Come Original

Featured music in this post: "Come Original" by 311, "Come Sail Away" by Styx, "Cronulla Breakdown" by The Pernice Brothers.

Come Original - Not that this has anything to do with 311, but my wife, daughter, and I got to see a show called "Montage" by Cirque Imagination the other night. (Thanks to my buddy Roy.) Apparently the cast are former members of Cirque de Soleil. It was incredibly entertaining, and original. It's really hard to believe that people can be that strong and flexible. Act after act performed short pieces - climbing up and down poles, dancing, juggling, contorting, and performing all sorts of acrobatics. It was amazing stuff that you shouldn't miss if you have the opportunity.

Come Sail Away - Styx was the first rock band I really got into. Well, Styx or Kiss, and since I don't have any Kiss on my iPod, let's say it was Styx. When I was in 6th grade, we lived in a small town called Ironton in the "tri-state" area of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The largest city in the area was Huntington, WV, with about 40,000 residents. Radio choices were severely limited, so we mostly listened to a Top 40 station. At that time (late 70s) that meant we heard a lot of Shaun Cassidy, Leif Garrett, and all the disco hits. (Pretty insipid stuff, actually.) I had a good friend, Chris Parsons, who I played football and basketball with and generally hung out with a lot. For one thing, his family had an in-ground pool - pretty much unheard of in that part of Ohio. Anyway, he had "Grand Illusion" by Styx. When I heard it, it was like nothing else I'd listened to before - soaring keyboards, power chords, multiple lead singers. I badgered my parents into getting me the album. I found out that they had a newer release, "Pieces of Eight", so I had to get that one, too. For a few years, I got a Styx album for Christmas or my birthday - "Crystal Ball", "Cornerstone", "Paradise Theater". Styx is an interesting band. It seems like they were always having a struggle between Dennis DeYoung's desires to make operatic, almost-Broadway musical type spectacles, James Young's power guitar rock, and Tommy Shaw's melodic, introspective pop rock. When DeYoung won that battle, resulting in consecutive concept albums, "Paradise Theater" (very much on the Broadway-end of the spectrum) and "Kilroy Was Here", the tour for which included staging, costumes, and characterization that would fit in any opera house, the band pretty much lost its appeal with me. In fact, when they headlined the Texas Jam (an awesome annual rock festival) they were pretty much booed off the stage. I've been listening to their stuff from the 70s quite a bit lately - it holds up really well.

Cronulla Breakdown - "We try so hard to make the worst of a bad situation" : OK, it's pretty likely you haven't heard of The Pernice Brothers, which is a shame. They're an excellent band. I was introduced to them by another childhood friend from Ironton, Brad Markins. Anyway, Joe Pernice has a unique ability to combine poppy, ethereal, piano-based music with some very dark lyrics, producing listenable but thought-provoking music that delivers over and over again. Must be time for a list - my favorite artists that are unheard of or at least less popular than they should be:
10. King's X
9. Idlewild
8. Cave-In
7. Eisley
6. Matt Nathanson
5. Paloalto
4. Dave Barnes
3. Ben Lee
2. The Pernice Brothers
1. Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers

• Come Alive - Foo Fighters
• Come Around Again - Jet
• Come As You Are - Nirvana : "Take your time/Hurry up" - Reminds me of the contradictory lines in "Oh, Susanna".
  
• Come Away With Me - Norah Jones
• Come Back - Foo Fighters
• Come Back to Bed - John Mayer
• Come Clean - Eisley
• Come Down - Toad the Wet Sprocket
• Come Home - OneRepublic
• Come On Come On - Jet
• Come On Get Higher - Matt Nathanson
• Come Original - 311
• Come Sail Away - Styx
• Come to Life - Alter Bridge
• Come Together - The Beatles
• Come Undone - Duran Duran
• Come Ye - India.Arie
• Comedown - Bush
• A Comet Appears - The Shins
• Comfort Eagle - Cake : "We are building a religion/We are making a brand/We're the only ones to turn to when you're castles turn to sand" - Speaking of original, Cake is probably the most original band I listen to regularly. (If there are actually degrees of originality.)
  
• Comfortable - John Mayer
• Coming Home - Alter Bridge
• Commissioning a Symphony in C - Cake : See what I mean. Who else would write a song called this?
  
