) that I’ve never heard. It’s called Word Jazz and as far as I know involves him doing a spoken word thing over the music of a jazz combo. Reading now on Wikipedia I find that he started doing this in 1957. He apparently did vocal coaching for Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

Oddly, I couldn’t track down the lyrics to this (and am too lazy to transcribe them).

I’ve always like the ‘sure does’ for its inflection.

Hopefully Volume 17 will make your life a bit more colorful.

The Past Was More Than A Walk Man – More A Transmitter to The Future and We the CMC are The Fortunate Ones – Volume 16

The Past Was More Than A Walk Man – More A Transmitter to The Future and We the CMC are The Fortunate Ones – Volume 16


So Steve Cummings is back. Not black. Back. Though it would be perfectly OK if he was suddenly black. Or even gay. It would be just fine. Interesting, but fine. But it is straight and white Steve, though his musical tastes and interpretations are anything but. From being locker neighbors trying to convince him to share his poetry with me, (he would not, but instead claimed to have thrown it away, which was powerful, mind-blowing poetry to me) to a musical knowledge God with, yes, Nothing’s Shocking by Jane’s Addiction. To the disappearance of the man, the occasional rumor that he was in Atlanta to the whispers behind the bushes in China Town, graduation ripped him from out of our background, inserting him into another which we can now only imagine.

I cannot piece together those years and this would not be the spot for it, instead I will focus on the songs and offer my opinion of them and some contextual information. I must note two items before continuing.

a-Usually I do not READ anybody else’s comments before writing mine – this is not the case this time, possibly due to the length of time it has taken me to reach this point of comment-making. I will not make too many mentions, but I wanted to bring that to everyone’s attention – not that it is any big deal, just a slightly different approach.

b-I found it extremely fascinating, this other slice of Iowa City. What I mean, Mark Anderson was a big Iowa City guy and though there are many many deep differences between the two individuals there are some striking similarities in FLAVOR, separated mostly only by a generation…which is cool. Bringing to light differences in the FEEL of the University of Iowa and Iowa State and then UNI and Indiana State.

I enjoyed the paper-folding and the Lennonish ‘YES’. How Yoko of you! Yes Steve is among us, a ghost no more, and it is a positive force. Fragile and human and still searching.

And now…the songs…



1-Havalina

I really really love this song. Some guitars that may have informed future Radio Head bits. Love it! And again with the Pixies. And though Mix has never responded to my memory of us walking along a stone wall and some girl that he knew or Faith knew was playing or talking about the Pixies….Mix….please…

I love the airy feel of the singing and the dreamy words. I wonder though, is it literally about a pig or is it a song about a girl whom the singer is “referring” to as a pig? One of those sweetly sick sentiments that can so nicely be expressed in music. Great song!



2-I Don't Know

I shared Dan’s view about The Replacements and Paul’s ability to inspire boners in local DJs and local musical authorities – perhaps it was only a form of jealously. Anyway, I really like this song. Though it hails well north of the Iowa City, it reminds me of Iowa City culture – or maybe on a grander scale – other large like schools. And maybe it has to do more with people who went to Iowa. More Artsy, less Aggy is really what I’m getting at here. Most colleges or universities will have an artsy component but the scale can be wildly different.

Love the horns, the responses, and the driving almost “live” feel of this song.



3-Way Down Now

The famous Green Peace compilation. I think I’ve heard this song before. Not a bad song. I wonder who would win in a fight. World Party or Stetsasonic?

“In your face, elitists!” – good for you.

Rolling Stones, Soup Dragons, it’s all good. I like the words, and always good to hear more than just ‘Ship of Fools.’

