It occurred to me recently while listening to some song that I can't recall off the top of my head (maybe Portugal the Man's "Feel It Still?") that I really like bass/baritone saxophone. Something about it really seems to hit a sweet spot in a lot of songs for me.
Instruments you love? Songs they are featured in? Let's hear what ya got.
Watching the game last night, I heard Target Field play "Let It Be" during the challenge review. "Pretty clever," I thought, before realizing that that's surely happened at football and hockey games too, and long before baseball.
Still... it generated this idea. Go ahead and select the musical score for a baseball game. Here's the standard categories, and add your own as you see fit (or steal from others that others see fit). Heck, suggest a category for others too - no need to have an answer before you ask the question!
Single
Double
Triple
Home Run
Walk
Intentional Walk
Strikeout (swinging? looking?)
Stolen Base
Caught Stealing
Double Play
Great fielding play
Umpire Review (overturn, uphold)
Injury time out
Pitching change
Second pitching change in an inning
Starter gets pulled after a great outing
Rain delay (just one song)
Delay because of streaker/animal on the field/other unusual
Walkoff win
I live on a farm site. There is a large grove. In that grove are a few piles of... stuff. Yesterday afternoon one of those piles spontaneously combusted, so a lot of time was spent hauling water out there and moving sprinklers around and just standing around looking at the flames and/or embers.
Anyway, give us your best "fire" song, and be as creative as you feel inspired to be.
When in the car I've been listening to a lot of Oldies radio lately. Oldies as in "songs that were considered oldies when I was a kid" not "songs that were popular when I was a kid." So basically 50's and 60's. Growing up, when I wasn't listening to children's music, I was usually listening to this class of oldies. It had been a good while since I'd found a station to scratch this itch, so now that I have one, I tend to listen to it pretty much every time I'm in the car and the Twins aren't on. Admittedly a large part of that is the dearth of good radio stations out my way.
I've been thinking about trying to expose my children to some of the era. They get a fair amount of Beatles and Elivs in their musical diet already, but not too much else. We've got a road trip coming up this summer, which might be a good time to work on the musical education of my kids. So the question I'll pose today: if you were making a 50's and 60's mix without any Beatles or Elvis, what would be a necessary add?
A few months ago we talked about "Shake it off" songs, that help you get over the rough patches. Today, I want to go the opposite direction. Sometimes a person craves the songs that hit a deeper chord and help fully open up the emotional expression. I once put together a mix of these songs - not quite sad, more melancholic - but it was lost so long ago that I'm not sure I could list more than two or three of my selections.
If you were putting together such a list, what would it look like? Would you pick songs that are sad in terms of lyrics, or sad in a more sonic fashion? I know that personally the music makes a bigger impact than the lyrics when it comes to this kind of mood music. Indeed, I'd often pick songs that aren't so much "sad"
To kick it off, here's a couple of nominations:
Death Cab For Cutie's "Transatlanticism"
Cloud Cult's "There's So Much Energy In Us"
Chumbawumba's cover of "New York Mining Disaster 1941"
Joseph Arthur's "In The Sun"
"Into the West"
Willie Nelson's cover of "The Scientist"
Neko Case's "I Wish I Was The Moon"
So... what's good for melancholy?
I've been listening to a lot of my old albums lately. Meaning the things I listened to in high school and college. My physical collection is largely packed up and put away right now, so as I'm inspired to pick an old album I just pull it up on youtube. That's handy.
Anyway, lots of them have not held up as well as I thought they might (The Love Below was disappointing. Still kind of a fun concept album, but the execution is just far too inconsistent.) Others were even better than I remembered (Chumbawumba's WYSIWYG is fan-freaking-tastic.). Lots were nicely familiar (BNL's albums), and well worth the time.
Anyway, for this week maybe we can talk old albums. What's something you haven't dusted off in ages that you used to listen to regularly?
First off, let me wish my lovely wife a happy birthday: Happy Birthday Philosofette.
Great, now that that's out of the way, let's do something fun.
Last week I had the privilege of driving across half of the country. We passed through a decent number of states, and as we did so I often found myself thinking, "I wonder what song would be a good song for [the state we are driving through right now]?" I know this type of thing has been done other places, but I thought it might be fun to put together a WGOM 50 State Song List (plus DC).
So nominate your, uh, nominations. Use whatever criteria you see fit. Name dropping (for example: "I'm from New Jersey," for New Jersey), artist home (for example, Springsteen, for New Jersey), or anything else that fits the state (for example, a song by Garbage, for New Jersey). Then, chime in on others nominations. If it seems like there's a consensus forming, I might add it to the list. If the consensus changes, I'll change the list. You know. Whatever. It's informal. Also, I'm a big fan of not necessarily going with the obvious (though sometimes I suppose you have to).
I've gotten us started with two nominations.
The other week, when we were talking about those stealth music attacks, funerals came up a few times. Then last week I got to present on some wills and estate planning things and one of the other presenters talked about funeral planning. So it's been on the brain for me, of late (eh? late? eh...?).
So I'll put the question to you plainly: what do you want played at your funeral?
There are no wrong answers. Seriously. Even "Tubthumping" works... (Jokes are the best way to put the "fun" back in "funeral).
Eating Lucky Charms is about as Irish as I get.
What do/did you sing to your kids to get them to sleep? What do you like for yourself for the same?
I've been cycling through the same handful of songs, adding one or two with each of my kids. The rotation is pretty much:
"Hallelujah" (More Cohen than anyone else, when I sing it)
"When You Dream" (BNL)
"Salvation Is Created" (Chesnokov)
"You'll Be In My Heart" (Collins)
"Leaving On A Jet Plane" (Peter, Paul, & Mary)
"You Are My Sunshine"
Occasionally some others make it into the mix, but the kids usually request these ones, and I know 'em.
We've also found that Don Williams and George Strait work pretty well for rocking a baby to sleep.
