The Swell Season - Strict Joy

The Swell Season's Oscar winning song "Falling Slowly" is one of the more beautiful love songs I've had the pleasure of listening to while staring dreamily out a rain sluiced car window. It's been a while since I've listened to this song, but that is at it should be. I've overplayed too many songs I find beautiful and emotionally compelling, and they lose their impact for when they might be more needed. "Falling Slowly" is not currently loaded onto my I-tunes and I think I shall leave it that way until the song becomes a situational necessity. If you are not familiar with this song, download it at once.

I was aware this album had come out and meant to purchase it during my next music supplementing visit to Easy Street Records. Before that happened, I chanced to hear an interview on NPR that increased my interest in this album, not just because they played excerpts from some lovely songs, but because the interview included some painfully intimate moments from Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. The brief story of their relationship is that they both starred in the poignant musical "Once". They had a relationship, it died, they continued on to make their second album.

The part I remember most from this interview was a moment where the interviewer asked Glen who these songs were about - clearly expecting him to name Marketa, which he did. Marketa exclaimed that she didn't know that. I believe that we are all voyeurs, and generally I think we feel secretly ashamed of this and often, unable to control it. However, during this interview, I felt priveledged to be a rubbernecker to someone's emotional hurt. Both Glen and Marketa opened themselves up frankly and without rancour during the interview, and I felt that it was their choice to let us in so that their art was better understood. I recommend going to the NPR website, where you can listen to this revealing interview (not salaciously revealing, but one of those wonderful moments that make you feel that you are allowed into a talented person's emotional landscape and it opens the music and it's meaning to you...sort of like a drop of water opening up a scotch in a way that enhances the flavor of the scotch to a better understanding of its complexities. Heh. Whatever. Maybe that's a dumb analogy.)

Either way, this is a beautiful, low key album. I recommend it, back story or no.

The Cave Singers - Welcome Joy

My current favorite album. I heard one of these songs on the radio, and knew immediately that I wanted the entire album. I was perfectly correct in that assumption, as, once bought, I found that every song on the album was wanted. On The Cave Singer's label's (Matador) website, they describe the Welcome Joy as "deliciously atumnal" which is apt. It's one of those albums that makes me feel like everything is going to be all right, and a crisp fall day infuses me with that same full feeling of gratitude and wholeness. There's something warm, optimistic and hopeful about the album. There are standout songs and some are more rollicking than others, but every song has a quality that blends it cohesively to the whole of the album. Welcome Joy's only fault might be that the songs blend too well at times. Stand outs for me are: Leap and Hen of the Woods (Hen of the Woods is, I think, my favorite - it is achingly beautiful) but every song is outstanding and having a favorite is like being given the delightful choice of which type of pie you would like best for dessert.

The Fleet Foxes 2008 album, Fleet Foxes, has a clear influence, as the folk inflected songs here are also strong on harmonies and melody. However, while the Fleet Foxes album was studied and intricate, Welcome Joy has a spontaneity to it's warmth that allows it to be merely influenced by Fleet Foxes, taking a similar asthetic then following forks and bumps along different branches.

Like Hematite

Something is wrong today. My limbs and my central nervous system - while admitting a past acquaintance with each other - are not currently speaking. I don't care how rigorously my heart is pumping vital life force to my arms and legs, they are deaf to the encouragement and apparently incapable of peeling themselves back up from the couch after I got home from November's CD spree and plopped myself down upon it. I believe it to be the particular plight of a relatively new government worker unaccustomed to random holidays in the middle of the week, such as Veteran's Day, and the narcotic effects of such. Still, something feels wrong today because each of my limbs have taken upon the density of hematite.