4-Futterman's Rule

Love the B-Boys. Love all the Basketball allusions in their lyrics. I saw them live once and have four of their albums and continue my search for a particular mix of Body Movin’ – it remains elusive. I consider Paul’s Boutique and Check Your Head as their best, but the others all have their charm. I think the fun began to fade just a bit with Ill Communication only because I feel their politics and religion, wonderful as they are, just didn’t translate well into B-Boy songs, but it was 1994 and that was a pretty intense year and then you have the Beastie Boys playing their own shit, and it was awesome. That pic of Mike D playing drums in the liner notes was inspiring. Intense and ferocious.

This song is cool, A Rockford Files for the nineties with a whole new lineup of awesome guest stars. One of several excellent instrumentals. The Beastie Boys are awesome awesome and at their best have and continue to be one of my favorite bands.



5-Pool

I love mysterious feelings. I had one just last night as a matter of fact. A very catchy song – Japanese – if I were to guess the language without any connection to you, I would not have guessed correctly. It sounds as if it was recorded in a home studio – which is awesome because it sounds good; it just has that non-big record label sound and feel to it.

I love the language or words at 3:23 for example – the little tripping phrase that must be characteristic of the language – very nice. The Sundays, if they sang instead, it could easily have sounded like an early Sundays song – a credit to their pop-writing craft.


6-On Earth

I like this song – an excellent “album” song from the college rock or when alternative was just becoming not alternative age or from that handful of bands with lead female singers possessing some quality of alluring beauty, at least enough to scrape up a bit of the market’s share.

I really do love her voice and also own Static and Sunday, I bought it for Trista way back when. I do not listen to it much, but enjoy it when I do or if a song happens to pop up on the ole shuffle. Speaking of the shuffle – I use it often though try hard not to let it replace listening to albums – it still excites me, when out of 4000 songs (pales in comparison to Mixdorf, but still enough to make it seemingly vast) I wonder what is next. I especially enjoy the fact that it allows for an opportunity of PURE MOOD-MATCHING. What I mean – it is impossible to articulate a “musical mood” so let me just say that when you are in a certain mood you can just skip ahead – it is pure because it is SO honest. You just skip until the mood is sated. Your mood never has to settle for a song that you cannot wait until it is over. A dangerous road to be sure, especially coming from me because I believe the “album” as an art form is nearly lost, iPods and fancy phones and mix CDs are escorting albums to their graves.

I like the brevity of the song and the ending lends itself to some interesting interpretations. The song is probably just typical alternative girl poetry, but maybe it is about the people of earth’s expectation about the eternity of our world and how that expectation is being eroded into hope, a hope losing ground like a glacier at the end of the ice age.


7-I See Monsters

Wow – your write up reminded of “The Dead” by Joyce, right at the end, actually kind of gave me shivers. Something terribly familiar about this song – not sure – maybe it is just when I first heard it months ago. Hee! I haven’t been a fan of what I have so far heard from Ryan Adams, but gee if I don’t kinda like this song. I do. Some really nice moments and the words are stirring.
I think there is something about his voice that usually turns me off. I think with this song, placed within the context of this compilation, it has been a good way for me to hear Mr. Adams in a new light. I also think I heard a couple of covers that he has done that I couldn’t stand.

Is he related to Bryan Adams?

Kidding.



8-Automatic Stop

Really neat song. I dig it. I love the faraway vocals and the words. Great! It had to end that way – there was no other way. I love the interplay of rhythms between all the guitars and the drums, really keeps the song moving along nicely.

Your: “For a song with such despair in the lyrics, I find it strangely affirming.” Is exactly the way I feel about my love for the Velvet Underground.



9-The Shadows

Funny Onion!

Neat voice – I really like this song and the melody. The slightly cheesy lyric is made up for in terms of melodic delivery, and it works quite nicely. I like the drum taps off in the distance.

At times it smacks of a 70s AM radio melody. I like the horn – a really nice touch. Great ending, love hearing her sing about the Shadows…very likely my favorite voice on the album.

I have heard of Yo La Tengo, but have NEVER heard anything from them. I would have guessed them to be a “Black-Eyed Peas” sort, but man would I have been wrong, thankfully.




