I need to get me some Mission of Burma to listen to. I've been appreciating my mp3 of Moby singing "That's When I Reach for My Revolver" for years now without ever realizing it was a cover, and since discovering the original I have realized that I must know more about the people who generated this remarkable song. Moby's version is good, but I can't listen to him without thinking of those scary years at the end of the 90s, when people were telling me that rock was dead and I hadn't yet discovered that the indie world was already proving them wrong. Mission of Burma, then. There are a few songs in the world that sound on first listen like they've always existed in my head, and "Revolver" is one of them. I must have more.
For your edification, here is a partial list of other ones. Topics and lyrics are irrelevant; they're just tunes that I can't imagine being composed by actual human beings instead of by divine intervention and/or a direct line into my brain.
The Magnetic Fields - Bitter Tears
The Shins - New Slang
Sufjan Stevens - Chicago
The Traveling Wilburys - End of the Line (shut up)
The Get Up Kids - Mass Pike
Iron & Wine - Love and Some Verses
The Psychedelic Furs - All That Money Wants
The Sisters of Mercy - Marian (shut up)
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Have You Ever Seen the Rain?
Death Cab for Cutie - Photobooth
The Pixies - Here Comes Your Man
I like Creedence. And I like Marian, which I think you introduced me to.
For some reason Marian comes on my iPod every single time I go joggingt. This is slightly weird, because I didn't really mean for Marian to be on my exercise play list at all. I put Sing This Corrosion on my exercise playlist, and then added Marian on the theory that, "Hey, I like this song, so I'll probably enjoy it while running." But whereas Sing This Corrosion is a fine running song, Marian kind of isn't; it's more of a wandering-in-a-trance song. Yet Marian comes on every time I go jogging, and Sing This Corrosion has never come on.
Still, though: I like Creedence.
Posted by: MoltenBoron at July 9, 2007 06:45 PMI would also think that Lucretia My Reflection would make pretty decent running music. Better than Marian, anyway. Particularly if you were running through New York at night, maybe in the rain but definitely with a black sky and harsh lights, and hearing the roar of the big machine. Perhaps even the sounds of the city and dispossessed?
But since jogging in NYC at night is kind of a famously bad idea, I suppose it's all academic.
Posted by: Dianna at July 9, 2007 07:47 PM