missing lionesses – Random gum of December 2018 soundtrack

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This isn’t the most complete or exciting ‘soundtrack’ – I found it hard to find time for music in November to put together something for December… then again, none of the playlists are “exciting”. But here’s to what I’ve been hearing.

Missing lionesses
Good Goo of Random Gum – December 2018

Follow along on Spotify.

01 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – (Forever) Live and Die
1980s reruns of Top of the Pops
02 Idlewild – Little Discourage
Scotland; memories of a long-ago concert
03 The Bats – North by North
04 X – True Love – Part 2
05 Erkin Koray – Cemalim
Türkiye
06 Deerhoof – Criminals of the Dream
07 John Maus – Walls of Silence
08 Deidre & the Dark – Unerasable Love
09 Kero Kero Bonito – Make Believe
10 Gwenno – Hi a Skoellyas Liv a Dhagrow
Wales
11 Camille Christel – Copenhagen
12 Jim White, Aimee Mann – Static on the Radio
13 Lee Hazlewood – For One Moment
14 Shannon Shaw – Freddies ‘n’ Teddies
15 Marie Möör – Pretty Day
16 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – So In Love
Realized that the singer of OMD resembles a young Donald Trump. Poor guy.
17 Yo La Tengo – The Ballad of Red Buckets
18 Melody’s Echo Chamber – Breathe In, Breathe Out
19 Irène Jacob – Souris
20 Eurythmics – Thorn in My Side
21 Radmila Karaklajić – To Naše Mesto
22 Cass McCombs – Sleeping Volcanoes
23 Piroshka – Everlastingly Yours
24 Mathilde Bataillé – Crying in Public
25 Orange Juice – I Guess I’m Just a Little Too Sensitive

cherry blossom girl – Random gum of June 2018 soundtrack

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Cherry blossom girl – Random gum – June 2018
www.comraderadmila.com / Follow me on Spotify

01 The Shacks – “Let Your Love
For all the beautiful negative Geminis
02 Lhasa de Sela – “Abro la Ventana
I hate stumbling onto beautiful contemporary music only after the artist has died.
03 Vessels, John Grant – “Erase the Tapes…Fear, fear has never got you anywhere/It’s all a misunderstanding, a vague distraction…
Thanks to J
04 Alberteen – “Our Dead Language
Thanks to Ade
05 The Beatles – “All My Loving
One of those infectious tunes that gets stuck in your mind, “Close your eyes, and I’ll kiss you”
06 Lucy Dacus – “Troublemaker Doppelganger
“I wanna live in a world where I can keep my doors wide open”
07 Add N to (X) – “Plug Me In
Thanks to SD… button yersel up all wrong there, hen. Unless you’re wearing a vest…
08 Nine Inch Nails – “Sin
Heading to high school & “head like a ho” at Depeche Mode with Leighanne and Terra
09 The Mogambos – “Bi-Aza-Ku-Sasa
MOGAMBO!
10 Wire – “Eardrum Buzz
Shaving buzzes. Love to J
11 Kacy & Clayton – “Springtime of the Year
As a long winter finally gives way to spring
12 Haley Heynderickx – “Worth It
“Maybe I, maybe I’ve been selfish all along/Finally I’m ready for the silence/Finally I’m ready for nothing”
13 Muzsikás – “En csak azt csodálom
Hungary
14 Abraxas – “Bisexual Random Trout
Random disco-ish
15 Zaki Ibrahim – “Profantasies
South Africa-Canada
16 Hot Chip – “One Life Stand
True words.
17 Faith Healer – “Light of Loving
18 U.S. Girls – “Rosebud
Cheers to Ade
19 Trashcan Sinatras – “Even the Odd
Glasgow Tesco trips – cheers to SD
20 Sudan Archives – “Oatmeal
Scott’s Porage Oats pose! Ch-ch-ch-chia!
21 Death In Vegas – “Girls
22 Wolf Parade – “Fine Young Cannibals
23 Habibi – “Nedayeh Bahar
Song of spring. “Where we go/we’ll always be/somewhere close to misery”
24 Nilüfer Yanya – “Golden Cage
25 Nilipek. – “Kosuyolu
Lovely Turkish
26 Samantha Crain – “Antiseptic Greeting
“What happens now is word is spreading I am cruel/When really I am just an oblivious fool/I think I’ll probably always let you down”
27 The Beatles – “The Ballad of John and Yoko
One of those songs I never tire of for some reason
28 Timber Timbre – “Grifting
“Faking it to make it/Never give, but take it/Building trust through kindness/To exploit the finest”
29 Palya Bea – “Hívlak Téged
More Hungary
30 Trailer Trash Tracys – “Eden Machine
A very vaguely Goldfrapp kind of sound
31 Mattiel – “Count Your Blessings
“Your body will be whole again/Make yourself at home again/Count your blessings, one to ten”
32 La Luz – “Cicada
Sweet Seattle
33 Babolar – “Mogambo
34 Anna Domino – “Land of My Dreams
35 Eefje de Visser – “Wakker
The seductive Dutch
36 The Beatles – “You’re Going to Lose That Girl
It’s not difficult to lose a girl who was never yours…
37 Saint Etienne – “Lose that Girl
Love to Ben and to Naomi … and you might want to lose that girl anyway
38 Nádia Schilling – “Bad as Me
Portugal. “Forgive the back and forth/Some anchors drop, crush what it’s worth/But you know, you’re bad as me/Don’t run for cover, walk on your feet/(Even when sore, tired and beat)”
39 Zola Jesus – “Bound
40 Grand Tone Music – “I Give It All
My early Swedish music influences, long before living here
41 Faces – “That’s All You Need…concerns my brother/who’s thin and played violin/woooo!…
For SD the performer, for Erin, for my mom; discussions on Rod the Mod & Paul Hogan imitations of Rod
42 Lord Huron – “Lost in Time and Space
43 N.W.A. – “Straight Outta Compton
Insane UK media uses this as a headline about LA-born, royal-by-marriage, Meghan Markle
44 John Cale – “The Man Who Couldn’t Afford to Orgy
For the man who walks away from orgies
45 Yo La Tengo – “Autumn Sweater
When I heard the knock on the door/I couldn’t catch my breath/Is it too late to call this off”
46 Air – “Cherry Blossom Girl
“I don’t want to be shy/Can’t stand it anymore”
47 Mary Margaret O’Hara – “You Will Be Loved Again
Beautiful – sad song. I have long loved the Cowboy Junkies’ version but have recently started to turn to the original MMO version. “How could he/Take you in his arms and/Help you free/Then leave you forgotten?/And is it enough to cry/When you’re so broken?”
48 Angels of Light – “Untitled Love Song
Show me your ocean red/Kiss the tears that stain my neck/Drug me with visions untrue/But I own a photograph”
49 Frightened Rabbit – “Get Out
RIP Scott Hutchison
50 Someone – “Forget Forgive

