hold my spot
Alright, I can’t let a blog post about an award nomination with a title from A Christmas Story remain the most recent for a whole week. Accordingly, I’m dipping back into the well of formula and hittin’ up the ol’ iPod. Freedom from choice is the new black.
1.) “Withering Heights” :: Jacksonville City Nights :: Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - This song in particular doesn’t do much for me, and it doesn’t seem to have done much for Ryan either: he’s never played it live. This a good example of the type of song people complain about when they say Ryan’s albums are too long and need an editor: there really is no reason for this to have been included on a 14-song album that could really have been a kicker at 10.
2.) “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” :: I’m Not There (soundtrack) :: Mason Jennings - I watched this movie again the other night. This song is lip-synched to by Christian Bale as Jack Rollins replicating Dylan’s performance at a Voters’ Registration Rally in Greenwood, Mississippi on July 6, 1963 (part of which is included in Don’t Look Back). Of course, Dylan played “Only A Pawn In Their Game,” so it’s interesting that Todd Haynes chose “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” for this scene. I also liked that Dylan’s own performances were used prominently throughout the film but never when one of the actors lip-synched: those scenes all use covers.
3.) “Metal Heart” :: Jukebox :: Cat Power - Speaking of covers, Cat Power covers herself on this one. I don’t know if I would have gotten into Cat Power at all if I had heard first her early work. Luckily, I’m a late comer to this game, and I was introduced through the much more accessible The Greatest, which is a great record.
4. “For You” :: The Essential Bruce Springsteen :: Bruce Springsteen - The pitfalls of a secondhand iPod. Is there such a thing as essential Bruce Springsteen? If so, this isn’t it.
5. “Will You Visit Me On Sundays” :: Prison :: Merle Haggard - This is one of the scariest songs I’ve ever heard, akin to Johnny Cash’s version of Nick Cave’s “The Mercy Seat.” Unlike that song though, in which we are guided through a guilty man’s electrocution and eventual confession (to himself), this song suggests a criminal’s hanging but doesn’t reach the ultimate event. Instead, the prisoner asks the woman he loves if she will visit his grave on Sundays, lay flowers at his tombstone, and weep for him. Most chilling, though, is the criminal’s contemplation of the possibility that he may be able to hear her footsteps on the ground above him, providing confirmation of her love for him while he lies paralyzed but apparently conscious while dead underground. Yikes.