Today I bought my first Beatles album. Ever. I am a mildly music obsessed thirty-one year old and I did not own a Beatles album. I bought The White Album because of the bitching album artwork. I WILL play it. I will play BOTH CDs. MORE THAN ONCE. But not today. It seems too much to ask a girl to buy AND listen to my first ever Beatle's album on the same day. It would seem like I CARED or that I was RELENTING in my avowed indifference to them. I thought about picking up Bob Dylan's Christmas album today too, but I will wait to buy that, and Tori's Christmas album, after Thanksgiving. Since I get wildly angry every time I hear Christmas music in stores before Thanksgiving, purchasing two Christmas albums on November 11 would have been tantamount to gathering together everything that is pure and holy and pouring pig's blood over it at the prom. But the two albums are on my to-buy list, since my next CD shopping spree is necessarily a couple paychecks away, which places it firmly post-Thanksgiving. I must be getting old. I'm putting Christmas albums on my list.

Twenty-five Kick-ass Exercise Songs
1. Cobrastyle - Robyn
2. Stronger - Kanye West
3. That's Not My Name - The Ting Tings
4. Wishing Well - The Airborne Toxic Event
5. Help, I'm Alive - Metric
6. Atlas - Battles
7. Mausam & Escape - A.R. Rahman (even with wierd folksy beginning)
8. Firestarter - Prodigy
9. Just Can't Get Enough - Depeche Mode
10. Game Set and Match - The Herbaliser
11. California Uber Alles - Dead Kennedys
12. Letter From An Occupant - The New Pornographers
13. I'm So Excited - Le Tigre
14. Boyz - M.I.A.
15. Heartbeats - The Knife
16. Diablo Rojo - Rodrigo Y Gabriela
17. Blind - Hercules and Love Affair
18. Dancing With Myself -Billy Idol
19. Dr. Yang - Ben Folds
20. Touches You - Mika
21. Shut the Club Down - Girl Talk
22. Womanizer - Britney Spears
23. Big Pimpin' - Jay-Z and UGK
24. Don't Ask Me - Public Image Ltd.
25. Finally - Ce Ce Penington

Summer Playlist 2009

This is a great summer mix. Even though after I put it together, I realized that some of the songs reference winter or the darkening of lights...but whatever. The whole mix SOUNDS like it is really about fun and summer and whimsy. Also, I realized I need to drop a few of these songs from the mix cd circuit. I've overused several of them. Resolution time!!!!!

RESOLUTION 1: Okay, this will be (I swear) the last time I use 'Fidelity', 'It's All Good', 'That's It, I Quit, I'm Movin' On' and 'Travelin' Man' in a mix. I think in the future, if I am going to reference a year in the title of my playlist I really should make at least a third of the playlist contain songs that are from the year referenced, nitpicky I know. Perhaps I should have just called this CD "A Summer Mix". This playlist only has two songs from 2009. But let's not let that deter us from the awesomeness that is this mix, or deny the validation behind the miriad of times I've played it, but in the future I vow to be more current if a mix references a year. I could just change the title, you say? But I can't, it's been burned, inked with a sharpie and passed on. There is no going back.

