Is there a horse in here somewhere? Why not.

This embodies my sense of helplessness when trying to understand Frazey Ford's mumblesing




She's having a laugh.

We can't go on like this

Well if we're gonna talk dramatic love songs... this one ranks up there. I don't even know if it was a single, but I got it off the radio one day in the 90s and loved it.

I need you like i need oxygen
I don't care if it's all a crutch
But if this is love why does it hurt so much?

There are no lies on your body (what does that even mean?)

I like Barbra Streisand's broadway stuff better than her pop--she has a beautiful voice and really emotes theatre songs. ...But I still like this old bit of melodrama.

YOU TELL ME WHO YOU TELL ME WHERE YOU TELL ME WHEN!!



Can you guess who wrote this song? Duh! Jim Steinman. Obviously.

Voulez-vous? Oui: Je veux. (Mais tu peux me tutoyer.)

It is now 2010... at least as far as my record cull goes. 2010 appears to be the year I uploaded all my Abba. One of the greatest pop bands of all time.

I owned one Abba album, probably their disco-iest. Not even sure how. We had Voulez-vous when I was little because I remember sitting in a big chair with oversized headphones on, listening to it, and being scared by this song (cause I was afraid of fire):



After my parents divorced and I was a pre-teen living with my dad in Winnipeg, I still had this album in my possession, so my mum (back in Edmonton) must have let me take it. My best Winnipeg friend had some others, so between the two of us we cobbled together a strong Abba fan-i-tude.


I thought cat-Haley only liked songs like "Killer Queen" but she's sitting on me and singing along and purring to Chiquitita. Thinks it's about eating chickens?


When we moved to Quebec and I started grade 7 I was sitting next to a girl in Ecology class and we discovered we were Abba fans. That's all it takes to spark a 30 year old friendship.

The appropriate response towards underaged groupies.


There are sooo many great Abba songs. But here it is in all it's disco glory: Abba's Voulez-vous album.

Perfect example of how behind the goofy costumes and disco beats, there are some very real lyrics. Nothing worse for a heartbreak than nighttime.


 And the eternal question continues to haunt us all... why did they put those cheap, ugly, cardboard looking belts over those cute dresses?

Love Frida's voice here. By the time this posts, I hope we can dedicate this to Trump.
 

My music collection is down to 16 759 from 18 433.
2500 items in the trash can.

Let's finish with Yellowman

And so I come to the end of a sampling of the songs I uploaded to my computer in 2009, as I work at culling my fricking itunes library.

For 2009: 1274 down to 1174



If all the girls should be 'cross the sea
What a great swimmer Yellowman would be

Terrence Howard writes a lot of great soundtrack music

Beautiful. And a great montage by Spike Lee. I don't know why they didn't release a proper soundtrack.

Wyclef accidentally writes catchy song while critiquing Autotune

Wyclef Jean is def in my top 10 of favorite artists. And he comes out with some funny little gems sometimes.

Indian A-Team

How did I even come across that song? (Other than my being an A-Team fan.) Maybe I was trying to find this song from one of my fave Spaced scenes:

This is the song "Clothes Off" reminds me of

Melissa Ferrick - Drive

Measha Brueggergosman, Joni and I really don't know life

This won't be for everyone, but the first time I saw it it gave me shivers, and it can still bring me to tears. Not only is Measha so expressive, but the arrangement takes the song to a place you're not expecting. It's the Phil-Spector-as-described-by-Art-Garfunkel technique: you give the audience everything except the kitchen sink... and then you give them the kitchen sink.

And I think the epic feel surprisingly suits a song with such huge themes.



Something's lost, and something's gained, in living every day.

Eurythmics - 1984

Kanye & Prince & Doug and the Slugs

 Good heavens, I was watching videos from the Grammy performances and went down an internet rabbit hole. But it's nice when it's a music rabbit hole. Just 4 hours of watching/listening to live performances and reading music articles. Did you know Paul McCartney wasn't allowed into some random rapper nobody's after party? Très amusant. Have you seen the videos for the Queen 1981 Montreal concert? Crystal clear, it's a thing of beauty.

Anyway, I happened upon an article that echoes how I've been feeling about Kanye West. Whenever he goes on a twitter rant (weekly, almost daily now) I chuckle, and then feel bad.

Prince is crazy too, but even when he changed his name to a symbol I didn't worry about him. I worry about poor little Kanye. The fellow is not well. And there's no one in his life with enough influence to keep him off twitter.

