The Girls in Their Summer Dresses Playlist

Even though the weather’s taken a turn for the worse here in the cheery MidWest, I’m allocating my post today to the celebration of the beautiful tan summertime. The title of my playlist comes from a short story by Irwin Shaw, which, believe it or not, somebody’s taken the trouble to transcribe from book to the Internet. You can read it, in its entirety, here. It’s kind of cute. Not as cute as summer creatures, mind you, like baby bunnies and, you know, lobsters. D’you know that it’s supposed to SNOW on Friday? SNOW! It’s becoming too much for me, thanks. I can’t wait to get out of here and to L.A. They have plenty of lobsters there.

The Girls in Their Summer Dresses Playlist

songs for the summertime

1. ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ by Stan Getz & João Gilberto (Possibly the best song ever written by anyone anywhere.)

2. ‘Ukulele Me!’ by Stephin Merritt

3. ‘Lovable and Sweet’ by Annette Hanshaw

4. ‘Song for a Young Queen’ by Chris Thile

5. ‘Only If …’ by Enya (She has a super-cool site, by the way. Visit it even if you’re not into her music.)

6. ‘To Be in Love’ by Louis Armstrong (Ok, I know, counting ‘Lovable and Sweet’, that’s two 20’s tunes, and that not everybody is as fond as I am of 1920’s music, but it’s worth listening to just for Armstrong’s trumpet.)

7. ‘Só Danço Samba (I Only Dance Samba)’ by Stan Getz & João Gilberto

Here’s ‘Girl From Ipanema’; according to the youtube page I got it from, this is “Astrud Gilberto … with Stan Getz in the 1964 flick ‘Get Yourself A College Girl’.”

There is nothing better than this song.

What’s with Skulky McSkulkerson at around 2:05?

I don’t own this video. I got it here.

The Reincarnation Playlist

Every experience you have, my dear sweet friends, has a perfect song or two to go along with it – even those spiritual trips you take round the wheel of life! I’ll bet you thought that my website was limited to providing soundtracks solely for your current life, your present state of being. Well, boy-o, you’re WRONG! I, a considerate gal, have taken the time out to craft a playlist meant to ease you along your journey as you pass to your next form – I mean, if you’re into that kind of thing. I know it’s tough to let go, but just think – if you survived that morning we discussed in yesterday’s playlist, the process of reincarnation should be a piece of cake.

The Reincarnation Playlist

1. ‘I Have the Moon’ by The Magnetic Fields

2. ‘I Remember’ by Julee Cruise (Take care with this one – it gets seriously spooky at one point.)

3. ‘Nirvana’ by Elbosco (Their inclusion on the soundtrack of the very cool movie ‘Millions’ seems to have made them very popular, but evidently they’re the only group of people in the entire world who DON’T HAVE A WEBSITE. They don’t even have a myspace! So click the link for their Amazon page, where you can buy one of their cd’s when Amazon can get ahold of one.)

4. ‘Always With Me, Always With You’ by Joe Satriani

5. ‘Cosmia’ by Joanna Newsom

6. ‘Seven Steps to Haeven’ by Yara (Wow! Elbosco’s not alone! If Yara’s got a website, they don’t want me to find it – so click the link to see their Amazon page. Sheesh. There’s another Yara out there making music, and she’s pretty cool, too. I found her accidentally while looking for the aforementioned Yara’s website, and she’s worth listening to. Visit her site here.)

Here’s Elbosco’s music video; I’m embedding it here not because the video itself is so awesome, but because I super want you to hear how great this song is:

Of course, I don’t mean to ACTUALLY suggest that these songs illustrate anybody’s beliefs about reincarnation. So don’t write me hollering about how I’ve got everything wrong and how you’re pretty sure that ‘Nirvana’ is actually Christian-themed and all that stuff. Also don’t write me hollering about how the Julee Cruise song I gave you the unbelievable jeeblies and now you can’t sleep. I WARNED YOU!

I don’t own this video. I got it here.

The Getting Up For Work After Having Returned Home at Three in the Morning Playlist

Every moment of your life, my friends, can be approprietly scored with a playlist – including all those wobbly, growly mornings when you have to get dressed and go to work despite having stayed out very, very, very late last night. It’s true! To prove it, I give you the Getting Up For Work After Having Returned Home at Three in the Morning Playlist, a sequel to yesterday’s playlist. Pop those earbuds in and listen to these tunes, and cast your mind forward to a day when this will all seem very, very funny to you:

The Getting Up For Work After Having Returned Home at Three in the Morning Playlist

1. ‘Rehab’ by Amy Winehouse (this also has the BEST music video; I can’t embed it because youtube’s disabled that option, but you can go see it here.)