Summer Mix '09

1. Lights Out (Diplo's Panda Bear Mix) - Santogold
2. Always a Friend - Alejandro Escovedo
3. Fidelity - Regina Spektor (why do I insist? I mean, its not like this song isn't also overplayed everywhere else too)
4. Watch the Sunrise - Big Star
5. I Don't Know - Lisa Hannigan
6. I Don't Love Anyone - Belle and Sebastian
7. Honky Tonkin' - Joe Ely
8. Travelin' Man - Dolly Parton (seriously, though it's getting banned, I have NEVER gotten sick of this song)
9. Why Look at the Moon - The Waterboys
10. Polite Dance Song - The Bird and the Bee (2009 entry #1)
11. A-Punk - Vampire Weekend
12. Black Horse and the Cherry Tree - KT Tunstall (too obvious, too four summers ago, I should ban this one too because it too has made numerous appearances outside of enough, I just didn't think to mention it above. Seriously, though, I LOVE this song.)
13. Just A Little Bit - Etta James
14. Iko Iko - Cyndi Lauper
15. Jambalaya (On the Bayou) - Hank Williams
16. Bad Things - Jace Everett (2009 entry #2. And also perhaps the very first television theme song that I have listened to voluntarily, and added to my record collection, that I first heard as a television theme song.)
17. I Can't Dance - Gram Parsons
18. Certainly Cliquot - Robyn Hitchcock (I wish I hadn't used this song...the only one I didn't end up liking in the mix. But now it's flawed presence is as much a part of the mix as the one-two finishing punch of "I'm Allright" followed by "It's All Good". I like the song, just not here. Maybe it's there to remind me to avoid songs with jarring voices that declare in a strange and deep voice-over "she uncorked herself/teeth spilling from her nostrils" while a small chorus cheerfully chirps "she's certainly cliquot/she's certainly cruel". I think lately I've just been liking the word Cliquot, and thought I'd put it here. BAD choice, Shannon. Beirut has a good song called "Cliquot". It's a good word. It's a particular vintage of wine, I believe, but it has a beautiful staccato quality. I fell victim to the title, and forced it into the playlist...sigh.)
19. Outbound Plane - Nanci Griffith (last time I use this song, too)
20. That's It, I Quit, I'm Movin' On - Sam Cooke (last time!!!!!)
21. Telegraph - Ochestral Manoevers in the Dark
22. Just A Ride - Jem
23. Little Yellow Spider - Devendra Banhart
24. I'm Allright - The Go-Betweens
25. It's All Good (with Damien Dempsey) - Sinead O'Connor (LAST TIME)

This is a self-indulgent mix. Half of these are just, plain and simple, MY favorite songs to bop in the sunshine in the car too. Of course I give this my extra fancy AAA mix rating, but I need to open these playlists up a little more.

Funny story about how this mix came about, by the way. I wanted to give this guy a mix tape for summer - he mentioned, mumbled actually, about looking for summer type music in a cd store - so I thought, aha! I will make him a summer mix. I don't know if he is the type who likes mixes because he always burns me entire albums, but I was trying something new. So I put together the mix, loved it so much I listened to it thirty times before giving it to him. So, then, when I handed it to him I mumbled "I made a summer mix for everyone. I decided you get one" because I thought I might like him and didn't want to admit to making him a mix CD - because mix CDs are SIGNIFICANT, you know? I just sort of tossed it in his lap. Do I really like him? We-ell, I don't really know - but not enough or too much to admit to making him a mix cd. So THEN after I said that, I realized that it was kind of a good idea to make a summer mix CD, so even though summer is half over, I am going to start handing out the mix. Then I wasn't lying. I do stand by it even if it is mostly indulgence. (P.S. I did hand it out to like two other people, but continued to listen to it myself for the rest of the summer. And I know now that I DO NOT like him like him, if you know what I mean, so THANK GOD I didn't admit to making him a personalized mix CD.)

In Retrospect...

When my friends experience times of crisis, one of my stronger inclinations is to go throw a mixed CD together, because who doesn't feel better with new music? Normally I resist this urge, understanding how juvenile this might seem to someone who is trying to grapple with, say, issues of life and death or extreme physical pain. I resist the urge for the most part, but there are a couple extreme cases when I have given in to this urge to make a cd to cure what ails you. Unfortunately, whether or not the recipient of the mix cd reads much into it, each mix cd becomes invested with excruciating meaning once I've given the cd away.

Last December, my boss of seven years suddenly became ill. He was having debilitating chest pains. He kept on working, but his color was so gray and he looked awful. He was a major mentor in my life and I was passionately loyal to him, so to see him struggle through this health issue was torture. What could I, small insignificant Shannon, do in a time when he suffered so? Make cds of course. He and I had often traded cds over the years, both of us being compulsive music collectors but having incredibly different tastes. It makes me laugh, but I almost never liked what he gave me,though he often came 'round to the albums I gave him which just proves my point that I have the best taste in music ever.