10-Cleaning Windows

On Dan’s industrial accident comment…it is amazing..he isn’t the most handsome man in the world, but close-ups of his face are easily found. The VM stands for Vanity Man. More importantly, I have been kind of interested in listening to more Van Morrison – there seems to be some pretty cool songs out there with nice arrangements. Interesting, loose, garbly voice. Steve: 20 albums – wow!!

Not a bad song though a bit too “We Didn’t Start The Fire.” I do appreciate the sentiment, especially after a bullet wound.


Wrap:

Excellent collection Steve – thanks for putting it together and another warm welcome to the club.

Other:

Talking and discussing music can be such a joy and should not be rushed. We are not the CMC Music Factory.

Mixdorf: When you speak of Steve being ahead – do you mean in terms of quantity of music listened to? I felt constantly concerned that you were putting yourself down in terms of your own wonderful musical journey and thought how odd it was that you assumed a competitive tone. Anyway – I am sure there is a perfectly logical explanation…



BS: Havalina, but the Shadows were looming large

SIWHI: “Temporary Sanity” by Todd Rundgren

Reform is Needed?

I suggest skipping the rest of this month to allow everyone to get regrouped. Dan can kick off the new stretch in June. I suggest that we mail or cd's out at the beginning of each month and have everyone respond by the last day of the month in which they recieved the cd. If we stay true to this then I believe that things will move smoothly. If we are too busy to respond to a cd within a months time then maybe we should rethink our memberships? Just throwing out thoughts for us to chew on. What are your thoughts?

Almost chomped by Pac-Man.

Stephen's comments on T-Clog's mix.

Where the heck have I been? Oh, doesn't matter. Let's do this thing!

1. Cheers: The show was a staple of the times (I try to avoid using the word "zeitgeist"). I echo Dan's sentiment that the song is very, very hard to separate from the show. I more or less enjoyed the show. I remember watching the first show at the time of the first broadcast. NBC had some monkey show called "Mr. Smith" that came out the same year, and they were promoting both heavily... I think NBC was trying to re-create itself after taking a beating for some time. I remember thinking how cool it was going to be as an adult, if only one had such a retreat each day. Alas, bars don't resemble "Cheers" in the slightest, and I've read the reports of how many such establishments are meant specifically to promote anonymity. Yeah, shock. Anyway, nice ditty, but tied to the time and purpose as to never be considered as a song by itself.

2. You Make Loving Fun: I remember reading Rolling Stone and other music magazines in the early '80s. It was oft-written that Fleetwood Mac was one of the greatest groups in the world. Lindsay Buckingham was a sex symbol at the time, Mick Fleetwood was a genius, Stevie Nicks was also a sex symbol... none of this clicked with me as a 12-year-old, and I struggle to look back and figure it out in retrospect. I do admire "Tusk" for its sheer weirdness, all rhythm and marching bands, and I dig this song, more now than then. Catchy, sort-of sexy, I-like-you-let's-do-in-again-now vibe. Of course, I've seen Robert Towne's "Personal Best", so now I assume it's about two women, one being Muriel Hemingway.

3. Bette Davis Eyes: Swimming pool, swimming pool, break, swimming pool, break, swimming pool, ham sandwich. Hey, it was Billboard's Number One pop single of 1981, I think. Was there no escaping it? My daily summer school-break routine was soundtracked by this song. The female Rod Stewart, singing about making crows blush (I thought). Again, like "Cheers", no amount of re-learning will help me hear this song anew. We didn't have MTV in my small town (see Mellencamp), so I have no idea what Carnes looked like; I don't have any latent little-boy thing for the singer. Just thought I'd share that.