• Communication - INXS
• Company Car - Switchfoot
• Concede - Sister Hazel : "Concede and believe me, I won't give up, I won't give out on you"
  
• Concrete Girl - Switchfoot
• Constellations - Jack Johnson
• Cookie Jar - Jack Johnson

Back-to-back by Jack Johnson.

• Cool Blue Reason - Cake
• Cool Down - Triumph : This really sounds like it could be a Led Zeppelin song. From Triumph's underrated "Thunder Seven", which holds up really well 20+ years later.
  
• Corduroy - Pearl Jam : "Can't buy what I want because it's free"
  
• Could You Be Loved - Bob Marley
• Countdown - Rush
• Country Feedback - R.E.M.
• Cowboys from Hell - Pantera : "We're taking over this town" - Masters of metal from Dallas.
  
• Coyote - Better Than Ezra
• Cradle of Love - Billy Idol
• Crazy - Patsy Cline
• Crazy Life - Toad the Wet Sprocket
• Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen
• Crazyboutya - Dave Barnes
• Creatures (For a While) - 311
• Creeps Like Me - Lyle Lovett
• Cronulla Breakdown - The Pernice Brothers
• A Crow Left of the Murder - Incubus : "Unlearn me" (love that); "From here on it's instinctual/Even straight roads meander/Every piece contains a map of it all"
  
• Crowing - Toad the Wet Sprocket
• Crumblin' Down - John Mellencamp
• Crumbs from Your Table - U2
  

Summary:
Listened to 49 songs (well, 48 since my copy of Come Undone apparently is scratched - it skipped all over the place on my iPod), skipped 2 (Live versions of Come As You Are and Country Feedback)
18 songs start with the word "Come", 2 Cool, 4 Crazy, 2 Crows (neither of them counting)
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Now playing: 311 - Come Original
via FoxyTunes

Closer to the Heart

Featured songs in this post include "Closer to the Heart" by Rush, "Cochise" by Audioslave, and "Colour My World" by Chicago.

Closer to the Heart - In spite of its brevity, no Rush song better exhibits the poetry of drummer Neil Peart. ("The Larger Bowl" from Snakes and Arrows is a close second.) I love how he splices together the 2 vocations in each verse:
The blacksmith and the artist
Reflect it in their art
Forge their creativity
Closer to the heart

Philosophers and ploughmen
Each must know his part
To sow a new mentality
Closer to the heart

Cochise - "Go on and save yourself/Take it out on me": Tom Morello, lead guitarist of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave (during the former band's extended hiatus), can really play guitar. He was featured in a "making of" video for the Guitar Hero videogame series. I should really like his playing. I don't. He has a really annoying signature - he plays a bunch of noise (sometimes cool-sounding noise, but noise nonetheless) at the beginning and/or end of nearly every song and in most of his solos. He does this for both Rage and Audioslave. Combine that with the yell-rap style of Rage lead "singer" Zack de la Rocha, and I find that band unlistenable. In contrast, Chris Cornell, lead singer for Audioslave and, before that, Soundgarden, has an unmistakable and remarkable voice. In my opinion, he made Audioslave. BTW - I don't know what this song has to do with Cochise.

Colour My World - Favorite slow dance songs:
5. Let's Stay Together - Al Green
4. What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong
3. Colour My World - Chicago
2. Maybe I'm Amazed - Paul McCartney & Wings
1. Wonderful Tonight - Eric Clapton

• Check It Out - John Mellencamp
• Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running) - Foo Fighters : Making fun of emo bands.
  
• Chem 6A - Switchfoot
• Chemical Party - Gavin DeGraw
• Chemistry - Rush : "Oh but how do we make contact with one another? Electricity? Biology? Seems to me it's chemistry." I was taking high school chemistry when this came out. I sure liked the song better than the class.
  
• Cherry Bomb - John Mellencamp
• Chicago - Frank Sinatra : My wife and I celebrated our 10th anniversary in Chicago. We absolutely loved it. We stayed in a bed & breakfast on Michigan Avenue, less than 5 minutes from downtown. I agree with Sinatra - it's my kind of town. At least in the summer.
  
• Children In Bloom - Counting Crows
• Children of the Damned - Iron Maiden : Apparently a concert favorite. I can't stand it & usually skip it. One of things I've made a concerted effort to do with this blog is to make sure I listen to every song completely. It's helped me develop an appreciation for some songs that I didn't have before. Not this one, though.
  