A few days of this illness wore on and he looked worse and worse. I started to feel frantic. I sensed what was going to happen, even though I wouldn't acknowledge it to myself. One day, after a particularly difficult day for him - I even think he snapped at me - I went home in a frenzy, agonizing over my beloved boss being so sick he snapped at me. I stayed up late into the night burning cds for him. I started writing letters to him, trying to tell him how much he meant to me and how making cds is my way of giving chicken soup to a sick friend. By the time I went to bed, I had burned six or seven albums and had six or seven drafts of this letter littering my living room floor. The next morning I woke up super early and finished burning more albums for him, using up every blank cd I had. I was so excited, I was like - he may be sick, but this will be a little perk for him, because I knew he LOVED borrowing albums from people and listening to new music. Sometimes I think it was less about whether he liked the music or not, but about being able to say he'd heard this or that in any conversation. I think he really truly wanted to be as well versed and knowledgeable about all types of music as possible - to him, it was the ultimate cool, which I totally understood because I felt the same way.

That morning I had an early off site meeting, but I was hopping with excitement to give my boss twelve new albums and I was really excited about some of them and I just wanted him to have them so badly. I got back to the office around ten or eleven, and when I pulled up his car was in the parking lot. I practically ran inside so that I could give him the cds, because he often left at that time in the day. I got to his cubicle, but it was empty. I ran back to the window and his car was gone. We must have passed in the elevator. I left the cds on his chair and thought expectantly, excitedly, of him finding them the next morning.

That afternoon I left early. I don't remember why, now. I just did. My good friend called me around 4pm. When I answered the phone I shouted 'holla!' Silence met my greeting and I knew something was wrong. I have some bad news, she said. And I knew what it was before she even said. "Neil Callahan passed away around 3pm this afternoon", which was around the time I was driving home from work. For the next few days I couldn't go into work. And I kept picturing those cds on his chair, just sitting. Never listened to. Unacknowledged.

Fast forward to last month, which is when I received the news that my friend had had triple bypass heart surgery. Yes, the friend that I talked about in the last post. I went into frantic frenzy mode, because here was somebody else, somebody closely connected to Neil even, that was so deathly sick. I had to make him a cd. It was an emotional imperative.

ryan
1. 'All Your Way' Morphine
2. 'You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As Your Told)' The White Stripes
3. 'Letter From An Occupant' The New Pornographers
4. 'Train In Vain' The Clash
5. 'Whistling In the Dark' Firewater
6. 'Portland Oregon' Loretta Lynn
7. 'That's It, I Quit, I'm Movin' On' Sam Cooke
8. 'Game, Set & Match' The Herbiliser (featuring More or Les)
9. 'Go Tell the Women' Grinderman
10. 'Paper Planes' M.I.A.
11. 'Hang Me Up To Dry' Cold War Kids
12. 'Angry' The Bug (featuring Tippa Irie)
13. 'Shake and Pop' Nick Lowe
14. 'Boney Fingers' Hoyt Axton
15. 'Traveling Man' Dolly Parton
16. 'Monkey Gone to Heaven' Pixies
17. 'Ring the Bells' James
18. 'Whole Wide World' Wreckless Eric
19. 'My Year In Lists' Los Campesinos!
20. 'The Worst Day Since Yesterday' Flogging Molly
21. 'Midnight Rider' Willie Nelson
22. 'Long Way Home' Tom Waits
23. 'extraordinary machine' Fiona Apple

I put this together thinking about how cool the music was. I ignored the lyrics of the songs, for the most part (except for maybe the first and last songs, were are signature songs of mine and explain Shannon better than any other songs I've ever heard) so I gave it to him (I wrote in huge red letters on the front THIS CD IS GUARANTEED 100% AWESOME) and after he had it, it occurred to me to think about WHAT the songs were saying. Why is this so important? Because this particular guy is the unrequited love of my life and though I do try my part to be over him, I wasn't really at the time and had some residual uncertainties about something that happened between us earlier in the year that never panned out. I listened to this CD in horror, after I gave it to him, thinking about our past history and the fact that the guy just had heart surgery. Hear are some choice lyrics:

