Sex Carmina

Blogs are for talking about music. These are my six favorite songs.

6.) "The Bear" by My Morning Jacket
Aside from a long lost song by Jeff Buckley about his enthusiasm for swimming, this is the saddest song that you will ever hear. The verses of the song are brutally depressing, and the chorus is slightly more upbeat, which is good because if the whole song was as depressing the verse, it would come with a cyanide capsule. Regardless, it has a great, thundering drumbeat and vocals like they were recorded in an abandon wind tunnel. Check it out.

5.) "Svefn-G-Englar" by Sigur Ros
Do you like pretentious music? I love it! The odd structure of this song, length, unique vocal arrangement and robust wall of sound combined with the fact that I have no idea what the singer is saying envelops you in an ethereal masterpiece that is literally the sonic definition of ‘postmodern’. Somewhere along the line, musicians decided that audiences were lucky to hear them, rather than the musicians were lucky to get paid doing their hobby. This band seems like one of those bands. Then again, I don’t know anything about them as people. They could be a really solid bunch of guys that love their fans and are grateful for each and every one of them. Then again, they could eat baby penguins for brunch, what the hell do I know? Huh?!? Get off my fucking back!

4.) "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits
I will freely admit that despite having “Brothers in Arms” in my music collection for many years, I would have never heard and subsequently fallen in love with this song were it not for my raging ‘West Wing’ boner. Aside from the synthesizer bit at the beginning this song has aged like David Bowie; you get older, it stays the same. Chronicling the last thoughts of a fallen soldier as he lay dying on the battlefield, repenting to his fellow soldiers on for failing them and appealing to both sides that man is not supposed to fight one another. The lyrics are touching but the slow buning guitar solo that creeps throughout the song is what makes you want to buy what Mark Knopfler is selling.

3.) One of thirteen songs off Lateralus by Tool
Under my polo shirt and office job exterior lies an angst-ridden skid, furious with my parents for expressly forbidding me to wear a heavy dose of eye makeup to my Uncle Weevil’s back-country funeral, buryin’ and grits buffet. “Looka cousin’ Chris-face! He got himself a full mouth’a teeth, he does! You got yous a fancy edumacation ta go wit’ dem teeth, boy?!” Or not. Whatever. How dare you judge me and my eye make-up. This album came out in 2001 and I find that I can still pop it in and enjoy it all the way through. Even though I rarely consider one song on the album to be my ‘favorite’, I always seem to have one of these songs in the rotation. If you can get into the album (some people find it just isn’t their cup of tea) I’d highly recommend it. It also has the most badass packaging I have ever seen. Pick it up. $9.99 at Best Buy. For real. But don’t tell your mom. She’ll call the doctor.

2.) "There Goes The Fear" by Doves
As you can probably tell, especially from my previous choice, I like songs with lots of drumming in them. Deep down inside me, there is a caveman. He likes to hit things, and if he can’t be hitting things, he wants to know that other people are hitting things. This song fulfills that order in spades. There is a symphony of drums moving this song tumbling forward at a manic, cheeky pace along with slide guitars, layer upon layer of vocal recordings by each band member, xylophones, any number of guitar parts, a piano and I think a harmonica. This song was practically tailor-made for the medium of the music video. I saw this song performed live once by the band, which has only three members. Seeing a song this complicated live played by three people rather than the twenty-three that should be playing it was so disappointing that I was going to write a sternly-worded letter to the band expressing said disappointment, but then I was distracted by an article on who designs Condoleezza Rice’s outfits. Well dressed Republicans….yuuum.

1.) "Everlong" (in any incarnation) by Foo Fighters
By far the best and most popular song by the Foo Fighters, this is probably the only song of their catalog we will hear on a regular basis on “Oldies Neurocast 156.9” in 2020. I heard this song for the first time in the middle of high school and loved it instantly. In fact, each time I hear the song, I find it never really loses it’s luster. A fantastic New Wave drumbeat underlying seamless guitar work and an epic, lightning fast climax distinguished it from modern pop-rock radio at that time making it, in my opinion, one of the few classic songs of the last decade. Prior to the death of the musical ‘hipster’, in the era before anyone could have any song at any time, even music snobs liked this song. Everyone likes this song, or at least one of the three well known versions of it, and the Michel Gondry-directed video that came along with the original version. If you say you don’t like it, you’re a liar. Or you think you are too cool for school.

