2018: Songs In Rotation

2018: Songs In Rotation

I spent most of 2018 listening to Brandi Carlile, so this list will include many of her songs. Some tracks below were released prior to 2018—some way prior—but captured my ears or imagination for one reason or another this past year. I heard some in coffee shops, some from YouTube binges on sleepless mornings, some on the radio, and some from streaming stations. I hope you like the list, or in the very least, discover a new song/artist or rediscover an old favorite.

In no particular order, here are the songs I listened to the most for the past twelve months.

The Joke

Brandi Carlile

From the Album of the Year, By The Way, I Forgive You, I first heard “The Joke” listening to Radio Woodstock on a cold Hudson Valley February morning, still in my PJs and in front of my friend Mark’s fireplace.

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Brandi Carlile: Party of One

Brandi Carlile: Party of One

From the album of the year (perhaps decade), By the Way, I Forgive You, here are couple of videos of Brandi Carlile’s Party of One.

For me, Party of One is about being so in love with your partner or spouse, but despite that love, also having times of feeling so alone, wishing and fantasizing for something more, something less, or something else—wanting to run—yet still knowing where you belong and who you belong with. It reminds me of certain times in my relationship with Danny, particularly after we became responsible for keeping another human being alive. Also, in many ways Party of One distills the theme of my play Two Spoons down into a 5:47 song.

She closed the show with this when we saw her at the Beacon. And I wept.

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Brandi Carlile: Hold Out Your Hand

Brandi Carlile: Hold Out Your Hand

It’s rare for every song on any given album to be a hit. There is often a miss or clunker among the bunch. Not so with Brandi Carlile’s “By The Way, I Forgive You.” I have been listening to this album over and over since its release. To say that I just can’t get enough would be an understatement. And it has caused me to revisit her entire discography with greater enthusiasm and appreciation. For the past couple of months, it’s been all Brandi Carlile in my ears. So when I saw the video for Hold Out Your Hand, I knew I had to share it, especially because of her support for the March For Our Lives cause and movement.

Here’s the video, and a couple of photos of Danny and me at the NYC March (below).

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Blue Laws and Fountains of Wayne

Blue Laws and Fountains of Wayne

It happened on a Sunday in early 1997. Because of Bergen County’s blue laws that kept most stores closed, I had driven down to Wayne, NJ, to shop for some new music. I’d been going to Willowbrook Mall and the other area shops around Wayne for as long as I could remember. As a kid, my neighbor’s mom would take her two sons, my brother, Matt, and I—with our pockets full of quarters—to the video game arcade at the mall. Years later, while I attended nearby Montclair State College, I would often go with friends to eat, shop, hangout, or sing karaoke in a basement bar of one of the restaurants (Casey O’Tooles?).

But that Sunday in 1997, I had gone by myself to The Wiz (an electronics and music store near Willowbrook, but not in the mall) to search the rows of CDs for something new. At the end of one of those rows was a special display, a rack of CDs featuring local artists. And that’s when Fountains of Wayne’s self-titled debut album caught my eye.

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Grace and Gross at the Grammys

Grace and Gross at the Grammys

The 59th Annual Grammys Awards are this weekend. Twenty-five years ago, I worked at the 34th Annual Grammys at Radio City Musical Hall. My friend, Christine, a fellow Montclair State alum, asked me, along with a bunch of other recent Communication Studies graduates, to volunteer as a talent escort and seat filler.

On February 25, 1992, we met at Radio City early, received an orientation, a tour of the hall, and our escort assignments. Some of us would escort performers. Some would escort presenters. Performers got dressing rooms. Presenters did not. I didn’t know if my nerves could manage a performer, which that year included Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, Mariah Carey, Luther Vandross, Bonnie Raitt, LL Cool J, Seal, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Johnny Mathis.

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Believing in Chunky Soup?

Believing in Chunky Soup?

I’ve been posting song memories since I started this blog thing in December. Inspiration has often come while listening to my iPod Classic. I love that 160gb device.  It holds every song I own, 13k, with room left for another 15k. This is my third iPod since the iPod came out. And I don’t know what I’ll do when this one grinds to halt. (Apple discontinued the iPod a few years ago with some lame excuse about not being able to find the parts. Really? You’re Apple. You can find what whatever parts you want, wherever you want.)

I don’t want to stream music to my iPhone, eating up data, and getting interrupted by texts, emails, alerts, and calls. No thanks. I like my music separate from my work. Besides, I’ve crafted so many playlists and smart playlists that sync up seamlessly with iTunes over the years. For me, the system didn’t need fixing.

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Mary Chapin Carpenter: Where Time Stands Still

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April 1995: San Francisco. After a breakup, I set off to travel alone for the first time in my life. Sad and scared, yet excited to be exploring and finding myself, I walked, hiked, and biked around the city for days, sometimes never speaking to another person all day. This song, on a mixed tape with Radiohead’s Creep and Counting Crows’ Sullivan Street, kept me company. All three songs are forever etched onto my memory and senses, next to the rolling hills, the cable cars, the Castro, and the Golden Gate. The trip and Mary’s song changed my life.

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