You just keep on repeating/all those empty "I love you's/until you say you deserve better/I'm gonna lay right into you/you don't know what love is/you just do as you're told/just as a child of ten might act/but you're far too old/you're not hopeless or helpless/and I hate to sound cold/but you don't know what love is/you just do as your told

That's It, I quit, I'm movin' on

You didn't stand by me/no not at all/you didn't stand by me/no way

It's been the worst day since yesterday

Portland Oregan and slow gin fizz if that ain't love then tell me what is, uh huh

Faded Pink Blankie

I saw my friend the day before the night of the soccer game. I don't know whether it's the large issues like the economy that make his health problems so hard for me to process, or if its the hurt of watching someone you love in pain and knowing they won't let you - don't want you - to help that makes hurricanes seem more tragic and bank failures so terrifying. Whatever the reasons, I felt myself collapse under an alarming avalanche of sudden depression when I heard the Wamu news. My body felt as flat as an old birthday balloon as I ran sweatily through the beautiful night. Healthy, despite my friends illness; prosperous, despite the stock market - with a ball to chase after, cool night air to do it in and no hurricanes anywhere near my state. It felt like these simple pleasures weren't enough, because of Wamu, because of hurricanes, because of my friend. Wamu no longer exists, is that a larger sign that even friendships I determined to be eternal are too fragile to depend on? Why isn't caring and love enough to keep the gel of a friendship strong so that I could be there when he was sick? How can a bank, one in which probably half of my Seattle acquaintances belong to, just collapse? Why buy a house when I might have no job in a year? What's the point of a 401K and nest eggs, what with unscrupulous bankers and investors far removed from anything I've ever been able to control?Who can feel safe at home anymore if we are at constant threat of natural disaster, orange alerts and foreclosure? What if our next president is as bad as our current one, no matter who wins? What if he can’t fix any of it? Thoughts were starting to spin out of control. Familiar? I can't be the only one having silent hysterics lately.

I lost hope during this soccer game. Actually, I had lost hope while looking in the bleak eyes of my friend at lunch the day before, but hearing the news about Wamu brought it home, made my friend's distance and inaccessibility inescapable. And the hurricanes? They were the reason I tried (unsuccesfully) to turn the radio off in the first place. I don't normally try to hide from the news, but isn't there a point where there is too much bad news? Why can't I declare that a line has been crossed, I am officially no longer obligated to listen to the suffering and fear of others? Is there a point where I can let my friend go through his trials without me, because he doesn't need or want me, and I am absolved of responsibility even though I love him with all my heart? What if loyalty, compassion and worry for him radiates off me like a heat wave and I can't sleep because I am so hot? The economy is collapsing, the world is heating up and the unrequited love of my life just had triple bypass surgery - so what's the point? I never told him I love him. I can't, because you don't say that to someone who isn't likely to say it back. He said, 'no regrets' and I looked at the table, at my disgusting salad, at the floor and muttered unconvincingly "I know, right?" It's hard to sell that when your biggest regret is sitting three feet away from you. What does it say about me that I just want peace to chase after a ball, humming whatever tune is on my brain under my breath, shouting encouragements to my team (while shooting dirty looks at the enemy team...of course) and ignore relationships that are so important - but difficult and painful. My relationship with him is not the only one in my life that I struggle because they are in pain, but I've been hurt and I want to ignore the pain even as I can feel how much I care. Ignore the banks, I can't change their course, ignore the pain of the difficult people I love, I can't change them. The burden of loving someone that doesn't love me back is beyond my control and best ignored and gotten over, right? Even if 'the getting over' hasn't ever quite worked, not in seven - no, eight - years. Even if I am worried that he needs to know people care at this time in his life? Even if 'people' is little humble ole me? Isn't it better to nurse my hurt even though the rest of me tells me, he needs to know you care even if he can't respond to it the way you wish he would. And there go the silent hysterics again. If I don't bury my head in the sand, I am followed around by that little black rain cloud of anxiety. If I do bury my head, then I am beseiged by feelings of guilt and disloyalty...and regret.