2. ‘Extreme Ways’ by Moby

3. ‘Stormy Weather’ by Billie Holiday

4. ‘Design’ by Fiction Company

5. ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots’ by The Flaming Lips

6. ‘Thank You’ by Dido

Well, I’m kind of at a loss, folks. I know I usually embed a music video of one of the aforementioned songs here, but I can’t embed ‘Rehab’, I can’t tell which is the official ‘Extreme Ways’ video, there certainly isn’t a decent ‘Stormy Weather’ video, except sung by people I don’t like, the ‘Design’ video is a pain, the ‘Yoshimi’ video is stupid and very nearly ruins the song for me, and the ‘Thank You’ video gives me the creeps.

So here’s a singing manatee instead:

I don’t own this video. I got it here.

I also didn’t make this video. This girl did.

The Returning Home at Three in the Morning Playlist

As always, folks, I’m here to bring you unique mixes of music to suit all and every event in your life. Today I bring you the Returning Home at Three in the Morning Playlist:

Addled, buzzing with music, and crashing into things and hollering with laughter even if you’re perfectly darn sober, it’s a very special sensation to be returning home at three in the morning. Now, this playlist is about a GOOD return home – the kind where you shout “BYE! BYE! BYE!” and wave both your hands around your head to whoever dropped you off or to whoever you’re dropping off, the kind where you go to sleep still laughing and with your eyeliner still on. This isn’t the kind of three in the morning return after a party that’s gone on too long, and, as we’ve discussed in our last playlist, at which all remaining guests have become melancholy and have begun to share frighteningly personal information, often with crescendoing degrees of awfullness as each tries to top the next. No, no – this is a happy Returning Home at Three in the Morning Playlist; it’s the soundtrack to whatever crazy, flashing dreams you have after collapsing into bed smiling.

The Returning Home at Three in the Morning Playlist

1. ‘Must Be Dreaming’ by Frou Frou

2. ‘Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse’ by Of Montreal (More about this at the end of the post.)

3. ‘Follow You, Follow Me’ by Genesis

4. ‘Leave Me Breathless’ by The Corrs

5. ‘You and Me and the Moon’ by The Magnetic Fields

6. ‘Safety Dance’ by Men Without Hats (This is one of my absolute favorite songs EVER. Seriously, EVER. I’ll include it in another post, probably; some repetition, I hope you agree, is acceptable. This song just makes me want to do that dance where you whirl your arms, fists balled, around each other and shift your feet around and sort of tilt your head and raise a shoulder … you know, it’s surprisingly hard to describe dances without sounding like you’re detailing a weird ritual or a kind of arcane street fighting technique; I’ll bet some clever reader can glean a thesis paper about pop dance culture from this observation.)

7. ‘Heaven’ by DJ Sammy & Yanou featuring Do (This is originally a Bryan Adams tune, as I’m sure all you Gen X-ers know, but DJ Sammy’s was the popular version for Gen Y-ers like ME!)

8. ‘Nothing in This World’ by Paris Hilton (I refuse to apologize for putting this song on here; her voice is so manipulated by studio professionals to make is sound like she can sing that I don’t really even think of this as a Paris Hilton song so much as a robot song, and I LOVE IT. Besides, if Stephin Merritt can be open about his ABBA love, then, gosh darn it, I can like ‘Nothing in This World’!)

9. ‘Goodnight and Go’ by Imogen Heap (the vocalist from Frou Frou)

All right; so, those of you who live in a cave and are not aware of ‘Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse’ need to become aware of it RIGHT NOW, not only because it’s a great song, but because its music video was directed by the Brothers Chaps, the geniuses behind Homestarrunner.com. I’m trying to restrain my desire to compare it to Wes Anderson (a chum of mine once noted that whenever I really like something I compare it to Wes Anderson, and as a matter of fact I had just a moment before she spoke said that the great sandwich I was eating made me think of ‘Rushmore’) but for real – take a look at it. It’s funny in precisely the same way as the Chapmans’ site, and stands multiple viewings:

Ha ha ha ha, the ghost in the audience.

I don’t own this video. I got it here.

