Some long time back, greymatters over at Lobal Warming posted her 7 Songs I'm Into Right Now and "passive-aggressively" tagged some of her fans. The tagging was hilarious and masterfully done and I've been feeling the slight itch of the tag ever since. Although that might just be my new ginch. Or . . . no, it's gotta be the ginch.
I love music, but will occasionally go days without listening to it. And so I joked to greymatters that I'd rather do 7 Buffy or Northern Exposure episodes instead, since those are really what I'm groovin' on these days, what with the lack of cable and all.
But this summer when I was in Edmonton, I had the opportunity to pillage my parents' prodigious CD collection and relive the mixed tapes of my youth. And last night, Padu came over to reap the rewards of my pillaging. And it got me thinking about our friendship and our history of mixed tapes and the music we'd given each other and how our mixed tapes became the soundtrack of our lives when we were in different schools, in different cities, having life-shaping experiences, realizing we were both big homos, dancing alone in our rooms half a country apart and generally being wankerific.
Padu and I started making mixed tapes for each other 16 years ago, when we were 15. We hung out at the Edmonton Folk Festival's Celtic tent and after the Folk Fest ended, I made Padu a tape. And a grand tradition was born.
So here are the 7 Songs I Put on CD for Padu Last Night That Made Me Nostalgic but Also Made Me Wonder What the Hell We Were Thinking
Alasdair Mhic Cholla Ghasda - Capercaillie
This was the first song I put on the first tape I made Padu. The song is in Gaelic. We learned it phonetically so that we could sing it. Fuck off. We are nerds.
Big Chief - Zachary Richard
This was the first song on the second side of the first tape I made Padu. FUCK we loved this song. It's also . . . uh, racist, which I kind of didn't notice as a teen, because I was distracted by the amazing piano work and the hot trumpet solo (my boyfriend at the time played trumpet. He's gay now too.) A sample of the lyrics:
I'm going to down to get my squaw
Me think me start an Indian war
Uh . . . what?
Dives and Lazarus - June Tabor and The Oyster Band
It may surprise you to learn that I am not a religious person. But as a teen, I could NOT GET ENOUGH OF THIS CHRISTIAN ROCK SONG. Now I don't know June Tabor OR the Oyster Band's other work, but I don't think that either of them are Christian rockers. Anyone? But this song - about the Jesus.
This song contains the lyric:
There's a place for you in Hell
Sitting on a serpent's knee
Uh . . . what? What knees? This verse is followed up by Lazarus singing from heaven:
Hell is dark, Hell is deep
Hell is full of mice
It's a pity that any poor single soul
Should depart from the Saviour Christ
I don't know about you guys, but I feel that rhyming "mice" with "Christ" is WEAK. You couldn't have thrown a little Shakespearean "Hell is thicked ribbed ice" in there? Or taken a shot at gambling with "Hell is losing at dice"? Weird. But DAMN, that song is catchy. That much be how the Christians get ya.
Jesus - Hookahman
A genuinely religious song must needs be followed by a tongue-in-cheek religious song like Jesus, by Edmonton post-industrial-acoustic-grunge-folk-fusion-counterpunk band Hookahman. As with most of Hookahman's work (such as Mint Bum and Ghanja Farm), the real delight lies in the lyrics. The song's about a guy who was good and got to go to Heaven. And, uh, it's boring and he misses his evil friends. Also, his t.v. Boy, can I relate.
So here I am in heaven, get to lie around all day
Got no things I gotta do, got no bills to pay
Everything is clean up here, and nothing is grey
God's got a computer, and St. Peter's got a fax
There's warheads round the holy gates in case Satan attacks
And Hell is just a labour camp where the evil live in shacks
And everyone up here looks just a little too relaxed
For a comedy song, it's also rather mournful and touching, a long bus ride through a snowstorm kind of song. Padu and I remember it fondly.
It Is a Good Day to Die - Robbie Robertson and the Red River Ensemble, from Music for The Native Americans
Some of you keen-memory-havers might remember this as the song I used for Anus Buchli's wanky song project in 3rd year directing. I haven't heard this song for years 'cause I only had it on cassette and I couldn't even pillage it from my dad's collection this summer, because my brother made off with the CD when he went to university. So I downloaded it from iTunes last night. And fucking WEPT. Because of Anus Buchli? Partly.
Set The Prairie On Fire - Shawn Colvin
DAMN, Shawn Colvin! There is no sexier song. No, no - there is not. Talk about your music to bone to. Also, it's 7 minutes long, which lasts longer than the average guy. Or so I'm told.
Padu and I have what I believe is a fair exchange of unrequested or "surprise" songs we'll each think the other will like but which, in fact, SUCK to the other person. For example, he put Billy Joel's Allentown on my last mix. GAH. So last night, I put a couple of things he'd never heard on his mix and this was one of them:
Ocean of Tears - Ruthie Foster
Ruthie Foster - no lover of gospel, folk or blues fan should be without Ruthie Foster's Runaway Soul. Also, she's a big lez and her partner Cyd Cassone plays percussion on the album. My parents saw them at the Edmonton Folk Festival a couple of years back and my dad gave me the CD for Solstice. Because when it comes to lesbian musicians, no one sniffs 'em out like my dad. Except, perhaps, my brother.
Huh.
So there they are - 7 songs out of the 6 Nostalgia mix CDs Padu and I ended up burning. In the interests of full disclosure, I should also mention that we burned the Bangles' cover of Hazy Shade of Winter. Jealous?