As usual, it's music that can change even these black moods. I dug deep into my most beloved songs to make this playlist for ultimate comfort. Only songs were allowed that not only made me feel good but also have a positive message. I named it after the most comforting object in my life. (Designed to fit on an eighty minute CD of course).

Faded Pink Blankie

1. It's All Good - Sinead O'Connor and Damien Dempsey 'Collaborations'
2. Three Little Birds - Bob Marley & the Wailers 'Legend'
3. Seems I'm Never Tired Lovin' You - Nina Simone 'The Essential Nina Simone'
4. Fidelity - Regina Spektor 'Begin to Hope'
5. Always a Friend - Alejandro Escovedo 'Real Animal'
6. Sunshine on my Shoulders - John Denver
7. Safe From Harm - Massive Attack 'Blue Lines'
8. Carry Me Home - Hem 'Rabbitsongs'
9. who is it (carry my joy on the left, and my pain on the right) - Bjork 'Medulla'
10. This Is The Way - Devendra Banhart 'Rejoicing in the Hands'
11. Clint Eastwood (Ed Case Remix) – Gorillaz 'Gorillaz'
12. Almost Rosey – Tori Amos ‘American Doll Posse’
13. Satisfied Mind - Jeff Buckley 'Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk'
14. Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive - Willie Nelson 'Stardust'
15. Could We - Cat Power 'The Greatest'
16. Less of Me - Loretta Lynn ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’
17. Shine - Dolly Parton 'Little Sparrow'
18. You Are My Joy – Reindeer Section ‘Son of Evil Reindeer’
19. Your Arms Around Me - Jens Lekman
    

And like these songs, I know that I need to close with a good message. Well, I've decided that I’m choosing to hope again, even though it's more of a concept than reality at the moment. I choose to hope that things will get better. I think it's more than just hoping, I choose to believe that things will get better. And if it is really hard to ignite that first little flare of hope? Well, I'll go play number 1 and 2 on Blankie one more time.

What does it mean to choose to hope? Well, I'm going to keep putting my money in their respective -and yes, decreasing - investments. It's a sign of my faith in our country. I'm going to keep on voting. I accept that even the rudimentary, and some would claim pointless, gesture of voting is a small sign that I'm still paying attention and I'm still trying to tell the government what I think is right. I'm going to play soccer, rain or shine. I'm going to call my friend in a few weeks just to say 'how are ya, I care and I want to know that you are okay' - even if I can't fix his heart, physically or emotionally. And I'm going to try and call the few the other people who I struggle with, because I know that I do care and I want to be the sort of person who can forget her own hurts long enough to make a simple phone call of support. I'm going to clean a little bit every day. I'm not going to be afraid to turn on the news, but I won't be afraid to turn it off either when I need to reclaim my peace of mind. I'm going to create and consume art, music, books and everything wonderful. I'm going to believe that it will get better, and try to believe it body and soul. I'll try to choose the actions that prove that I believe that things will get better. And I'm going to find as many Faded Pink Blankies as I can to quiet the silent hysterics on those days they ram their foot in the door and I'm having trouble kicking them out.

Martha Wainwright - I Know You're Married, But I've Got Feelings Too (or an obsessed diatribe about female singer songwriters)

I was sitting at my computer, bored by my music collection...scrolling and scrolling through I-tunes and not discovering what it was I wanted, not knowing for a while what it was I did want. Eventually it dawned on me that I was hankering after a female singer and then, fatally, I realized that none of the female singer/songwriters in my music collection was quite the ticket. I wanted a new fiery chanteuse with a healthy dose of feminism, wit and industrial pipes.