The 5 in the Afternoon Road Trip Playlist

The final installation of my “Road Trip” trilogy (Part One: The 4 in the Morning Road Trip Playlist, Part Two: The 9 in the Morning Road Trip Playlist), I give you The 5 in the Afternoon Road Trip Playlist, a list of songs which I think you’d like listening to in the evening as you cruise on down that dusty highway. At this point during the trip, all the travelers – particularly if there’s an even number, so that everyone feels as though they can pair up for soul-searching – have gotten vaguely melancholy and are probably revealing information about themselves that had been better left unrevealed. Throw on these tunes to both allow passengers to indulge their self-pity and to stop them from uttering any new sentences that begin “I’ve never told anybody this, but …”

The Five in the Afternoon Road Trip Playlist

1. ‘Lovers in a Dangerous Time’ by the Barenaked Ladies (The original was by Bruce Cockburn, and it was great, but I really dig the Barenaked Ladies’s; their very basic, accoustic treatment brings out the melody more than Cockburn did.)

2. ‘Two Characters in Search of a Country Song’ by the Magnetic Fields

3. ‘Mad Summer’ by Joe Hisaishi (from the soundtrack to Takeshi Kitano’s fantastic film Kikujiro)

4. ‘Life for Rent’ by Dido

5. ‘Save Tonight’ by Eagle-Eye Cherry

6. ‘The First of Autumn’ by Enya

7. ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ by Bob Dylan

8. ‘Green and Gray’ by Nickel Creek

9. ‘Night Drive’ by Gotye

Here’s a video of Joe Hisaishi playing “Summer”, another track from the same film as “Mad Summer”; it didn’t fit with the playlist, but it’s a really lovely piece and I thought you ought to hear it:

Joe Hisaishi rocks my world.

Disclaimer: I don’t own this video. I got it here.

The 9 in the Morning Road Trip Playlist

For my next playlist recipe, I’ve designed the sequel to the 4 in the Morning Road Trip Playlist; the following are songs to be listened to after your road trip has progressed a ways, and you’ve ceased being blurry and begun being pumped. You don’t really even care that you’re lost and that you’ve just discovered that neither of you ACTUALLY know where North Dakota is. Enjoy!

The 9 in the Morning Road Trip Playlist

1. ‘Suddenly I See’ by KT Tunstall

2. ‘Fear of Trains’ by The Magnetic Fields

3. ‘Just What I Needed’ by The Cars (Did you know that Ric Ocasek had a cameo in the original Hairspray movie? He plays a beatnik in a crazy turtleneck, man.)

4. ‘Prince Charming’ by Adam Ant

5. ‘Queen Bitch’ by David Bowie

6. ‘The Littlest Birds’ by The Be Good Tanyas

7. ‘Gypsy’ by Fleetwood Mac

Here’s Dave-o singing ‘Queen Bitch’ with considerably less gusto than he does on the mp3 I’ve got:

But he’s wearing red shoes, so I guess he can do anything he wants.

I don’t own this video. I got it here.

The 4 in the Morning Road Trip Playlist

… roadtrip? Road-trip? Hm.

Anyhow, for my next playlist recipe, I give you The 4 in the Morning Road Trip Playlist, the first in a series of “Roadtrip” playlists to be played at certain times during the day. At 4 in the morning, I imagine, you’re just heading out – so these songs are ponderous, mysterious, and, at times, dreamy, because you keep falling asleep at the wheel and I swear to God we missed that cliff by two feet, man, by two feet!!

Pull over. I’m driving.

The 4 in the Morning Road Trip Playlist

1. ‘Are You Going With Me?’ by Pat Metheny Group

2. ‘Over Easy’ by Ray Lynch

3. ‘It’s Going On Saturday’ by Aztec Two-Step

4. ‘In Praise of Dreams’ by Jan Garbarek

5. ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ by Steven Curtis Chapman

Well, I really wanted to show you a video for Garbarek’s ‘In Praise of Dreams’, but there’s none to be had, so here’s some other cool Garbarek tunes, played live:

Disclaimer: I don’t own this video. I got it here.

The Lost In Dickensian London Playlist

Firstly, thanks to cmbonacci, natalieam. and tkevathe for their kind comments! Well, tkevathe’s wasn’t so much kind as it was inquirious, and to answer your inquiry, my friend: the Alseep in a Hammock playlist is all right to listen to while operating heavy machinery as long as you’re ok with some dizziness and rare cases of fainting, loss of vision, or nausea.

Secondly, today I give you the Lost in Dickensian London Playlist, a playlist which I myself listen to frequently on my very own ipod!