• Chocolate - Snow Patrol : Mmm, chocolate. Me like chocolate. I don't think the song has anything to do with chocolate ("this is the final straw" forming the chorus) - but I'm not certain, since I'm usually eating M&M's by the end and can't hear over the crunching.
  
• Chorus and the Ring - R.E.M.
• Christmas Morning - Lyle Lovett
• Church - Lyle Lovett

Back-to-back songs by the long, tall Texan.

• Church On Tuesday - Stone Temple Pilots
• Cinderella Man - Rush
• Circles - Incubus
• Circles - Switchfoot
• Circus Envy - R.E.M.
• Citizen Soldier - 3 Doors Down
• City Love - John Mayer
• City of Blinding Light - U2
• The Clairvoyant - Iron Maiden
• Clarity - John Mayer
• Cling - Days of the New
• Clocks - Coldplay : One of the best songs of this decade.
  
• Close I've Come - Ben Lee
• Closer - Sorta : "We should be closer than we are." Locally successful band in the Dallas area. This song was written by bassist Danny Balis, who is also producer of the extremely popular and long-running radio show, The Hardline, on Sportsradio 1310 The Ticket. It's my favorite Sorta song.
  
• Closer to the Heart - Rush
• Closing Time - Lyle Lovett
• Cochise - Audioslave
• Cocoon - Jack Johnson
• Cold Cold Heart - Norah Jones
• Cold Day in the Sun - Foo Fighters : The only Foo Fighters song (on a full-length release) Dave Grohl doesn't sing - drummer Taylor Hawkins comes out from behind his kit to sing it and does a great job.
  
• Cold Fire - Rush
• Cold Hard Bitch - Jet

4 consecutive songs that start with "Cold". This is my favorite pattern like this so far. Every one of them is excellent, but they're very different.

• Collection of Goods - Collective Soul
• The Color of Right - Rush
• Colour My World - Chicago
• Coma - Stone Temple Pilots
• Combinations - Eisley : Excellent CD.
  

Summary:
Listened to 40 songs, skipped 3 (live versions of "Cinderella Man", "Closer to the Heart", "Cold Day in the Sun")
3 Chem, 2 Children, 2 Church, 2 Circles (plus a Ring), 2 City (1 Citizen), 4 Cold

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Now playing: Rush - Closer to the Heart
via FoxyTunes

Can't Stand Losing You

Featured songs in this post: "Can't Stand Losing You" by The Police and "Caroline" by Concrete Blonde. I apologize in advance for the length.

Can't Stand Losing You - "I guess you'd call it suicide, but I'm too full to swallow my pride". It became shockingly routine, a normal state of affairs. I'd arrive for my first class and the chatter would start, passing unfailingly from one small group to the next. God knows there were plenty of those groups - part of the problem, perhaps. You'd think, "Please, not again." Some days the news trucks would beat us there, with their satellites, holding a cameraman/reporter team or two. On those days, you knew for sure. You were left only to ask, "Who?"

Over a period of just a few months in 1983, 9 teens in Plano, Texas killed themselves. Nine teens. Eight times we had to hear about kids our age, sometimes kids we knew, and suicide. Eight times because two of them, a couple, had died together "Romeo & Juliet" or "Don't Fear the Reaper" style, by running a car in the garage of a house under construction. I knew her - Bridget Jacobs. We had a tight-knit group of German students at Plano Senior High - 6 of us in German III, including Bridget. Given the small number of students, we shared our teacher (a wonderful teacher, Frau Stewart) and classroom with the German II students. Even then, there were less than 20 kids in the room, an unusual situation when you've got over 1200 kids in your graduating class.

One of those kids was Bill Ramsey. His death early in 1983 started our season of dread. He was the flag-man in a drag race. His best friend, Bruce Carrio, one of the racers, lost control of his vehicle, struck Bill and killed him. Distraught with the guilt, Bruce killed himself 4 days later. You can rationalize that. Put yourself in Bruce's shoes and maybe you could see how that would be the result.

Unfortunately, it didn't stop there. The news stories that followed, and it made national news, all seemed to focus on the spoiled rich kids. Plano was, and is, an affluent Dallas suburb. There were plenty of rich kids there - spoiled and otherwise. That wasn't the case with Bridget, Bill, or Bruce. They were just high school kids. Like me. Like most everyone I knew. I guess for an outsider that was an obvious point to make, or at least a way to make sense of it. We certainly couldn't make sense of it.