Full playlist on Spotify.

May I come in? – Random gum of May 2018 soundtrack

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Time again for another monthly random gum music mix; music for May 2018. To discover all my playlists on Spotify and follow me.

I don’t have any words of wisdom this month. I’ve been busy with my sudden students status, but nothing ever stops me from finding and listening to music. I invite you to listen, too.

May I Come In? – Random Gum – May 2018

01 Nico – “The Fairest of the Seasons…Yes and the morning has me/Looking in your eyes/And seeing mine warning me/To read the signs carefully…
Love for and thanks to AB… “Now that I’ve tried/Now that I’ve finally found that this is not the way”.
02 Brigid Mae Power – “Let Me Go Now”
Heartbreaking. “It was just too hard to love unconditionally/you can let me go now, that’s okay/it was just too hard to love in that way”
03 Belle & Sebastian – “Nobody’s Empire”
Glasgow love. “There was a girl that sang like the chime of a bell/And she put out her arm and she touched me when I was in hell”
04 Feu! Chatterton – “Grace”
The French past. “Le tendre passé qui nous hante/Croît comme un jardin vivant/Un terrain vague/Peuplé de très vieux mirages/De fleurs sauvages”
05 Akofa Akoussah – “I Tcho Tchass
Tales of Togo and Togolese radio
06 Lower Dens – “Your Heart Still Beating”
“Your heart is still beating in all of my dreams/And I swore again and again/Never again”
07 The Helio Sequence – “Deuces” …now I’m gone/you’ve lost your hold on me…
PNW. “I don’t wanna be cool, I don’t wanna be distant/Or harbor grief for you/And I don’t mean to be cool, I don’t need to seem never like/I’m holding out for you”
08 Tortoise – “Yonder Blue” …Oh, I’ll fill the ocean with tears until I find you…
09 Gentle Hen – “The People You See Regularly Never Grow Old”
Hold them horses, hen.
10 Twerps – “Dreamin”
Australia/Melbourne
11 The Communards – “Don’t Leave Me This Way
Glasgow disco. SD
12 BC Unidos, Shungudzo – “Ouagadougou
13 Belly – “Superconnected”
Memories of driving-around singalong sessions with dear Tara in the mid-90s and our continued connection
14 Alberteen – “Infant Nation”
Thanks to inimitable AB
15 Silver Apples – “I Have Known Love”
16 Veronika Boulytcheva, Natalia Ermilova – “Ouj i ja li moloda”
A song that hurts most people’s ears – reminds me of college and my dad saying this sounds like ”wailing Chinese people”
17 Yo La Tengo – ”Pablo and Andrea” …someone came and took all the roses away…
“I’ll cover for you like a slipcover covers a chair”
18 Geowulf – “Greatest Fool”
Aussies in London. “Point at me and laugh, my love/’Cause I thought we were enough/Guess I make the greatest fool/Gentlemen, I’ll humor you”
19 Julian Cope – “Sunspots” …I’m in love with my very best friend…
Back to high school and the nightmare “environmental camp” I went to one year trying to make a friend feel better
20 Hoshi – “Comment je vais faire” (acoustic version)
21 Alabama Shakes – “Dunes” …Somewhere in me, a memory that I cannot gather anymore…
22 Delta 5 – “Mind Your Own Business”
Words of wisdom
23 Diane Coffee – “Hymn”
“So come on, walk to your house/You put a record on”. Afternoons after school listening to records, love to my school friends (Terra, Leighanne, Gary)
24 Sugar Candy Mountain – “Atlas”
25 Lost Horizons – “The Places We’ve Been”
Vocals by Karen Peris from The Innocence Mission
26 Cinerama – “Tie Me Up”
“You own me, you own me, and I’m not arguing”
27 Emily King – “Sleepwalker”
“I feel my body move without me again/Ooh, like a sleepwalker getting closer to him”
28 Tracy Chapman – “Smoke and Ashes”
Reminds me of the interminable summer of 1996
29 The Stone Roses – “Love Spreads”
I never cared much for this Roses song, but after seeing it live, it took on a different feeling
30 of Montreal – “Last Rites at the Jane Hotel” …These tears I cry for you must prove that I’m not the demon that I’m meant to be…
“Other people can be so disappointing/I need to spend more time alone”
31 A Taste of Honey – “Boogie Oogie Oogie”
For SD, as all danceable tunes are
32 Bam Spacey – “Avstånd och skog”
Malmö.
33 Heather Nova – “What a Feeling”
“Life is only half way in our hands/Years have passed while I was making plans/And I could never find the words/I always felt absurd, and always outside”
34 Kalbells – “Alonetime” …life can be so emotional/when you’re lonely…
Springtime. Here’s cheers to Annette, AB, SD, J, Anne
35 Fastbacks – “I Never Knew”
The old Seattle haunts and sounds; Oslo tunnels
36 Brandi Carlile – “Sugartooth”
Locals
37 Olden Yolk – “Cut to the Quick”
38 Low – “Let’s Stay Together”
Because yes, sometimes, people do stay together
39 Indigo Girls – “Kid Fears”
It’s like junior high school again, and somehow makes me think of Amie
40 Bedouine – “Summer Cold” …You say, ‘What have they done to you friend?’…
Armenian-American via Aleppo. “I’ve had enough of your guns and your ammunition”
41 Orange Juice – “Untitled Melody”
Glasgow. “You need me more or less, I need you more and more”
42 Belly – “Judas My Heart”
“Where I live/There’s a blanket of sighs and it covers the stars/In my heart, I’m as hungry as ever”
43 Madeline Kenney – “Signals”
A signal is what you use in your car, dude. Not a way of communicating with someone who clearly needs direct answers.”
44 Sevdaliza – “Amandine Insensible” …There’s a woman, she’s every fantasy/And no reality in one…
“How can I suffer without the pain?/Can we struggle without the shame?”
45 Dori Freeman – “Cold Waves” …There’s something bitter and it’s tyin’ up my tongue/My body’s restless but I’ve got nowhere to run…
“I’ve got a lover and he loves me very well/He took my broken heart and brought it back from hell/And with the slightest glance and movement he can tell/That I am lost and only he can lift the veil”
46 Deep Throat Choir – “In My Bed”
Amy Winehouse cover
47 Aidan Moffat, RM Hubbert, feat. Siobhan Wilson – “Cockcrow”
Scotland
48 Salad – “Warmth of the Hearth” …Here comes the hearth/We’re almost there baby/I’m on the path/Missing you already…
One of those bands that never quite hit (I loved them) but has reunited to tour recently
49 Julia Lucille – “Lie and Wait” …What do you think should we take it slow/Or go as fast as my body wants to go…
“Wrapped up in your loving arms imperfect as I am/You don’t tell me I’m beautiful, you tell me I’m a badass but/I hold back my love” … “What do you think was it too much too soon/I felt your mind just leaving when I walked into the room”. I like almost nothing more than I like Julia Lucille these days.
50 The Go-Betweens – “Dive For Your Memory”
“When I hear you saying/That we stood no chance/I’ll dive for your memory/We stood that chance”

