The Good Goo of Random Gum
Wooded Summer 2011 (playlist on Spotify, where the songs actually exist on Spotify)

01. “Time Never Dies” – Anastasia (Before the Rain soundtrack)
When I think of the film Before the Rain, I will always think of how my friend Mike and I always used to spend our 1990s Friday nights together watching films. This one was told in a roundabout way that still does not totally make sense. The film starred the late Katrin Cartlidge and one of Hollywood’s favorite “eastern European villains”, Rade Serbedzija.

02. “Sometimes” – Beach Fossils …We get lost sometimes/But the reality will keep us sane…
Lost but not lost, a lot of goodbyes, bad byes, telling people off but also enjoying good, new beginnings.

03. “Sun Demon” – Stereolab Actually I like the title “Sun Demon” more than I like the song.

04. “Sorrow” – The National …I don’t wanna get over you… 🙁

05. “The Oh So Protective One” – Girls …And if by now he doesn’t see/Maybe it wasn’t meant to be…
An irresistible, early-Elvis Costello-ballad feel to it. Here’s to unexpressed feelings and how they can tear one up inside.

06. “Ring Ring” – Sleigh Bells …click click saddle up see you on the moon then…
“You’re all alone friend…” Yes, you are all alone, and you might as well be on the moon.

07. “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” – Arcade Fire …Living in the sprawl/Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains/And there’s no end in sight/I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights…
“These days my life, I feel it has no purpose/But late at night the feelings swim to the surface”. Continued thanks to Gabriel for the intro. Addictive song, addictive album.

08. “Home” – Glasser …The clouds were dust, raining on us/There was a phantom me in a bed of love…
Reference to a ‘bed of love’ brings to mind an Ingeborg Bachmann poem I have long loved that states, “fearless in religion, for our bed was the church”. For A-x, who gave me hope, titles, dreams, support and then sort of took it all away.

09. “Photojournalist” – Small Black …rise up again/like a ghost…
Like a sexual apparition always haunting for years after the fact, I apparently rise again and again like a ghost.

10. “Swim” – Surfer Blood …swim to reach the end…
SWIM (someone who isn’t me) recommends this song. Thoughts of Jennifer and Esteban!

11. “Ed-Ucation” – Dr Dre …what happened to just fallin in love with a niggah with a bus pass?…
Thank you, Annette, for quoting this for me while waving a bus pass around on a cold Oslo morning.

12. “Core of Nature” – Midlake …I’ll remain no more than is required of me/Until the spirit is gone/I will long to see all that waits to be known/And all that will never be known…
Midlake makes me think of Aurélien and also DB, former colleague and Annette’s “adopted son” in Stockholm.

13. “Wind Me Up” – Eux Autres …Needles and pins/Wait to wind me up again/Summer’s making me late…
Love for my mom and for Annette: Getting late? Needles and pins-uh. 🙂 “Winter’s making me wait/and then”

14. “We Can Get Together” – The Hold Steady …Heaven is whenever we can get together/Lock your bedroom door, and listen to your records…
Remembering the close intensity of youthful friendships and how they all fell apart. The intimacy of pure and simple things being like heaven back in those days (love to GL, LH and TP).

15. “Golden Haze” – Wild Nothing …wild heart surrender to me/what does it take to be like you? …

16. “Up and Down” – Chad Valley
New Year’s Day 2011 and simply struck me for its sound and idea – things really are up and down.

17. “The Dog-End of a Day Gone By” – Love & Rockets …In a city without a soul/Newspaper boys selling you the hard truth…
L&R is like being transported back to junior high school but sounds very different to me now than it did then. For some totally unknown reason, this makes me think of my friend Jill. May you finally escape Ithaca!

18. “Azt Mondta Az Anyukam” – Tamas Somlo & Omega
Strange Hungarian music that just had a cool sound in the resurgence of my love for Hungarian stuff.

19. “All Alone in an Empty House” – Lost in the Trees
What could be more apt? I am all alone in an empty house, lost in the trees, surrounded by deer licking my car.

20. “Love or Loneliness” – Math and Physics Club
“You say there’s only me/then you say it’s sweet/I still believe in monogamy/what am I supposed to think?”

21. “Everything You Wanted” – Kele …I see the pain written over your face/And I know I pushed you too far…

22. “Lille” – Lisa Hannigan
“I went to war every morning/I lost my way, but now I’m following/What you said in my arms/What I read in the charms/that I loved durably/now it’s dead and gone, and I am free…”

23. “Take ‘Em Up” – Shit Robot …Maybe it’s just a little too late/And when you’re close you’re just a little too close/But it’s just as far as you’ll go…

24. “Triumph!!!” – Shit Robot

25. “Own Stunts” – Breathe Owl Breathe …I’m walking down the path/Look down there’s a welcome mat/Over a trap door…
“Cross my heart and hope to live/My blood is boilin’”. This song, for some unknown reason, affects me deeply.