4. 99 Luft Balloons: My mom loved, loved, loved this song. She bought the whole LP. She also bought Asia's first and second albums. She was into the pop-music thing at the time. I, on the other hand, have no love lost or nostalgia for this song. Perhaps out of automatic protest against my mom's attempts at coolness. That said, it was a different kind-of song at the time, and not just because of the German lyrics. It has a pop-tune event feel, which may explain the massive popularity. It pre-dates the late Falco's success in the states, who had a similarly bombastic approach with his Amadeus tribute. I think both songs became hits because they were in frustratingly catchy and unavoidable. Falco would have been at home on this mix, but more for the "Der Kommisar" re-make that was a hit at the same time "Balloons" was. A political song, I'm told. I don't know. I still don't speak German.

5. Walk of Life: My better conscious knows that this is a perfectly acceptable pop song, and that I should like it, but I cannot, and still do not. Knofler was singing about the hard-knock life of busking, I understand. I get that. But the song is so damn happy and child-like. It passess through me like a chilly wind, and by then I've clicked past or changed the station. The chugging guitar should win me over, I love that kind of simple musicality, but the keyboards are too intrusive and annoying. A miss for me. I'm amused at Dan's observation, I'm sure accurate, of all the hair-metal dudes learning of this new Dire Straits group, only to discover an album full of really great songs that I'm sure they hated: "Latest Trick", "Brothers in Arms", "The Man's Too Strong"... any of those tunes are much more meaningful to me than this one. In fact, I may download a few of them later. Side note: Why did we yanks get a video for this song full of professional football players and cheerlearders bouncing around? Well, I can guess, I suppose. Was it hoped this would be the next Gary Glitter or Queen fan rally? Hmmm.

6. Magic. Let me say: I loved the Cars. Had all their stuff. Forgave their weak tunes and worshipped their great ones. Mix: Candy-O is not a great album, but it's got a racy cover, and it's a little more of the "odd" Cars that I think fans claim to like more. And I submit that I was a fan before "Heartbeat City". Although in disclosure, it helps to have an older sister with boyfriends who lent me some albums. From there, it only takes one Columbia Record Club application to catch up on certain groups, and start of life of wasteful credit spending. By Heartbeat City, the album, I started to get a little elitist, what with everyone seeing the cheesy videos and buying the record en masse. I began to dismiss the Cars. "Heartbeat City" was positioned as a summer anthem, for the obvious lyrical reasons. I only sort-of dug it then, but like the declarative guitar chords just as much as ever. I remember Stereo Review magazine commenting that the Cars somehow managed to appear avant-garde but sound one-hundred-percent mainstream. Makes sense. Looking back at this song and the album it came from, I stil love "Drive" from that album the best. It captured popular '80s radio for me in the most positive way for me, in the way groups like Poison represent the '80s at it's mainstream worst. Thanks, T-Clog, for not including Poison on this disk in any way.

Alas, the bassist died, the guitarist went on to play in a CCR-tribute group, and the New Cars eventually showed up with Todd Rundgren. I guess my love rests with the Cars of that time.

7. Small Town: John Mellencamp did something great here. A simple song that conveys what the song was about. This song sounds so live, so loud, and pretty much is my favorite song on this record. JM had, at the time, a great drummer, and it's that part of his music I notice a lot. I happened to live in a small town until just before this song came out. I admit I'm not as fond of that environment as Mellencamp was, so at first, I dismissed this song out of hand. (It's not as if moving to big-city Waterloo rescued me or anything; it was just different, with a record-store and movie theater, for a change). I've not been a close JM admirer, so I can't get into where this fits into the pantheon, although I was a litle dissapointed to here a recent song being used in a GM commercial. It certainly wasn't cool to like JM at the time, but I listened to the Scarecrow tape a lot, partly because of the steps he'd taken to raise awareness for Farm Aid helped focus some attention on his music. His follow-up, The Lonesome Jubilee, pretty much drowned in political rightousness (although it, too, had some decent stuff on it); by that time, I'd been run over by the so-called political consiousness of "We Are the World", that momentum heading to what seemed like countless benefit songs leading up to "Sun City", and I'd set JM aside to seek out something, oh, more punk, I guess. But "Small Town" is a song I can hear all over again, and enjoy it more now than then.