a love supreme – anti-valentine – random gum of february 2018 soundtrack

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a love supreme – anti-valentine
february 2018 – the good goo of random gum

01 The Supremes – Love is Like an Itching in My Heart
“Just an itching in my heart and I can’t scratch it”
02 Cate le Bon – Are You With Me Now?
03 Margo Price – Hands of Time
“Turn back the clock on the cruel hands of time”
04 Nana – Menino Carioca
05 Mary Lou Lord – I’m Ahead If I Can Quit While I’m Behind
06 BC Camplight – You Should’ve Gone to School
07 Sandie Shaw – (There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me
08 Sibylle Baier – Softly
Here’s to hidden women making their belated mark
09 Grizzly Bear – Losing All Sense
“Like a rogue wave you/Wash right over me/Losing all sense of what my body could feel/I was able to drift away from here/I have lost all control”
10 Gingerlys – Incandescent
11 BRONCHO – What
12 Sofia Freire – Canção da Bruxa
13 Dita von Teese, Sébastien Tellier – Bird of Prey
14 Marta Kubišová – Už se léto schovává
…Hang up the Czech habit. Love to Anne, to Martina, to Mr MI
15 Claudine Longet – Medley: Jealous Guy/Don’t Let Me Down
16 Belle & Sebastian – I’ll Be Your Pilot
All the Glaswegians
17 Nap Eyes – Delirium and Persecution Paranoia
18 Angel Olsen – How Many Disasters
19 The Supremes – Forever Came Today
20 The Barry Sisters – Vyoch Tyoch Tyoch
Can’t resist a Yiddish song, now can we?
21 Tommy Allen – Ghosts in the Walls
22 The Fall – There’s a Ghost in My House
RIP Mark E. Smith – who seems like the type to linger as a ghost in another dimension, tormenting people for all eternity from the beyond.
23 Jenny O. – Lazy Jane …I’m feeling blue/Cause I can’t have you…
“I’m never gonna be a cheerleader/I can’t do tricks/And I ain’t that sick”. For all those so far away now I will never get them back
24 Emma Gatrill – Odd Ones Out
“Don’t judge a book by its cover/Its façade is simple, simple to see/But by twenty pages in/You’ll find the story is not what it first seemed”
25 Over the Rhine – Latter Days
26 Al Masrieen – Men Awel Deqiqa
27 The Fall – Feeling Numb
One can only feel numb at the passing of Mark E. Smith (RIP), knowing the end probably could easily have come earlier. Still, the only good thing about his death is that I have learned about so many more people in my circles who are fans of The Fall, and I might never otherwise have known.
28 Hollie Cook – Desdemona
29 Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guébrou – The Homeless Wanderer
Ethiopia
30 The Fall – Big New Prinz
I didn’t think much about how The Fall served as a soundtrack thread through most of my life until the recent passing of the cantankerous Mark E. Smith. All the way back to my adolescence, when my friend Terra and I would be sucked in by the aggressive sounds of “Big New Prinz” (and the rest of the songs from the same album), and not too long thereafter when my bricklayer pen pal Peter in the north of England would send me mixed cassettes that included loads of The Fall. And then how Naomi and I would share this connection and even see The Fall together many, many years ago. The Fall continued to help me forge surprising connections through the years.
31 Renata Zeiguer – Follow Me Down
32 Duke Garwood – Blue
33 France Gall – Laisse tomber les filles
34 Mattiel – Whites of Their Eyes
35 Yo La Tengo – I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
36 Slow Club – In Waves
“You can’t tell me you’re not like this/Staring down the pages of the shit you’ve missed/Hoping you’ll find a way to change/Days spent waiting in my living grave”
37 Julia Lucille – Darkening
Such pretty sounds “As I’m darkening I must go alone”
38 Brigitte Fontaine – Une fois mais pas deux
39 Ofege – It’s Not Easy
Nigeria
40 Luwten – Pinball
“I am the pinball/I am the deer/I hear the shot/I disappear”
41 Mogwai – I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead
“Jim Morrison… Van Morrison more like!” For S (naturally with an additional nod to Glasgow in Mogwai)
42 Wooden Wand – Mexican Coke
Martina! You know if it’s Mexican I will tag you!