Honorable mention: "Candy Girl" by Aaron Carter


Today’s Question:
What drug is the Rolling Stones’ song “Mother’s Little Helper” about? (10 Points)

Moment of the Song: 1:47 from “Sanvean” by Lisa Gerrard

Septemtrionalis arbitratus: malus

Has anyone been listening to “New Orleans is Sinking” or “When the Levee Breaks”? They’re starting to sound more like prophecy and less like 1/2 Steve Smith approved rock music. I’m sure Clear Channel has taken those off the play list for the next 6 weeks.

While watching/reading the news today the images of annihilated neighborhoods and flooded plains are ever-present, it seems that Hurricane Katrina is the 3rd most powerful hurricane ever to make landfall on American soil. The visuals provided to suggest that the Gulf of Mexico (and by the way, how did Mexico call dibs on the name of that gulf? Texas blew it on that one) is trying to claim the state of Louisiana for it’s own. In this case, the death toll has reached 100, which is not a particularly high number for such a powerful force of nature, and the loss has been generally contained to property. Hurricane coverage being more ubiquitous than normal, I have been seeing coverage of people returning to their homes and exercising nothing less than complete indignity at the sight of their life in ruins. One woman was angry that the Federal Emergency Management Agency hadn’t made a stop in her town just yet and that she needed federal help. In 2001, FEMA listed the possibility of a hurricane leveling New Orleans as one of the top three most likely catastrophic natural disasters that would occur in the US. Despite the warning, it was taken out of the presidential cabinet, and calls for budget expansions, especially to continue a project to strengthen the New Orleans levee, went unheard all so that American customs agents can hold up airport lines longer and for more trivial reasons. The levee request was for 80 million and it ended up coming 50 million short, which yes, is a lot of money, but 50 million dollar represents 0.1% of the overall 2005 budget of the Department of Homeland Security, which is the office that houses FEMA. That 50 million apparently could have made the difference between SCUBA Marti Gras and annoying puddles. Louisiana is now a “Blue state” in more ways than one. It looks as if insurance companies are going to get the brunt of this one, since it looks as if they are going to pay out at least 16 billion, at least a substantial portion of which could have been avoided had 50 million been provided for a better levee. That aside, who is going to clean this up when the job is too big for FEMA? Where is the national guard when you need them? Oh yeah: IRAQ. The National Guard has 465000 members, 184000 of them are pinned down by insurgency, hot weather and sand, more than any time in history. Tomorrow, 28000, roughly 6% of who whole guard force, will be deployed to hurricane ravaged areas to hand out coffee and be yelled at by angry people. Oh yeah, and lift stuff. Imagine what these people, the ones they didn’t send to Iraq or Afghanistan, look like. I bet most of them can only see out of one eye or have a clubbed foot. Or you know, maybe they have a family.

UPDATE:

• Rapings and beatings!
  
• Hidden Snipers firing at hospitals as they are evacuated!
  
• The dead lying in the street!
  
• Widespread looting!
  
• Retreating American soldiers!
  
• Orphaned or lost babies crying in the streets, surrounded by the dead!
  

Welcome to Mogadishu, October 1993 New Orleans, August/September 2005...

It's like a day at the Hippodrome over there.

Anyway, that brings me to what should have been the top story for the latter half of the day: nearly 1000 Shiite Muslims (largely women and children) were trampled or drowned during a religious pilgrimage of nearly one million when cries of a suicide bomber (intentionally false or otherwise) amidst the crowd incited a riot. While the train wreck that Iraq has become in the last 3 years has been awe inspiring in terms of both scope and speed, this is on another level. To live in an atmosphere where the threat of being the victim of a random attack is so real and pervasive that your natural reaction among a crowd of your fellow worshipers is to push and shove to get away is such an iniquity that I might vomit if I continue to ponder it. The greatest injustice that can be visited upon any human being is to live in a constant state of fear, whether it for reason specific to one person or an entire nation of people. While the Iraqi government continues to position the cart before the horse with an abortive constitution, citizens are sifting through bodies as a result of an event that should have been peaceful in every conceivable fashion. In order for a government to confer inalienable rights to the citizens of the nation, shouldn’t they be in a position to protect those rights the moment they hand them down?

Today's question:
What historical person of note was questioned in connection with the theft of the painting “La Gioconda” in the year 1911? (15 Points)

Moment in the song: 2:38 from “Wrong” by The Archers of Loaf