Welcome to the third part in our ongoing (ie until I get bored of it) feature that looks at some of my favourite songs. This evening we have a rather strange mix, but one full of awesome song goodness.
MP3 Dntel – (This Is) The Dream Of Evan And Chan (expired) (Life Is Full Of Possibilities, 2001)
Back to where the seeds for the formation of The Postal Service were sewn. Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel) drafted in Ben Gibbard for this one song on his 2001 album, and ended up recording an entire album together. It’s not hard to see why from this song though. It’s six minutes of electronic perfection, the song rising from the static at the beginning and descending into the same at the end. Gibbard’s delivery adds a wistful tone to the song, as he recites his dream. Everything there is perfect before it’s ruined by the telephone waking him up. Simple, yet very effective.
MP3 The New Pornographers – Mass Romantic (Mass Romantic, 2000)
I’m going to be honest: I didn’t think ‘Twin Cinema’ was a very good album. In fact, listening to it put me off of The New Pornographers in general for a while. Thankfully though I started appreciating ‘Mass Romantic’ and ‘Electric Version’ once more, and they are damn fine works. The title song from that first album is one of their very best, lyrically non-sensical, but sounding perfect. I guess it’s inevitable when you have so many talented people in one group that the results will be good, but I never would have expected things to be this good, particularly given that I don’t really like Neko Case very much either. I know, I know, I don’t seem to like anything.
MP3 Saves The Day – Take Our Cars Now! (expired) (I’m Sorry I’m Leaving EP, 1998)
I have a very large soft spot for Saves The Day. I’m not entirely sure why as I really dislike most heavy punk emo type things, but I tend to like most of their stuff, excluding some of their newer material. This song is from their acoustic EP, which is better than most of their more rocking albums to me. They are a perfect lyrics band to me, and it’s their music that often lets them down. This toned down version of the band allows Chris’ voice to come to the forefront, which to me is a good thing, but won’t be to the people who think he sounds like a whiny kid. Although ‘Jessie & My Whetstone’ is the more popular song from that EP, and rightly so given how good it is, ‘Take Our Cars Now!’ is often overlooked. Telling the story of recovering after a car crash, it’s suitably downbeat without becoming morbidly so. I just wish they would go down the route of this kind of song more often, although their recent re-recording of some of their older songs acoustically possibly bodes well for the future.
MP3 The Cautions – Coffee Shop Girl (The Cautions, 2001)
I know absolutely nothing about The Cautions. I wouldn’t even know they existed if not for a mislabelled mp3 on Soulseek. This song is commonly circulated as being Ozma, but one can quickly here that it sounds nothing like them. Even so, it’s still a great little power pop song all about liking the girl who works in the coffee shop. Unfortunately though, our intrepid narrator doesn’t quite have the spine to do anything about it, even though he assures us that he is building up to it (“One day soon, wait and see / I will ask her out with me”). It’s a hopeful message, but we know full well he’s probably never going to manage it. Oh wonderful cynicism.
MP3 The Fall – Touch Sensitive (expired) (The Marshall Suite, 1999)
The song that will forever be known as “the one from the Corsa ad”. At least that’s how it’ll be remembered in the UK. Which I could bitch about, but it’s how I found the song, so it would be a tad hypocritical. I’ve tried and tried since then to appreciate The Fall, but I can’t seem to do it, outside of a handful of songs. I love this one though, it’s shambolic mess somehow held together by Mark E Smith’s rambling vocals. It doesn’t seem to have any deep meaning, unless you can find some in things like “and you’re dying for a pee / so you go behind a try / and a Star Wars police vechile pulls up”.
That’s your lot for today. Join me over the weekend where I’ll be posting up a couple of really interesting bands I’ve discovered lately that will be more than worthy of your time. In the meantime, I’m going to go and bury my head in the sand and hope that the World Cup goes away. At least I’ve got free preview tickets to Thank You For Smoking to ease the pain a little.
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