43 The Fall – British People in Hot Weather
I had been an avid anglophile as a kid/adolescent, and I don’t really know what happened to make me so negative on the English. Still, The Fall has been something of a ‘negative soundtrack’ all along.
44 De Lux – When Your Life Feels Like a Loss
45 Ramona Lisa – Dominic
“Forgive me if I was too forward too fast”
46 The Fall – Powder Keg
And what else is the world today than a powder keg?
47 Sexores – Bluish Lovers
Ecuador
48 The Supremes – Someday We’ll Be Together
…but will we?
49 The Psychedelic Furs – Sister Europe
“Words are all just useless sound” … for all my Furs friends
50 Tori Amos – Josephine
51 Cowboy Junkies – Cowboy Junkies Lament
Memories of college-era road trip with my Russian class, all long disappeared, all of us singing together in that fleeting moment of closeness. And the long, lost Townes van Zandt, who wrote this song for the Cowboy Junkies. “There’s a hole in heaven where some sin slips through/Close your eyes and dream real steady/Maybe just a little will spill on you”
52 Al Green – How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?
“I could never see tomorrow/I was never told about the sorrow”
53 The Cranberries – No Need to Argue
RIP Dolores O’Riordan. I remember listening to this song on repeat one year during college – it had such a sad, resigned finality to it that resonated with me (as I greeted endings, particularly of relationships with this kind of sad resignation. I have never been the type to really “freak out” and go crazy). This seemed like the perfect anthem for that kind of sad acceptance. Much as we must go forward with sad acceptance when people die too soon.

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Sour Times of Summer – Random Gum, Summer 2017

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Yet another mix to get through the summer…

It’s fun to go back to old mixes – I have been doing these formally since 2004, so there are a lot of them. It’s extraordinary to feel so strongly the feelings felt at the time of selecting the songs. Even songs that did not have particular import at the time – now I can remember exactly the feeling associated with listening. The 2017 Moving On mix from the early part of the year, for example, included “Trouble” by Girl Ray, which was never a favorite, but now when I listen to it, I imagine this whirlwind trip to Stockholm in December 2016 to pick up my new car and the long drive home (5 hours), the strange feeling of it being snowy and wintry in Stockholm but not at home in the woods in western Sweden (really unusual reversal of winter fortune).

Or I look at the Halloween 2007 mix, and even though I had no idea at that point that I would be leaving Iceland the following year, there are all these hints scattered through everything that I would eventually move to Sweden. Not to mention the ongoing themes of melancholy and uncertainty (the entire 2007 mix reflects that). I can sense an almost palpable shift in the way the mixes were done and the mounting intensity of my music searches and listening as soon as I got my bearings in Norway/Sweden.

In 2008, I made a mix but was almost rootless, and I think I see that rootlessness in the ‘floating’ and almost lazy nature of the mix (even though I had connections to and reasons for the selections, but as a whole it remains one of my least favorite mixes). By 2009 I was deep into ‘discovery’ mode, and that has mostly continued ever since. In 2009, influenced heavily by a French guy, initials BB, dontcha know?? (When am I not under the influence of French guys?) I put a bunch of songs from Diving with Andy on the mix and promptly forgot all about this band until a few weeks ago when Mr Firewall mentioned he had seen the French TV show Maison Close and really liked some songs heard in it from a band whose name he misremembered, but which turned out to be Diving with Andy. Music is a bit like … puzzle pieces. They fit into place sometimes in more than one puzzle, sometimes many years after the puzzle is boxed up and put away.