26. “Without a Doubt” – Isbells
With love to Arjen for another stellar recommendation. Belgium has more than just beer and chocolate!:)

27. “In Many Ways I Am Losing” – Joe Wilkes …you shoulda locked me out/when I came in drunk that time…

28. “Miner at the Dial-a-View” – Grandaddy …I’m going home someday…
Longtime friend David gave me this album an eternity ago. I fell in love with it again lately. Tack så mycket, David.

29. “Acid Reign” – Violens …I know I can be so critical at times/When you’re delusional/leaving your loved ones behind…
I somehow associate this band with A-x since his presence swirls around these songs.

30. “My Love” – The Asteroid No. 4 …South of London where the roses seem to grow through the cobblestones/I met my lover at the end of a winding country road…
Middle of the night drives, no other cars, feeling buoyed by this sound.

31. “My Oh My!” – Macklemore and Ryan Lewis …fight until the day that God decides to wave us in…
RIP Dave Niehaus and… take me out to the ballgame… and to all my baseball-loving friends.

32. “You Can Count on Me” – Panda Bear
You can never actually count on anyone.

33. “Hey” – The Pixies
For Mathieu – very appropriate.

34. “Je Suis Venu Te Dire Que Je M’En Vais” – Serge Gainsbourg …oui je t’aimais, oui, mais- je suis venu te dire que je m’en vais…
The driving song … my American days. Des adieux à jamais/Farewell forever.

35. “Marathon” – Tennis …we didn’t realize that we had arrived at high tide, high tide/barely made it out alive…
My immortal love for marathons. For JKL, the only capable marathoner I know.

36. “Cold Blooded Old Times” – Smog …the type of memories/that turn your bones to glass…
“How can I stand/And laugh with the man/Who redefined your body?”

37. “The Dawn of Your Happiness is Rising” – Violens …the dawn of your happiness still rising/Still rising, banishing the dark thoughts you have been hiding inside of you…
For A-x. “You lay awake/beside me troubled and afraid/Be calm, you’re safe/the light of day just hours away…”

38. “Pineapple Girl” – Mister Heavenly …I’ve heard you’re evil and I’ve heard you’re wicked/that you do bad things that would frighten children…
Is there anything the pineapple girl cannot do? No! “So be my little pineapple girl”.

39. “A Postcard to Nina” – Jens Lekman …don’t let anyone stand in your way…
I miss Nina! (Great lyrics with a great story. I always love the Swedes!)

40. “What’s In It For?” – Avi Buffalo …you are tiny and your lips are just like little pieces of bacon…
“I walked in on a plan to dissolve all of your wishes…”

41. “Boyfriend” – Best Coast …I’d love him to the very end/But instead he is just a friend…
I used to just think this sounded sort of cool, like something from the 60s. Now it just makes me sad.

42. “Fucking Boyfriend (Peaches Remix)” – The Bird and the Bee …Would you ever be my, would you be my fucking boyfriend?…
Thanks to Esteban in response to “Boyfriend”… should be more in keeping with my angrier, more demanding nature.

43. “It’s Alright” – Junip

44. “Gravity Feels” – Millionyoung
I love to play this LOUD in the car in the middle of the night. I love the shift from instrumental to vocal.

45. “Need You Now” – Cut Copy …hush darling, don’t you cry…
You were there at least once when I really needed you.

46. “Corporeal” – Broadcast …do that to my anatomy…
RIP Trish Keenan of Broadcast. “A thorny red heart/Around a thin arm/Inside a white bone/The love is inborn”

47. “More” – The Sisters of Mercy (Marilyn)
Nightmare experiences that diminish in horror over time: they are as bad as you remember. Never be fooled by the fallacy of a time-softened memory.

48. “Bone China” – 50 Foot Wave …last gasp nymphomania/somehow desexualized/gonna wash that man right out of my hair/soap him into my eyes… (For JKL)

49. “Motorbike to Heaven” – Salad …I don’t know why/but I got a good idea that we’ll meet again someday/it makes me cry/there’s a memory of you standing in the woods…
Thoughts of past (Kathryn, Beth, Olivier) and present (KKK) and memories of not getting what I want in the woods.

50. “Pneuma” – 50 Foot Wave …you know what? you know what? you know what?/SHUT THE FUCK UP!…

51. “Harold and Joe” – The Cure
Failing drafting class and listening to this while daily crossing the field from Japanese class. Thanks to Gary, 1990

52. “Big Wave” – Jenny and Johnny (Thanks to Aurélien)
“And my love’s a lie/’cause the snake, he visits me/When you are away/And your dreams don’t lie/I have been corrupted/’Cause all the lovers I take”

53. “The Chinatown Bus” – Bishop Allen
“And his gloves are pristine white just like the girls I used to know would wear to dance their first cotillion/Every single one of them named Jennifer”

54. “We Were Gonna” – Dengue Fever
I love the sound of this music – Cambodian lyrics remind me of Vietnamese karaoke circa 1996, lost time.

