No intro, just random music…
1. “The Rainbow Connection” – Kermit the Frog. From The Muppet Movie, of course, probably the first truly quotable movie I ever saw. “Bear left!” “Right, frog!” “You, you with the banjo, can you help me? I seem to have lost my sense of direction!” “Have you tried Hare Krishna?” “Sparkling Muscatel, one of the finest wines of Idaho.” I could go on, but you get the picture.
2. “That Was Your Mother” – Paul Simon. Kind of a bookend piece to “Born At The Right Time”, though you’d think the idealistic latter song would be the one to write first.
3. “War” – Bruce Springsteen. From the 1975-1985 live CDs. Remember when the NFL took the Edwin Starr original, cut out all of the “What is it good for?” stuff, and turned it into a glorification of guys hitting each other? That was probably the most flagrant abuse of a song and its meaning till Wrangler Jeans turned Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” into a backdrop for flag-waving.
4. “This Land Is Your Land” – Bruce Springsteen. Yeah, two from the same CD. I’m fascinated by the idea that this song was written as a response to “God Bless America”. I can kinda sorta see that, but if no one had ever told me that fact, it never would have occurred to me.
5. “Romeo and Juliet” – Dire Straits. My favorite song off of my favorite Dire Straits CD. I realize that Douglas Adams preferred Tunnel of Love, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but this one’s my fave.
6. “Crawlin’ King Snake” – John Lee Hooker. Here, have a video.
7. “The Cross” – The Jubilettes. From a CD of Prince covers by Austin artists. As with many of the songs on this CD, if you didn’t know it was a Prince song going in, you wouldn’t realize it as you were listening to it. I love it when music crosses genres like that.
8. “Love Hurts” – Nazareth. Many moons ago, on Valentine’s Day, one of the local DJs – it may even have been Dayna Steele – played a listener-suggested block of songs in honor of the day. (She did a regular feature during her shift, which covered the lunch hour, called Work Force Blocks, which were usually three or four songs from a particular artist, with some variations like this one thrown in.) The playlist was, in order, “Love Stinks” by the J. Geils Band; “Love Hurts”; and “Love Bites” by Def Leppard. Clearly, someone was feeling a bit cynical about the whole enterprise.
9. “Wonderwall” – Oasis. Tiffany attended grad school in Manchester around the time these guys were hitting it big. So yes, she has their stuff in her collection.
10. “52nd Street Theme” – Tommy Flanagan. From a CD tribute to Thelonius Monk. All my playlists have some jazz on them.
What are you listening to these days?