I guess the truth is life shifted and became something totally different after I left Iceland. It has just taken me ten years to fully recognize and appreciate that difference. Now we are in the 13th year of these mixes. And every year, every time I think… why am I still doing this? But when I consider stopping, I just don’t.

Most parcels will contain some ultra-sour candy from Sweden (I have not included it for everyone, as I knew some people would not like it at all and others would be allergic or not able to consume one or another of the ingredients). I recognize that sour candy isn’t a lovely surprise to everyone (certainly not the way chocolate is welcomed), but sour candy is just about the only kind that I can’t resist. At least here you can appreciate the fun packaging. Rest assured, if I keep this up, I will probably revert to more universally palatable treats. Enjoy your summer!

Whole playlist on Spotify (except those songs that don’t exist there, of course)…

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The Good Goo of Random Gum: The Sour Times of Summer 2017

01 Flock of Dimes – “Semaphore” …What we cannot keep and we cannot kill/What we cannot communicate…

02 Mekons – “Ghosts of American Astronauts” …It’s just a small step for him/It’s a nice break from Vietnam…
“John Glenn drinks cocktails with God/In a cafe in downtown Saigon”

03 The Undercover Dream Lovers – “Good Luck” …Calm me down/we’ve both been here before…

04 New Order – “Thieves Like Us” …It’s called love/And somehow it’s become unmentionable…

05 Elvis Perkins – “Emile’s Vietnam in the Sky” …And do you ever wonder/Where you go when you die?…

06 Blouse – “No Shelter” …There is no shelter from this storm/Nothing in nature can make my body warm…
“Let’s be alone again, so far away/I’ll ditch all my friends/They won’t even miss me for a day”

07 Psychic Ills/Hope Sandoval – “I Don’t Mind” …Maybe we just can’t/Let it go…

08 Jason Molina – “Tower Song” …The end is coming soon, it’s plain/A warm bed just ain’t worth the pain…
The late Molina doing the late, great Townes van Zandt. “Your fear has built a wall between/Our lives and all what lovin’ means/Will have to go unfelt it seems/And that leaves only sorrow”

09 Chris Cornell – “Before We Disappear” …But there’s a door in every cell/A pearl inside of every shell…
RIP. Never my favorite artist but, my goodness.

10 Julia Holter – “Silhouette” …He can hear me sing/Though he is far/I will lose sight of him…
“No time to hesitate/I cede all my love and play your abandoned fool”

11 Lindstrøm, Prins Thomas – “Boney M Down”
No-No-No-Norway

12 Laura Marling – “Soothing” …I banish you with love/You can’t come in/You don’t live here anymore…
“May those who find you find remorse/A change of course, a strange discord resolved”

13 Robyn Hitchcock – “Mad Shelley’s Letterbox” …Love is all we lay to waste/Now it’s only lips of loneliness that taste you…

14 Charlie Hilton – “Pony” …Get off my back/I’m not your pony…
For Martina ❤ & our dog and pony shows and all the unreasonable expectations of corporate life

15 El Perro del Mar – “Breaking the Girl”
For dear Ben ❤, whom I think of often and miss

16 Aimee Mann – “Poor Judge” …And I can see your light on/Calling me back to make the same mistake again…
“You might have found some other reason/To leave me in that dark ravine/My heart is a poor judge/And it harbors an old grudge”

17 Pumarosa – “Priestess” …It must be hard, you’re being so statuesque…

18 Kingdom of the Holy Sun – “Flown Away”
Yay Seattle. Thanks to Naomi ❤

19 Gun Outfit – “Legends of My Own”
Originally an Olympia band… “I looked familiar in a foreign land/I couldn’t speak, but I could understand/From another life I rode/Into a desert of my own/And when I put my blanket down/I’m going to dream all over”

20 Matt Berry – “Take My Hand” …You could be the one for all I know…/…I can see the light, it looks like you…
For J ❤ “Everybody I know these days is boring me/Or ignoring me/But not you”

21 Martha Wainwright – “Around the Bend”
“I’ve been around the world and back again/I still can’t get those cards to win”

22 Mikko Joensuu – “There Used to Be a Darkness”
FUNland!

23 No Middle Name – “Fading Photo” …I didn’t fall in love to feel this bad…
“Got tickets for our favorite band/The original plan was just to hold my hand”

24 The Monochrome Set – “Eine Symphonie Des Grauens”

25 Shonen Knife – “Baggs”
Japan ❤ This reminds me so much of high school and searching Japanese music stores

26 Ibibio Sound Machine – “The Pot is on Fire”
Perfect for jumping around the kitchen, especially if the heating goes out in winter