55. “Get Innocuous!” – LCD Soundsystem …to string you along with the pretense/and pave the way for the coming release…

56. “The Youth” – MGMT …This is a call to arms to live and love and sleep together…

57. “Povo Que Lavas No Rio” – Amália Rodrigues
“Pode haver quem te defenda/Quem compre o teu chão sagrado/Mas a tua vida não”

58. “The Dustbowl” – Everything but the Girl …am I flattering myself/or was I the one who made you cynical?…
Love to William who put this on a tape for me years and years ago!

59. “Going Blind” – The Go-Betweens …sometimes change is a dirty word/yeah, that’s what I heard…
I miss the Go-Betweens. Here’s to more change, which is never a dirty word in my vocabulary.

60. “Beginning to See the Light” – The Velvet Underground …some people work very hard/but still they never get it right…
Timeless, with passion. “There are problems in these times/but woooooo, none of them are mine!”

61. “Running from the Cops” – Phantogram …my dreams they never come true/and if they ever, ever do it’s never you…
For KKK, who has assumed an inexplicable amount of importance in my life

62. “Winter’s Ruin” – Ghosts I’ve Met …I never really knew you at all… (For A-x.)

63. “Dead Man Walking” – Sara Petite
Something peculiar for me. Ms Petite was one of my high school classmates (slightly reminiscent of Victoria Williams).

64. “Under Their Thumb… is under my thumb” – The Boomtown Rats …revenge is sweet/but it’s sugar free…
Love to Angelika, to Annette, and to long lost friends…

65. “The High Road” – Broken Bells …it’s too late to change your mind…

66. “Nobody’s Diary” – Yazoo …For the happy, the sad – I don’t want to be just another page in your history…

67. “Water Ran” – Lilly Wood & the Prick …it’s too early to say I would have liked to love you, I know…
For A-x. “It’s too far to say I would have liked to hold you…”

68. “Hourglass” – Squeeze

69. “It’s Working” – MGMT …no, it’s working…
“It’s working in your blood/which you know is not the same as love/love is only in your mind and not your heart”

70. “Senses Working Overtime” – XTC …and all the world is biscuit shaped/it’s just for me to feed my face…

71. “Pendulum” – Broadcast …Caught between the day and night/And a knot that pulls too tight…
“Logic offers no defense/Underneath this influence/While this puzzle of intent/Holds emotion in suspense”

72. “Little Marriage” – Lia Ices …I started minding not having it all/one little marriage or big love…
Here’s to all the things I just cannot bear to do anymore.

73. “I’ll Try Anything Once” – The Strokes (With love for Tara)

74. “No Surprises” – Radiohead …no alarms and no surprises…
Always the way things end. No alarms and no surprises…

75. “Sacrifice” – Sinéad O’Connor …Cold, cold heart/hardened by you/some things look better, baby/just passing through…
Driving I-5 away from Seattle in summer, 1996, aimless, restless, being torn apart. The sound of a busy signal.

76. “Flower” – Liz Phair (For JKL) …every time you pass me by, I heave a sigh of pain…
Lyrics are self-explanatorily graphic, “impure” and “unchaste”…

77. “Bad Luck Heels” – DeVotchKa

78. “The Night” – Morphine …You’re the night, Lilah/A little girl lost in the woods/You’re a folk tale/The unexplainable…

79. “Heroes” – TV on the Radio (RIP Gerard Smith of TVotR – one of David Bowie’s best is a fitting tribute…)

80. “At the Start” – Shelby Earl …I’m tired of letting go with a smile/when you kissed my hand and said, you’re all right…
“I am right where I’ve always been/at the start, I could see the end/I am right where I always am/at the start, I’m at the end”

81. “Don’t Shake It” – Cornershop

82. “Fly Me Away” – Goldfrapp …And I wanna be the/One that you call/When you get down/No matter where you/Are in the world I’ll be around…
This had a faintly Saint Etienne quality, made me think very much of beloved, illustrious Ben and of A-x. “Don’t wanna live a life/In a world that’s all the same/The crazy little things/That you do are magical”

83. “Flower” – The Charlatans …it’s time to say goodbye,/bye to the bad, bad girl…

84. “Make a Plan to Love Me” – Bright Eyes …some things you lose/you don’t get back/So just know what you have…
“When you are young the world is a ferris wheel/I know we will grow old it is lovely, still/Make a plan to love me…”

85. “Pretend I Don’t Exist” – Melody Gardot (For A-x)
“I waited for love to call/But got none at all/So I should stay/While you wander away/From the warmth of my lips/Just try to forget my kiss/Pretend I don’t exist”

86. “New Myth” – Lia Ices …say my name like it’s never been before…
Beauty, raw emotion. For A-x, for Jane. “New myth just been born has never felt so old.”