I wanted to experience something like back in high school, when I was discovering Tori. How my angsty soul thrilled to her. I wept and sang and obsessed over her music. She doesn't get through that little crack any more, the one that leads to all those dark and painful depths that like to plague me to death, and I wish someone would.

Then there was the first time Bjork's Joga made me feel like the only person in the world who knew how lost I felt and how much I needed to be seen? How come she doesn't make music that hurts like that anymore?

What about the Dolly Fucking Parton period, when I realized she rocked the world?

How about Ani before she seemed trite and cutesy or boringly maternal or just too embarrassingly, blatantly about....womyn issues?

Regina Spektor came out and it seemed like a new voice going places, good places, then I heard Fidelity on Gray's Anatomy and wondered...

And then there's the one that touched me deepest of all - my beloved Sinead O'Connor. If you never bothered, I recommend that you immediately pick up Lion and The Cobra and I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (and not for the Prince song, for the rest of the album....for the SINEAD songs...if you like those two albums, then Gospel Oak e.p. and Collaborations should be next on your Sinead to do...) Alas, I know her truly great catalogue backwards and forward.

Joanna Newsom is great, no, Ys is more than great, it is transcendant, but it's a committed listening to gain catharsis - I don't feel soothed unless I read along with the lyrics, and those songs are looooooooong...plus she has the regettable knack of seeming very very smart and making me feel very very...average.

Jane Siberry's "Calling All Angels" and "It Can't Rain All The Time"? Break my heart, they do, but I've heard them a million times...and she only gets me with some of her songs. The rest (that I've heard) border on pretensious or overly contrived. Maybe those two things are the same thing...whatever.

There's nobody in the world like Siouxsie, and I picked up her new album without Budgie, but I haven't gotten around to it yet because 1. I'm absolutely certain it's going to be a Siouxsie/Creatures type album and 2. I miss Budgie already and I haven't even heard her world without him yet. That's not a very feminist sentiment is it? But I can attest, I've seen The Creatures live and Budgie was so kick ass he's as much the attraction for me as Siouxsie is.

Neko Case is awesome, yes, but again those albums are some of the most worn in my collection.

I can't stomach Cat Power anymore. I don't know why. Probably heard it all one too many times.

Loretta Lynn wailed with Jack's guitar and it was like finding God. When that album came out years ago I found it worth it to check out her back catalogue, particularly her work from the seventies, and Loretta's another kick ass country chick, but those depths have now been done plumbed, for the time being. She's got a lot of back of catalogue to get through - just like Dolly.

I NEED SOMETHING NEW.

I bought Martha Wainwright's new CD yesterday, "I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too." If you combined the vocal talents of Bjork, Sinead, Ani, Cyndi Lauper and Neko and threw in a bit of later Tori you'd have a wierd amalgam of a voice that approximates Martha's - but she is more than just the sum of those parts. It was an album I had a feeling I was going to like, based on the review I read for it, but I didn't know she would become my new girl. The album opens with "Bleeding All Over You". The chorus 'my heart was made for bleeding all over you/and I know you're married but I've got feelings too/but I still love you'. Ahhhhh, there it is. A lyric as satisfying as 'I can feel the distance getting close/you're right next to me/but I need an airplane/I can feel the distance/as you breathe' (China/Tori Amos) or 'how come you never said you love me/in all the time you've known me/how come you never say you're sorry/and I do' (Sinead O'Connor). We need these songs, these lyrics, for all the times we feel yucky because of boys. THANKYOU Martha.

"You Cheated Me", the second track, is insidiously catchy. I still can't quite put my finger on what this song makes me think of, it will come to me eventually but in the meantime I enjoy it. This is one of the best tracks on the album. (I finally pinpointed later that there is a part in there that reminds me vaguely of The Sundays. Remember them? It's been so long, but it feels right...)

