Music from head to toe, part 1
Last week, I finally figured out how to make Audio Player work, and since then I’ve been trying to come up with a way to implement it here.
When I walk Basie, I usually have my headphones on. This morning, a particular song shuffled up on my iPod and it gave me an idea: a playlist based on parts of the body. These are all songs in my iTunes library that have some sort of bodily feature in the title: head, eye, arm… you get the idea. Click on the player at the end of each entry to hear the rockin’ tracks. You also can right-click the song title to steal download. Enjoy!
“Dead Head Blues,” Backwards Day – One of my favorite bands from back in Springfield’s late 1980s-early ’90s alt-rock heyday, Backwards Day lament the teenagers who would rather emulate what their parents did as kids than participate in their own culture:
I guess this generation
is starving for sensation
Can’t they come up with their own?
I got the Dead Head Blues
“Hair,” P.J. Harvey – A wispy British musician whose songs rock hard, Polly Jean has a penchant for appearing naked on album and magazine covers. Awesome.
“I Set My Face to the Hillside,” Tortoise – I have a difficult time describing Tortoise when people ask what my favorite bands are. Their music is brilliant but impossible to categorize.
“Eye Know,” De La Soul – It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 20 years since this song came out. I’d still take this over 98 percent of today’s hip-hop.
“Ear Drums Pop,” Dilated Peoples – I took a chance on this album when I saw it at a Delete Sale several years ago and was rewarded for it. Imagine… a modern hip-hop group that doesn’t reference guns, violence or the crack game. Who knew? One of this song’s lyrics particularly meshes with my delicate sensibilities:
I’m buildin’ with the science that De La dropped
That means it might blow up, but it won’t go pop
“Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now,” the Smiths – OK, I sort of cheated on this one. I didn’t have any songs with “nose” in the title, so I substituted “knows.” Like a bulldog that’s so ugly it’s cute, Morrissey’s voice is so irritating but so perfect for Johnny Marr’s jangly, reverby guitars.
“Syringe Mouth,” Mercury Rev – I’m a sucker for sheets of guitar noise, and this song, like the rest of the “Yerself is Steam” album, has it in spades.
“Protect Ya Neck,” Wu-Tang Clan – When you have the GZA dropping metaphors like “[Nuhs] so stingy they got short arms and deep pockets,” you know you have a hip-hop classic.
Stay tuned for more body parts from artists like Ween, the Pixies and Mos Def.
April 14th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Surfer Rosa has no less than three thematic tracks.
April 14th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Oh, man…Backwards Day…haven’t even thought of those two words together, since…around the time you’re talking about. Wow.
April 14th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
I counter that Surfer Rosa only has one body specific song while having three others that are generally (perhaps a stretch) related.
The theme seems to be specific body parts with a totally erroneous Smiths song in there.
I think you should add Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do by Billie Holiday for its body part reference.
April 14th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Dan: I think there might be four songs on “Surfer Rosa” that qualify.
Steve: I’m MySpace friends with Backwards Day. I got a couple tracks off their second CD that way.
Gish: You’ll notice that I don’t have any “nose” songs, so I had to substitute “knows.” Duly noted re: the Billie Holiday joint.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Don’t you have any songs by groups that old (read: un-cool) people might know? Or have even heard of?
I’d even be fine with songs that suck, like “Metal Health (Bang Your Head)” or “Eyes Without a Face” (double body-part-reference score, for those playing at home); at least I’ve heard of them.
Sigh.
At least give me “Fat Bottomed Girls”…. something!
And bonus style points should go to Gish for that suggestion.
P.S. Some “nose” song suggestions:
“Dope Nose”, Weezer (2002; album: Maladroit)
“Hard Nose the Highway”, Van Morrison (1973; album: Hard Nose the Highway)
“Everyone Nose”, N.E.R.D. (2008; album: Seeing Sounds)
“May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose”, Little Jimmy Dickens (???)
“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, traditional (hey, I’m trying to help you out here)
April 14th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Excellent chance mix. I particularly enjoyed the Rev and the Spfld music from way back when. Looking forward to the next part(s).
April 14th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
What about “Head to Toe” by the amazing Lisa Lisa? Does Mr. Communist dislike people with the same name twice? What if Boutros Boutros-Ghali was a fan of anatomical pop. Would you leave him off, too?
April 14th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
You forgot the chin!!!!
Nice clever mix there, AC. The songs I do not have will be securely locked in my iTunes soon. Thanks.
April 15th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Johann referencing N.E.R.D. fills this week’s WTF quotient, and it’s only Monday. Oh, and by WTF, I mean Weird Trivia and Facts, like these guys:
http://www.pantagraph.com/wtf/
April 15th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Uh, was that a good thing?!
I’ve never heard of N.E.R.D. (natch); I merely did a Google of “songs with nose in the title”.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Johann: It’s certainly not a bad thing. I figured a Googling came up with N.E.R.D., though. They do have a song called “Lapdance” that you’ve probably heard in a movie or commercial somewhere, though.
April 16th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Hey, how about hosting Eye Know on a 3rd party site?
Us lowly independent content creating sites actually pay for bandwidth you know…
Thanks.
April 16th, 2008 at 7:17 am
Done and done, Rafi. My bad.
April 16th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
[…] Part 1 […]
April 17th, 2008 at 1:29 am
thank you kindly.
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
[…] Part 1 Part 2 […]