8. Every Breath You Take: My much-younger ears didn't immediately hear the fear and loathing this track was communicating. I remember Sting doing an interview, saying how shocked he was that people were playing this song at their weddings. I think that's kind of awesome, and at the time it taught me to get my head out of ass and hear the whole song. I suppose it's the price the Police had to pay for immense success. Anyway, I enjoy the song, but personally, I'd go with "Don't Stand so Close to Me" for early '80s popularity. That dirty bastard Sting, being all academic. Something to strive for, I thought at the time. Oh, I like it. But I've got a master tape burned into my frontal lobe, the ultimate iPod.

9. Against the Wind: Interesting song choice for this mix. "Like a Rock"... I know I'm gonna get it for this, but pre-truck ad, I sort of liked that song. That was five minutes, twenty years ago. Seger is not, shall we say, prolific. The constant rotation of "Night Moves" seemed to be filling the gap for Seger; maybe he just made all his money on that one damn song. I'm glad I'm not hearing that song here. This is not my favorite Seger song. For sheer childhood nostaglia, that'd have to be the song where Seger is telling his lady that someday, she'll be accompanying him. It fit well, dynamically, while I swung around in circles on a small-town carny ride at age 10. (Sauerkraut Days, Ackley, Iowa. Mmmmm, kraut.) I'm sorry to say that only echo the sentiments of others here. Seger's okay and all, I don't hate the man or his music, but this is not how I reflect on my life. For all it includes, my life has not been against anyone's wind. And if we are talking the system here, then I suspect some of the fans of this song are the ones that put into office the very entity that is now creating a lot of blowback. Now there could be song.

10: I Won't Back Down: A song so direct and simple. I remember this one just Pissed. People. Off. As in, how dare Tom Petty get away with a song I could have done? Sorry, but you couldn't have. Or, to put another perspective on it, I wish, I WISH I could have done this. At the time. I hadn't been Jeff Lynned to death; that stops with the Wilburys. Perhaps Tom Petty, who had (after all) risen from the alternative radio early days, was peaking here for the massess. I understand he's since been a huge tour draw. I had this CD and played it a lot in the fall of '89 and early '90. So did a lot of people on the U of I campus. It was the "Thriller" of the season, in a good way.

11: Take On Me: Hmmmm.. T-Clog saves the best for last? It terms of summing up the times, I'd say, yes. This song is significant in that the video is the song, the song is the video, and the young love-longing-despair vibes sits accurately with the (let me do the math again) 14-year-old who heard and saw this song. The keyboards, plotting the rhythm throughout and then trailing off intergalactically at the end, just works for me, and that's all I'd really expect or want from that time. Sometimes I wished the "me" of that time would just fly off like that synth.

12. Cheers, redux. See original comments. Boy, life sucks at the moment. I hear you, sort of. Perhaps.

Summing up: Pac-Man. My niece, who is seven, knows what Pac-Man is and explained to me the other day. She was dead on, although her knowledge has more to do with the beautiful T-Clog cover than the static birds-eye view of the '80s experience. This was a good mix, and to make clear, I like all the stuff here, to some degree. I am opposed to false nostalgia, so this was an exercise on what I thought I believed then and where I am now. I rarely "forgive" songs despite their crappiness, just because those songs were from "that time". It helps to remember a miserable childhood experience. Life aint so bad, though, not for this white, middle-class white male. So while I cannot reconcile with Kim Carnes, it's still a welcome experience to go there again.

Favorite song here: Take on Me. Suck it, Sting! These guys weren't around to get too full of it, to their betterment.

Song I'd included had I made this mix: "I'm on Fire", Bruce Springsteen. My favorite song from the radio, from that time, period.