Identify the 43 albums I couldn't do without

Kathleen Edwards, “Asking for Flowers”

What I like about Kathleen Edwards is that there is an “upfront” attitude with the way she expresses things in her songs. In many of the songs on this particular album, for instance, she’s pointing out things things that aren’t quite right (like not getting the right fulfillment out of a relationship or even observing things wrong with society society) and then saying something like “hey, this is dumb, we need to fix this”. There’s this emotional rawness in her directness sometimes like in this one track called “Sure As Shit” where she says “I sure as shit do love you / And I cuss because I mean it / And for that in my heart I am hopeful / And these words that I chose / I was so careful”...

My favorite track from the album is I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory. I’ve gotten complaints as I’ve been told that this seems to be the only song that’s ever playing in my car. This is in fact by far the song I’ve played the most times on my iPod since I’ve had it… I think it’s all the pedal steel that makes the song so catchy. I love the steel guitar, and if I could ever learn to play just one instrument it would be the pedal steel guitar… Anyway, here are some of the lyrics:

If I write down these memories
that I have saved away
Photographs of the years that have passed
inside my little brain

You’re cool and cred like Fogerty
I’m Elvis Presley in the 70’s
You’re Chateauneuf, I’m Yellow Label
You’re the buffet, I’m just the table
I’m a Ford Tempo, you’re a Maserati
You’re The Great One, I’m Marty McSorley
You’re the Concorde, I’m economy
I make the dough, but you get the glory

The Be Good Tanyas, “Blue Horse”

This was in the fall of 2001. I was a subscriber to the Erin McKeown fan newsletter, and I had read that she’d be opening for this band called The Be Good Tanyas for some shows she was doing in Canada. Since I liked Erin I thought I might like them too, so I looked for their CD in Borders and bought it one Friday night.

I was going through something emotional at the time and felt like I needed to get away. I woke up the next day at 5 AM Saturday morning and impulsively started driving up the coast along the Pacific Coast Highway, taking this CD along with me to listen to on the way. This was December 1, 2001. I though maybe I’d go to San Francisco where I’d never been up to at that time. . Well, ultimately I didn’t even make it as far as Monterey. I was tired after 5 hours of driving, and moreover I was confused and didn’t understand what I was doing. I got as far as Big Sur, this place on the central California coast where there are tall trees, windy roads, steep cliffs, small waterfalls, and fog. I just stopped alongside the road and listened, and I never wanted to leave. I felt like at that moment I belonged there, even if it was for just that moment. I often think of this imagery when I listen to The Be Good Tanyas, particularly when I hear the song “The Littlest Birds” with the lyrics, “You pass through places / And places pass through you / But you carry ‘em with you / On the souls of your travellin’ shoes”.

Several months later I was listened to this album while driving late at night on the freeway in LA somewhere with my thoughts wandering, and there was a moment where I was thinking that I finally understood entirely what was meant by the lyrics in the song “Only in the Past”, where they sing, “Run away to the seashore it doesn’t matter anymore / Doesn’t matter anymore / Words dry up and fly away with the passing of the days / Eventually you just let the stone fall ”. It’s about letting dreams and memories die and conceding defeat to the past. I was just thinking while listening to it that it’s too bad that nothing lasts. I can’t remember feeling so disconnected from life and from the world as I did around that time. All I could do was see the end of everything, and the end was never good. Happiness and sadness both seemed fake. If everything ended, it was hard to see the point of existence, and the only thing that seemed real was nothing… Hmmm… This song is supposed to be about moving on from a relationship and accepting that it’s time to move on, and it’s actually pleasant to listen to. Yet, for some reason it inspired me to think of all this other stuff that was swirling around in my mind at the time…

There are so many awesome tracks on this album that I find special meaning in, but if I have to choose a favorite one it’s Light Enough To Travel. It’s about not fitting in but not letting that get to you, or at least that’s what it’s about to me. Here are some of the lyrics:

Promise me we won’t go into the nightclub
I feel so fucked up when I’m in there
Can’t tell the bouncers from the customers
And I don’t know which ones I prefer

Promise me we won’t go into the nightclub
I really think that it’s obscene
What kind of people go to meet people
Someplace they can’t be heard or seen

Aretha Franklin’s “I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You”

This is one of the albums that I put into heavy rotation in the springtime. Sometimes it feels like there’s nothing better than driving around in cool sunny weather with Aretha on the radio. Just this afternoon I sat in G’s living room with the door open, a breeze blowing in and feeling all right the world for as long as the music lasted. There’s just something about it that makes me undeniably happy.

Favorite track: “I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)”

Pete Yorn, “Music For The Morning After”

This is another one of the albums that featured prominently on the soundtrack of my life in the summer of 2001. Many of my favorite albums I first listened to around this time, and I think most people’s favorite music comes from particularly significant times in their lives. During approximately this period, plus or minus a year, I was in my early 20’s and experienced the most dramatic changes of my life so far, like being newly independent after finishing school and living in the city, the ups and downs of relationship drama, being totally in control of my own life for the first time and the opportunities and indecision that go along with that. Pete Yorn doesn’t really have the most brilliant songwriting, but I think he does an effective job of capturing that kind of restlessness people (at least I speak for myself) experience at that age.

My favorite track on the album is Life On A Chain. This is to this day one of the songs I listen to most often, and yet I’m still not 100% sure what it was intended to mean. To me, it’s about trying to move on but not being sure how to. Here are some of the lyrics:

Time alone is good, I spend my days in the city,
Dirty neighborhood, you know you’ll never convince me,
So I sold the town away, I couldn’t wait to forget you,
I was killed in half a day, I hadn’t time to regret you,
And I was waiting over here for life to begin,
I was looking for the new thing
And you were the sunshine heading my front line,
I was alone, you were just around the corner from me.

k.d. lang, “Absolute Torch and Twang”

This album actually came out when I was in junior high school, but I didn’t really listen to k.d. lang until I was in college. At that time, I was drawn to her for her persona more than anything. I had heard people rave about her voice and her performances and I was vaguely aware of her music, but I just thought her image was really cool. She shamelessly presented herself the way she wanted (androgynous, lesbian, vegan) and had a great deal of success making music that was mostly not easily categorizable into specific genres. I liked how she defied labeling.