The best track is "Comin' Tonight". It's got a great hook, but even more than that her voice sells the line 'but everything you say I oppose/I blame it on my hole/It's just my role'. Hee. Later on, she sings in a worn voice that wearily echoes the truth of the lines 'I spend my time trying to forget you with/Booze and smoke from cigarettes and dope/I only seem to forget myself/It's only you that is left'. This song inspires within me an emotion I'd honestly never thought I'd have. It makes me feel like leaning out over the bow of a huge and doomed ship in order to scream "I am the king of the world!" and I wouldn't even need Leo. Better yet, leave him out. Would that a song like this could be the anthem to an epic movie, but no, we get Celine. Stupid world.

'Tower Song' is a problematic piece for me, but I may end up liking it even more because of it's flaws. The strings are beautiful, and there is a wonderful old world French feel to the percussion. Her voice wails in and around the arrangements, at times sounding fussy but in the best parts of the song letting you in on her forlorn and heartbroken world. An orphan and a woman, the child and the adult, alone. Unfortunately, her voice also mars the song, sometimes sounding unfocused and more interested in testing it's range, this breaks the spell and keeps the haunting melody of the song from arresting me from the beginning to end.

"Hearts Club Band" works the haunting angle better, and is another of the album's strongest tracks, as is "So Many Friends'. 'In The Middle of the Night' is PJ Harvey ala "Stories From The City, Stories From the Sea'. This is a strength of the song. This influence makes it unsurprisingly the darkest and most intense song of the album.

(I should have included PJ in my rambling introduction, as "Stories" is in my opinion one of the best albums of the first decade of the new millenium.)

Buy this album if you like a strong female voice, it belongs squarely within all my favorite female singer/songwriter albums (unless you're favorites are Alanis and Jewel - not because you wouldn't like the album but because you are dead to me and should look elsewhere for music advice).

I give this album a "Highly Recommended Particularly if you like more than one of the singers mentioned in my rambling intro to the review".

*****AND a postscript******

I want to give a mention to a Martha song not on the above album, but from her first, eponymous album, which I dutifully picked up after I Know You're Married totally blew me away. The song is 'Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole'. Yes, that is really the name of this brilliant song. On itunes it is listed as Bloddy Mother F*****g a*****e. In your face world! I think, maybe, I like this song even better than 'Coming Tonight'. This is the song to listen to when you are 'in your bedroom/and the mother of gloom/is hanging over your head/with her hand on your head' (Isn't it great when a song is the perfect listen during the exact activity it references? Jem's 'Just A Ride' comes to mind, or Marvin Gaye's 'Let's Get It On'. But I digress.) I love it when a song uses the word fuck in exactly the right way, making it seem like the only possible expression of an emotion. The very best line of this crazy amazing song? 'I will not pretend/I will not put on a smile/I will not say I'm all right for you/when all I wanted was to be good/to do everything in truth'.

********And a postscript from a year and a half later**********

While I still really like Martha, and things have happened since I wrote this post, like Tori put out another lackluster album and Neko put out a pretty bad ass album and I've got Florence and the Machine to kick that strong female musician hankering's ass, I've also realized something else. I think of music differently than I used to. I don't treat music like my psychiatrist anymore. That NEED for a female singer songwriter for me to RELATE to at a GUT LEVEL doesn't exist in that way anymore. I still use music as a way to process and contextualize my life, but I don't immerse into it to find myself. I think that was reserved for my early teenage years and my twenties. It's all right. I'm going different places with listening than before, and I still look for those female singer songwriters, but I don't think there every will be another Sinead or Tori for me, because I'm not the same person I was back then. At least, not in the way I heard them when I was younger. I'm so much more myself now, that the strength of a musician doesn't imprint onto me the way that it used to, so in some ways I'm more removed, but I'm also more thoughtful about what I listen to, not to mention that I am actually a lot more open minded in my tastes and far more adventerous (hip hop didn't even really exist for me until after I turned thirty. Heh. Jazz used to be a dirty word. And World? God, I used to think it was so corny...). So I guess it's a new era for me, with music. And rather than regret what is no longer, I am glad to recognize it and sort of embrace where I'm at right now.