The attention seemed to cause the trend to gain momentum. Suicide is a terrible way to attract attention. Maybe it's the only way some of those kids could get it. I don't know. 25 years later, I still don't understand. I know those all-too-familiar feelings of dread left some indelible marks on many of us - 25 years hasn't dulled that. It was a horrible thing to live through - but at least I can say I lived through it. Ten (counting Bill) didn't.

Caroline - My wife, Linda, and I love this song. We were going to name our youngest daughter Caroline. It would have given us a mathematical progression in our family's first names - 4 letters, 5, 6, 7, and 8. I suppose that would have been cool. Like those families where everyone's name starts with the same letter. Unless, of course, you think that's silly. When Lauren was born on Christmas day, we decided having Carol in her name would be too cutesy. The other day, Lauren told Linda she would have liked for us to name her Caroline. Oh well. We probably over-thought it. I've certainly been accused of that before.

• A Cabin in the Woods - Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers
• Cajun Song - Gin Blossoms
• California Girls - The Beach Boys
• Call On Me - Chicago
• Calling - Taproot
• Camera - R.E.M.
• The Camera Eye - Rush : From what I gather, many Rush fans consider this to be the weakest of their extended-length songs. I've always really liked it. It's a bit mellower than the others.
  
• Can't Believe - Staind
• Can't Buy Me Love - The Beatles
• Can't Get There From Here - R.E.M. : I think this song sounds less like an R.E.M. song than any other they've done. If that makes any sense.
  
• Can't Grow Tired of Your Love - Dave Barnes
• Can't Help Falling In Love - Elvis Presley : A wonderful love song. It was in the movie "Blue Hawaii". As a kid, I loved all the Elvis movies. I haven't watched one in years. I suspect they don't stand the test of time too well.
  
• Can't Stand Losing You - The Police
• Can't Stop - Maroon 5
• Can Do - Journey
• Can I Play With Madness - Iron Maiden
• Can I Steal a Little Love - Frank Sinatra
• Canary In a Coalmine - The Police
• Car Crash - Matt Nathanson
  
• Caroline - Concrete Blonde
  
• Carry On the Flame - Triumph
• Carry That Weight - The Beatles
• Cars - Gary Numan : Remember this on Saturday Night Live? So freaky & cool.
  
• Carve Away the Stone - Rush
• Casual Affair - Tonic "It's a casual affair, when everybody loves you" : About the fleeting and shallow nature of celebrity.
  
• Catapult - Counting Crows
• Catapult - R.E.M.
• Catch My Disease (That's the Way I Like It) - Ben Lee : Sounds sleazy, but I don't think it's intended that way.
  
• Catch My Fall - Billy Idol
• Cathy's Clown - The Everly Brothers
• Caught Somewhere In Time - Iron Maiden
• Cecilia - Simon & Garfunkel
• Cedars of Lebanon - U2
• Celtic Aggression - Tonic : "So we came across the water/From the shores of the isle of green/Speaking separate tongues in the death of culture" - They include some Gaelic (I think) lyrics "Bhi machree, ohin trasna na farraige", which translates as "A long time ago, my heart came from across the sea".
  
• Century - Live "This puke stinks like beer and everybody's here/Come on, come on, come on/Let's lay waste to this century". Kinda gross. I guess it was Live's tribute to the 1900s.
  
• Cerilene - Sister Hazel
• The Chain - Fleetwood Mac : One of my all-time favorite songs. I can listen to it over and over.
  
• Chance (Dub) - R.E.M.
• Change - Staind
• Chariot - Gavin DeGraw
• Charlie, The Methadone Man - Fastball
• Charlotte the Harlot - Iron Maiden : The tale of a London prostitute, continued in a couple more songs on later releases.
  
• Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol : This song was ubiquitous, causing some backlash against it and the band a bit. I think that's unwarranted. This CD, "Eyes Open" is one of my favorite of the past few years. Sure, this song is kind of a schmaltzy ballad, but don't let that keep you from checking out the CD.
  
• Chattanooga Choo Choo - Glenn Miller and His Orchestra
  

Summary:
Kicked off the C's.
Listened to 44 songs, skipped 1 (live version of R.E.M.'s "Catapult")
7 Can't, but 3 Can
6 with people's names in the title, all but one are female names (kind of what you'd expect)
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Now playing: The Police - Can't Stand Losing You
via FoxyTunes