I’m a pretty huge Dickens fan. No, sorry, allow me to rephrase: I’m a petite yet fanatic admirer of Dickens’. This playlist is meant to feel like some of the more chaotic Dickens moments, really; or, if you must know, it was designed to feel like the entirety of “Nicholas Nickleby“, my favorite book EVER.

The Lost In Dickensian London Playlist

1. ‘Sussex Ghost Story’ by John Wesley Harding

2. ‘Ramalama (Bang Bang)’ by Roisin Murphy

3. ‘Easter Thursday’ by Bare Necessities

4. ‘You’re My Only Home’ by The Magnetic Fields

5. ‘The Sound of Silence’ by Simon & Garfunkel (be sure to get the long version and not the edit from “The Graduate”. I ended up having to buy the song twice because of such carelessness and foolery.)

6. ‘Monkey & Bear’ by Joanna Newsom

7. ‘Heart’s A Mess’ by Gotye

I’m a big Gotye fan – er, no, I’m a delicately-built but avid lover of Gotye’s music. I think Heart’s A Mess is not just Gotye’s finest song so far, but one of the finest songs I’ve heard in a long time. Now, that’s just me speaking; if you’ve been following all my playlist recipes thus far, I’m sure you can tell that I’ve got a taste for synths and layered sound. I know that not everyone feels this way, but Gotye’s got a very sweet, skilled voice to go along with these, and some nice jazzy breaks in Heart’s. Here’s the music video; I definitely encourage you to watch it and then to visit his site.

Disclaimer: I don’t own this video. I got it here.

The Prairies in October Playlist

Sure, the sweet warm summer is coming, and, sure, I’m hitching the first ride I can out of these lousy prairies, but let’s not forget that for one month in the autumn, more or less, the flatlands of America are pretty cool. What better way to celebrate their four-week span of foggy, brown & lavander ghostly beauty than by forming a theme playlist for them? Sir, I will tell you politely but firmly that THERE IS NO BETTER WAY.

So here y’are:

The Prairies in October Playlist

1. ‘Song For Jesse’ by Nick Cave from the soundtrack to “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (An incredible film – one of the best I’ve ever seen. It was put out in super-limited release in 2007 and for that reason left almost as soon as it’d arrived, and that’s an incredible shame; I encourage everyone to get it on dvd. Seriously, I rank it with “Seven Samurai” and “My Dinner With Andre“. It makes me sad and hurty inside that everyone’s not cheering for it, and critics aren’t doing that thing where they creak back in their chairs and try and fit the words “ambiguity” and “evil” together in a sentence somehow, like “Well, its treatment of the ambiguity of evil was cookie-cutter, really,” which they do whenever a really awesome movie comes out.)

2. ‘Asleep and Dreaming’ by The Magnetic Fields

3. ‘The Coo Coo Bird’ by The Be Good Tanyas

4. ‘This Land is Mine’ by Dido

5. ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ by Emmylou Harris

6. ‘Laurie De’ Tullins’ by Chris Thile

7. ‘Hallelujah’ by k.d. lang

8. ‘Ivory’ by Ray Lynch

Gee, I was pretty disparaging about film critics before, wasn’t I? Well, not as disparaging as these guys:

Disclaimer: I don’t own this video. I got it here.

The I Absolutely Cannot Sleep Thinking About You Playlist

If you’ve actually got lovelorn insomnia, it isn’t romantic in the least. But with this playlist humming on your speakers, you’ll be able to pretend it is.

The I Absolutely Cannot Sleep Thinking About You Playlist

1. ‘Give Me Back My Dreams’ by The 6ths

2. ‘Coming Back’ by Gotye

3. ‘Here With Me’ by Dido

4. ‘Aubrey’ by Bread

5. ‘Only You’ by Yaz (Nobody I know knows Yaz. This makes me want to cry and cry. I read a great article about them a couple years ago, in V, I think – but that’s the only place I’ve ever seen them mentioned. They’re so worth listening to! Their synth work is so clever, and their vocalist has such a lovely deep voice. Apparently they’re doing a reunion this year! Click on the link on their name to read more. BTW, they’re called Yazoo in the UK, and that’s the way their page refers to them.)

6. ‘But Not For Me’ by various artists. My favorite version is Doris Day’s.

7. ‘Samson’ by Regina Spektor (Careful with this one – it often makes me cry. Then again, so does The Muppet Christmas Carol.)

8. ‘100,000 Fireflies’ by The Magnetic Fields

Here’s Yaz (or Yazoo)’s “Only You”:

Disclaimer: I don’t own this video. I got it here.