Maybe he needs a visit from Brother Prince.
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Back to the music cull...

One of my dad's fave bands. One of those bands where the humorous front kind of masks how good the lyrics actually are. And they're really the antithesis of the rock n' roll image--they're songs about ordinary people.



Bad new don't ruin my appetite
Don't let the papers tell me if it's wrong or right
I just do what I do and I do it
Day by day by day by day by day

Live a life and I take it slow
Made mistakes but oh that's the way it goes
I just know what I know it
Day by day by day by day by day

Day by day I'm feeling stronger
Day by day I'm lasting longer
Day by day you help me make my way

I speak up when I feel it's right
I jump up when I know that I got to fight
Until then I just take it
Day by day by day by day by day

Day by day I'm feeling stronger
Day by day I'm lasting longer
Day by day you help me make my way

With you don't worry 'bout it
With you don't worry 'bout it
With you don't worry 'bout it
Day by day by day by day by day

Sometimes they deny it and I
I feel strangely blue?
Sometimes they deny it and I
Like the evil I get from you

Day by day you show me a better way
Day by day you help me to find a place
Day by day you help me make it
Day by day by day by day by day

Day by day I'm feeling stronger
Day by day I'm lasting longer
Day by day you help me make it
Day by day by day by day by day

Day by day I'm feeling stronger
Day by day I'm lasting longer
Day by day you help me make it
Day by day by day by day by day

Day by day I'm feeling stronger
Day by day I'm lasting longer
Day by day you help me make my way

She's deeeeaaaaad (She's not dead.)

From the best episode of The Office. Only David Brent could break down the will of a seminar facilitator. "Free Love Highway" reminds me of my friend Gilby, who sang this all day as we walked around Oxford.



He went home to get it.

I didn't know this version existed:

Damon Albarn is a wonder

This is a beautiful song... from a Civil War era cannibal zombie horror movie. Oh Damon. You scamp.

The folk version...


The GORGEOUS symphonic arrangement for the end credits...

Ciara's a lot of fun

What if I had a thing on the side?
Made ya cry?
Would the rules change up?
Or would they still apply?

Big Boi - Church

More men running around in suits (Block Rockin' Beats)

Cat Power - The Greatest

Once I wanted to be the greatest
No wind or waterfall could stall me
And then came the rush of the flood

You so beautiful, but you got to die someday

1999 One Hit Wonder: Stop the Rock

Alicia Keys and Annie Lennox singing "Everybody Hurts"

The Great Music Cull of 2016

So... I have too much music. I have 18 433 songs in my itunes. At some point I'd stopped getting ridding of songs I didn't like cause I have plenty of memory in my computer; and I kept a lot of things in case I changed my mind about them, or newly got into them, etc etc bla bla I can't explain.

But now I want my library to be just wall to wall things I love, or like a lot. So it's Projet Cull time.

I've built myself a smart playlist that doesn't include genres I don't want to go through right now (musicals, opera, classical...) and then I'm listening through the rest as I do other things. (This is one of the reasons I don't like to watch videos or podcasts people recommend to me. I'm always listening to music... and trying to get some music-shit done, son.)

You can't delete songs from within playlists, so my method has always been to award a song 5 stars if I don't like it, and then delete all the 5 stars from the main Music window. So right now I'm 5-starring what I don't care for, and giving 1 star (or listening through the song) if I like it. Either actions makes the song disappear from my smart playlist, and on I go til there's nothing left.*

I decided to go by the year the song was uploaded--it seems the last time I rebuilt my library was in 2009, so that's where we began. It's and interesting biographical exercise cause I'm reminded of things that happened in my life that year, what I was writing, what I was into.

The hardest to cull are full albums that I either bought or got from the library. If I bought the album I don't like to delete too much from it, cause I still have an old school respect for the sanctity of the album. But I'm also 43 years old and haven't got time for songs I just don't like. So. I'm being tougher. But it's harder to decide what to take out, so sometimes I just classify the songs "albums to consider" and I'll come back to them later.

So without more ado... let us explore song of the songs dug out of 2009! Here's my first offering:



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* The most horrifying thing is that itunes added this function where ratings you apply to individual songs now get applied to a new column called "album rating." So when I go to delete the 5-stars, I have to be careful to skip the ones that are only ALBUM rated 5-stars, as chosen by the fucking computer. Everyone like me who uses the stars to organize their huge libraries are bitching about this, and there aren't any great work arounds.

You see this? The three Bruce Springsteen songs that I DO NOT want to delete? Fuckers.