27 Goldfrapp – “Anymore” …The power of you/Transforming me…

28 Le Couleur – “Femme”

29 Vorderhaus – “Love Finds Suffocated Blood”
Thank you, ML

30 Moon City Boys – “Rockets”
Swedish music ❤

31 Esin Afşar – “Zühtü”
It’s all Jill ❤ all the time. Thanks, love.

32 Jane Weaver – “Mission Desire”
Maybe I just love people named Jane ❤

33 Jay Som – “Rush”

34 Papercuts – “Future Primitive” …We are here and we’re gone/It’s our work that marches on…

35 Blue House – “I Found My Limit”


36 Heron Oblivion – “Rama”
Another glorious thanks-to-KEXP discovery

37 Amen Dunes – “Lonely Richard”

38 Chris Cornell – “Imagine”
More RIP sentiments

39 Yves Montand – “Sanguine
Ah, Jacques Prévert

40 Kevin Ayers – “May I?” …May I sit and stare at you for a while?/I’d like the company of your smile…

41 The Cure – “How Beautiful You Are”
For J, sparking my memories of Baudelaire and contemplations on humanity. Love for Gary and our junior high school obsessions

42 The Clientele – “Breathe in Now
43 Low – “What Part of Me” …What part of me don’t you want?…
“Can’t you see that I’m bleeding out here?”

44 Tim Darcy – “Still Waking Up” …Yeah you say I’m not awake, but still alive/Isn’t it funny how that happens?…
“Something about the way you blink your eyes/Tells me that you’re not ready/Tells me that you’re still waking up, alone/With too many years left to plan”

45 Novella – “Does the Island Know” …without consequence/is insanity…
Consequences…!

46 Fionn Regan – “The Meetings of the Waters” …Meetings of the waters/Heartaches in the woods…

47 Dusty Springfield – “Wishin’ and Hopin’”
Just a groovy sound that reminded me of something – but definitely not admirable lyrics

48 Robyn Hitchcock – “Flavour of Night” …But who needs to talk when you’re caught in the flavour of night?…
“Eyes you don’t trust, but the fingers have beckoned/How long you got left? Well how long do you reckon?/But who goes to waste when they’re tasting the flavour of night?”

49 Soundgarden – “Black Hole Sun”
RIP. At this point the most cliché, overused song but oddly it was one I had not much heard until Cornell died. I was more likely to run into Soundgarden members at the Broadway/Cap Hill Safeway than hear their music

50 Charlie Hilton – “Funny Anyway”
“Put your arms around me/Tell me I’m ok, even though I’m not laughing/It’s funny anyway”

51 Kadhja Bonet – “Honeycomb”
“Beckoning – with fickle majesty/Your whims are always met/Honeycomb/And I lucky fool in courtly jest/But the jokes are all on me”

52 Maybird – “Big Sun Explosion” …I finally lifted my eyelids to see light/And when they were open, I saw the big sun explosion…
“Poor vision and poor health, what do you tell yourself?/Objects appear a little more clear when they’re nearer”

53 Yo La Tengo – “My Heart’s Not In It” …And there’s just nothing I can do/To get that feeling I had with you…

54 Cate Le Bon – “I Just Wanna Be Good”
For SD Firewall. “I don’t wanna be the cold cuts lying on your floor/I don’t wanna be the stray dog scratching at your door”

55 The Clean – “Anything Could Happen”
New Zealand ❤

56 Michael Kiwanuka – “Falling”

57 Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam – “1,000 Times”
“I had a dream that you were mine/I’ve had that dream a thousand times”

58 Guided By Voices – “Tractor Rape Chain”
Alcoholic Mr Rogers! Love to Naomi. “Why is it every time I think about you/Something that you have said or implied makes me doubt you/Then I look into your cynical eyes and I know it/As if it never meant anything to me”

59 Bjørn Torske – “Hard Trafikk”
More (S)Norway

60 Pepe Deluxé – “Go Girl Go” …Ladies: You win…
For Annette and Tilda: “You’re at the party and it’s your show”

61 Electrelane – “The Valleys”
Taken from/inspired by Siegfried Sassoon’s “A Letter Home

62 Tom Williams – “Everyone Needs a Home” …There’s nothing here for us any more…

63 Curve – “Ten Little Girls”
Still sounds as good today as when it was new. Curve still comes to mind often

64 Trance Farmers – “Lone Star”

65 Savoy Motel – “Hot One”
Another jumping-around-the-house kind of song. Keeps you awake and warm

66 Ultimate Painting – “Into the Darkness”

67 Julie Byrne – “Sleepwalker”
“I lived my life alone before you/And with those that I’d never succeeded to love/And I grew so accustomed to that kind of solitude/I fought you, I did not know how to give it up”

68 Portishead – “Sour Times”
Mostly just to accompany super sour candy

69 Karl Blau – “If I’ve Died on You”
From good old Anacortes

70 David Bowie – “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” …Oh, no, love, you’re not alone…

71 Aimee Mann – “Invisible Ink” …I suppose I should be happy to be misread/Better be that than some of the other things I have become…
“Oh, I could get specific but/Nobody needs a catalog/With details of a love I can’t sell any more”

72 Low Roar – “Give Me an Answer”
“I know the time and the space that you need; it’s blurry but I’ll get on/It’s getting hard to tell day from a day, just say it and I’ll move on”. If only people would lead with actual answers

73 Piano Magic – “Closure”
“Let’s get this thing sewn up, let’s get this thing signed off, let’s tie up these loose ends/cause you say we can’t just be friends/All these people open wounds/the English always too polite to say what really must be said/They’d rather take it to their death/But you never get, no you never get…closure”

74 Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift – “Life is Change” …you don’t want to see that life is change…

75 Townes van Zandt – “If I Needed You” …And you will miss sunrise/If you close your eyes…

76 The Finn Brothers – “Last Day of June” …The city draws its breath in/I can almost hear it thinking/There are people within my walls/See their wild disorder/Driving their machines/Swarming like a million bees…

77 Meshell Ndegeocello – “Either Way I Lose”
It’s weird but this song and interpretation of it desperately makes me want to have sex. Haha.