So, to satisfy my curiosity I quickly amassed a collection of the albums she had released up to that time, and I was instantly won over as a fan. I thought “Absolute Torch and Twang” was the best of k.d. lang’s albums because it had the right mix of the serious ballads and the fun songs that make you want to get up and dance. Most importantly, I thought she took advantage of the strength of her voice in the right measure and on the right occasions, not overdoing it. There’s a particular song on the album that when I hear it I often have to completely stop whatever I’m doing and just stand in awe of her amazing vocals. It’s called Pullin’ Back the Reins she sings about love being this uncontrollable thing like a galloping horse that can’t be tamed. I just think the way she performed it is very effective.

My favorite song from the album is Luck in My Eyes. I still listen to it sometimes when I’m feeling kind of down. If I close my eyes and try to envision myself alone on some mountain or plain or wherever the imagery of the song takes me, I feel very calm. Here are some of the lyrics:

I can feel a mountain rain
That’ll wash away
And shine again
Empty my pockets
That were weighing me down
Sift through my soul
To see what’s lost and found
Gonna walk away from trouble
With my head held high
Then look closely you’ll see
Luck in my eyes

Bob Marley and the Wailers’ “Kaya”

The late, great Mitch Hedberg once said, “I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.” That about sums up all my memories that are linked to Bob Marley’s music.

I really can’t think of anything else that needs to be said about this one.

Favorite track: “Easy Skanking”

Big Star’s “Third/Sister Lovers” (also known as “Beale Street Green”)

There are five reasons I love this album:

1. It’s known by three different names. I once met a guy a long, long time ago who listed Big Star as one of his favorite bands. I said, “Oh, I love ‘Third!’” and he was like, “You mean ‘Sister Lovers?’” So we googled it and discovered we were both about one-third right. I really hope to meet someone one day who claims their favorite Big Star album is “Beale Street Green.” It would complete the circle.

2. I was introduced to Big Star and given this album by a guy I was totally in love with. He would write poetry for me, and then we’d spend entire evenings talking about the perfection of Alex Chilton’s voice. Big Star is romantic to me now.

3. This album includes both an awesome cover of a Velvet Underground song (“Femme Fatale”) AND an original tune that was later covered by Jeff Buckley (“Kangaroo”). It links to other people I love which is cool in my book.

4. Alex Chilton’s voice. Holy lord.

5. The song “Jesus Christ” has a really interesting sound that I would never, ever associate with Jesus. When I was first getting into this album, I always referred to it as the “Jesus on a bicycle” song, ‘cause that’s what I always thought of. Anything that can put that image into my head is OK by me.

Favorite track: “Holocaust”

The Band’s self-titled album

Some music is made for crowded bars, and some albums are meant to be heard at loud parties where someone will inevitably end up naked on the front lawn. The Band’s self-titled album is back-porch music for breezy Saturday afternoons when the only “work” that has to be done is picking up another case of beer at the gas station.

It boggles my mind that a band in which four of the five members were Canadian could make music that settles me into my Southern roots. I loathe country music about cheating wives and pickup trucks, but the Band some-fucking-how made music that to me is perfectly Southern and yet totally rock. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? I just don’t know. I know Levon Helm grew up in Arkansas, so maybe that’s how it happened. I’m going to stop looking this gift horse in the mouth before I end up ruining it for myself.

Favorite track: The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Erin McKeown, “Distillation”

It seems that many of my favorite albums came out between 2000 and 2002; either that or I first heard them around that time. This is one of those albums.

There’s something classic (or anachronistic?) about listening to Erin McKeown. It’s kind of hard to pigeonhole her style musically, although you can say this is a “folk music” album (whatever that means in today’s lexicon). She is my age and yet counts Django Reinhardt and Judy Garland among her influences. Included on this album is even a cover of the Rodgers and Hart song “You Mustn’t Kick It Around” (which appeared in the 1950’s musical “Pal Joey”). What’s also impressive is that she plays all the instruments on this album.

That she kind of seems out of time wasn’t the only thing that appealed to me on this album but also it was the way she expresses things that people in their early twenties might experience in terms of relationships and experiences. It’s the reason I’ve seen Erin McKeown perform live five times, more times than I’ve seen anyone else. There’s one song on the album called “Didn’t They” where she sings about the awkwardness you experience with someone when they discover your big secret and neither is sure how to act.

My favorite track on the album is Blackbirds, where she describes people at a party trying to hookup as blackbirds milling about. Here’s a passage from the lyrics:

Said one blackbird to the other, “You must be my queen,”
And the other replied in turn, “Well, sure enough you my king,”
Four and twenty blackbirds and two began to sing

The Strokes’ “First Impressions Of Earth”

A few friends who don’t like the Strokes have told me that it’s because all their music kind of sounds the same. I don’t think that’s totally true, but even if it is, I’m cool with it because I obviously dig the one sound they’re putting out.

“First Impressions Of Earth” is one of my go-to Saturday night albums. When I put it on, I get ready to rock my white-girl ass all over town. Whenever I hear “Ize Of The World” I think back to seeing them in concert when they opened with that song and how it made me feel like spinning in circles. I still feel like spinning in circles when I hear it. Sometimes music just makes you feel good, you know?

Favorite track: “Ize Of The World”