Good Good of Random Gum – Year-End Soundtrack 2013

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The Good Goo of Year-End – Queen Bee in the Hornet’s Nest
Random Gum / Year-End 2013

Complete playlist on Spotify.

1. SONIC CONTROL – “Broken Television on a Neukölln Street”
“I’m a broken television on a Neukölln street/that dog over there just pissed on me/my screen is cracked, my transformers are gone/I was state of the art until it all went wrong…” The dogs of corporate life. Thanks, ML and MS

2. Ladytron – “Mirage” …You don’t listen,/You do not exist…
“Happy not to notice/The room retracts the focus/Where you cannot see/Reflections from within”

3. Elton John – “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues” …live for each second, without hesitation…
Song is a sad reminder of childhood & early years of music videos. “I simply love you more than I love life itself”

4. John Grant – “Leopard and Lamb” …Like learning how to crawl across a floor that’s covered with glass/Like learning how to look away and never to look back…
“Watch The Simpsons to remember how you’d laugh…”. For Ph. Friendship ending always hurts more than love

5. Ulali – “Mahk Jchi”
This is like being back in college again. Upon reflection, the most awkward, misguided time of my whole life

6. Royal Headache – “Distant and Vague”
One for wandering central Göteborg. And the title/theme… what/who isn’t “distant and vague”?

7. TV-Resistori – “Koputan puuta”
FUNland! ”But Ginsberg, my balls hurt!” Finnish music that sounds almost Japanese. Music for throwing away perfectly good shoes. For Naomi and ML.

8. Pepe Deluxé – “Lucky the Blind vs. Vacuum Cleaning Monster”
Thinking about Lóa, who loves vacuum cleaners.

9. Les Sans Culottes – “Tout va bien
All the French – Aurélien, Bruno, Tristan, Thierry, Valérie – and so on. All the cool people.

10. Cepia – “Ithaca”
Anything Ithaca, as much horror as it might give her, is for Jill.

11. John Grant – “I Hate This Town”
But then again you always made it clear/That you do not care either way/Which begs the question/How can I still claim to love you/You told me time and time again/That you don’t lose you always win/And that to make an effort would just be beneath you”. John Grant – hands down, one of my favorites

12. Throwing Muses – “Mexican Women” …love becomes a foreign substance…
For Martina and her reflections on Mexican women making piñatas that will just be destroyed – the fleeting nature of beauty. “Up yours, Bruno!” Also, I might as well be a man – I open doors for and bring flowers to women friends. What woman wouldn’t want to marry me? Hahaha. Pachanga! Free fika cake!

13. Yo La Tengo – “Nowhere Near” …everyone is here/but you’re nowhere near…
I have always loved this song, but love resurged when it appeared in the final episode of the US version of The Bridge this year.

14. Marianne Faithfull – “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” …at the age of 37, she realized she’d never ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair…
For a variety of reasons, I really dislike the name Lucy (cue up whiny, snotty British accent for starters). I am sure I had heard this song before (Lee Hazlewood version?) and even think I knew it was written by Shel Silverstein, but it appeared in the Dusan Makavejev film Montenegro, which I only saw recently despite its being made in 1980. I had no idea it was set in Stockholm (you’d never guess from the film’s title!), the dubious heroine a resident of posh island “suburb”, Lidingö. In the early 2000s I went to a film festival in Reykjavik at which Makavejev was the guest – they screened two of his weirder films (they’re all weird)… oh memories. For Leifur.

15. The National – “About Today” …you just walked away/and I just watched you…
What more can really be said about The National? “How close am I to losing you?”

16. The Rolling Stones – “Sympathy for the Devil”
Horrifying memories of hordes of Australians on bus trip; a memory of coming home from kindergarten. My dad was playing this, and it is the only time I remember him choosing willingly to play a record on his own. I was a bit scared/very intrigued by this song because of the title and the drum beat.

17. Martha Wainwright – “Matapedia” …I could not slow down/I was not afraid…
Martha doing one of her mother, Kate McGarrigle’s (RIP) songs – really lovely.

18. Kishi Bashi – “I Am the Antichrist to You” …I was always quick to admit defeat…
“And my heart it shook with fear/I’m a coward behind a shield and spear”

19. The Bee-Gees – “Stayin Alive”
A few years ago when Robin Gibb died, I could not bring myself to include a Bee-Gees song on my mix and instead chose “It Was Disco but Now It’s Over…”. Thanks to TV’s Sherlock and its use of “Stayin Alive”, its worming its way into my brain and all the back and forth with people about disco, Tony Manero (the Saturday Night Fever character and title character of eponymous Chilean film) AND learning that the song provides the right tempo for performing CPR, I could hardly not include it. For Elisa S, Krista H, Adrian K

20. Animotion – “Obsession”
Oh, the 80s. Makes me feel old but brings to mind obsessive statements à la “Nobody has driven me crazy like this for such a long time. Never.” For JKL

21. Run DMC/Aerosmith – “Walk This Way”
Thanks to Jill for the reminder of this song, which I like much better now than in the old days. Late-night, loud rain dance praying with love for Annette.

22. Lia Ices – “Little Marriage”
This song was included on another mix but it’s too beautiful not to use again. It inspires such emotion, bringing an emptiness that longs to be filled to the surface. With love for Jane as always.

23. Jean-Louis Murat – “Colin-Maillard” …Tu traverses le miroir/Ton désir ne veut plus patienter…
Another previous inclusion… the sound and the voice fills me with a kind of melancholy.

24. My Bloody Valentine – “Feed Me with Your Kiss”
MBV released their first album in 20+ years but I select a song from an old album. Nostalgia?

25. The Smiths – “A Rush and a Push”
“Let’s talk about poetry.” The seductive power of knowing a poem or two… stealing things from others’ imaginations.

26. OutKast – “Hey Ya!” …don’t try to fight the feeling/cause the thought alone is killing me right now…
To the joy of knowing Jill: “My baby don’t mess around”

27. Lay Low – “Last Time Around”
Something nice from Iceland, thinking of all my friends there (Alfa, Jane, Lóa, and so on…)

28. Iron & Wine – “Jesus the Mexican Boy”
One of the songs in a playlist I made chronicling dogs, dog and pony shows and Mexicans. For Martina.

29. Belle & Sebastian – “Legal Man” …L-O-V-E – it’s coming back, it’s coming back…
One to lose one’s mind dancing to. “Get out of the city/and into the sunshine/get out of the office/and into the springtime…”

30. Serge Gainsbourg – “Les Sucettes” …Elle est au paradis…
For Jean, who taught me so much, and for JKL, who makes plans he will never keep

31. New Order – “Love Vigilantes”
The confusion of mixing up conversations that started about rotten chuck roast and what I thought was “dal” (as in Indian food) but was actually “dal” as in “valley” (Norwegian). I was wondering, “Since when does dal have chuck roast in it?” But the conversation was really referring to Malala from that “dal” (Swat Valley). J Love my vigilante friend, Annette. And, for Naomi – “O blessed be – my favorite dal of all the dals!”

32. The Bee-Gees – “Night Fever”
Taken aback by the rampant popularity of Daft Punk’s latest offer – it’s good, but in light of the backlash against the Bee-Gees and their sound in the late 70s – it is interesting to hear these sounds make a resurgence.

33. Human League – “Don’t You Want Me?”
Neverending back & forth with ML, who never knows what he wants – just knows it’s whatever he doesn’t have

34. Don Dixon – “Praying Mantis”
For Naomi and the happiness of driving around in a different car.

35. Darker My Love – “Talking Words”
Sitting in the autumn-dark parking lot observing OCD-afflicted people check their doors five or six times

36. Lush – “For Love”
Another song that transports me to an exact time, feeling – making me want to run back to the present

37. Camera Obscura – “Anti-Western” …you’re too good looking, I’m always gonna put up a fight…
Anthem to those stunning but ultimately false moments when you believe (stupidly!) that interest is actually real. How eager even the cynic is to believe sometimes. Thanks to Jill as always.

38. Erasure – “Oh L’Amour”
This will always remind me of the late 80s, very late-night phone calls with JBB – alternate realities that allowed for the most complete and unfiltered feeling I can ever remember feeling

39. Cinerama – “Heels” …you crushed him with your heels/and I know exactly how he feels…
For Mathieu. “I don’t really care that you found another lover/cause I know he’ll be gone the moment that you get bored…”

40. Secret Machines – “Atomic Heels” …uncover your eyes/they’re bloodied in love/who’s staring back at yours, honey what have you missed?…

41. Ladytron – “Seventeen” …they only want you when you’re 17, when you’re 21, you’re no fun…
How to feel old…

42. Lana Del Ray – “Blue Jeans (RAC Mix)” …I will love you til the end of time…
Dislike Lana Del Ray but for some reason like this mix – here’s to new cars and departed Greek dentists.

43. Glen Campbell – “Wichita Lineman” …I need you more than want you
For Naomi – another sort of stalker song.

44. The Bee-Gees – “To Love Somebody”
I put the Roberta Flack version of this on the other part of this mix and knew it had sounded familiar but did not put two and two together until I reheard this version in the film 50/50. The Bee-Gees’ music (as done by other artists) is everywhere. It’s got a sad sort of feel – we’ve all been there, but the “you don’t know what it’s like” also sounds like the condescending sorts who rub your being alone in your face, “You just don’t know what it’s like to be in love…”

45. Blondie – “Faces”
I listened to this – and the whole Autoamerican album – over and over when I was five. No wonder I am so fucked. 🙂 “Rapture” does at least reference Subaru! Memories of Thanksgiving with Lóa (2013)

46. Lou Reed – “Satellite of Love”
Rest in peace and bon voyage.

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What does it take to be fearless and loving? Loving people requires a certain risk-taking fearlessness that I have never really embraced. When I say never, I mean never. But kindness – that can substitute.

I take a lot of risks and make a lot of changes but am still fearful of a lot of things. Perhaps I need to focus on these things before running off on another adventure undertaken for the sake of “change”.

Sudden, unexpected loss everywhere this year – there is no time like the present to do what one needs to do to feel healthy and happy. Happiest new year wishes, as arbitrary as that really is.

2009 – “Director’s cut” soundtrack

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