I'm not ALL Beatles/Beach Boys!

Since I got a promotion at work (I am now the A&E editor for the Cox Ohio Southwest Group of Newspapers) I have been feeling newly energized and prolific. So I bring you the first of a multi-part series that will dive and delve into my musical catalog.

A little background - most people know me as a Beach Boys fan and particularly as a Beatlemaniac. So obviously, my MP3 player (a Toshiba Gigabeat) is loaded with their music. Some time back, however, I was having trouble with the player, and, heeding appallingly bad advice, I reformatted the player and erased everything. 

After panicking (and then growing my hair back) I restored the tracks and  began rebuilding my playlist of my very favorite songs. At that time, I was about to see a friend, who, for some unfathomable reason, is not a particular fan of either the Beatles or the Beach Boys. Strange, as she has such good taste in everything except 60s rock, but I adore her nonetheless.

That being the case, I decided to reload my favorites playlist with everything EXCEPT the Beatles and the Beach Boys. I never completely rebuilt the list, as it was quite immense, but, this should still give you some idea of what songs I like that did not appear on the Capitol label in the 1960s and start with "Bea."

I'll break the list up into about 12 tracks a piece. They appear in the random order my player sorted them into after my reformat. 

"Be My Baby"  by The Ronettes -   Screw saving the best for last. This is probably my favorite song of all time that is NOT by the Beatles or Beach Boys. That opening precussive THUMP jolts me every single time. Doesn't hurt that the song also helped launch my favorite director Martin Scorsese's career, via its opening of Mean Streets.

"Beautiful City/Day By Day" by  Laura Benanti: A Godspell mashup from a Stephen Schwartz compilation sung by Laura Benanti, whom I believe was only 19 at the time. Hell of  a set of pipes. 

"Falling Slowly"  by Glen Hansard/Marketa Irglova - So justly won the 2008 Best Song Oscar, from one of my very favorite films of the year, Once. Achingly lovely. 

"God Give Me Strength" by  Elvis Costello - Another movie song, co-written by Burt Bacharach, this one is from the very underrated film Grace of My Heart, which is a mashup (I like that word) of Brian Wilson/Carole King types. Should have been Oscar nominated. I only wish the soundtrack also included the version in the film sung by Kristen Vigard, who I learned later was one of the original Annies (as in Little Orphan).

"Hung Up" by Madonna - How do you make ABBA tolerable outside of Dancing Queen? This girl knows.

"Let Yourself Go" by Kristin Chenoweth - My second favorite Broadway actress let's 'er rip on this Irving Berlin classic. Tap dances, too. 

"Like a Prayer" by Madonna - My favorite Madge song. Most people don't pay attention to bass lines, but as a former bassist, I would LOVE to be able to play this groove. 

"Mustang Sally" by The Commitments - The more I think about it, the more I think I should have placed this movie in my 1991 ten best list. Have a great time whenever I watch it. 

"My Favorite Mistake" by Sheryl Crow - Favorite song of hers. Can't say I've had my own favorite mistake, but I can definitely relate to the feelings of fond regret that are in this song. Another nice bass line, and I think Sheryl plays it, actually. 

"Misirlou" by Dick Dale - From the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. This is one that made me wish I could play six strings as I once played four. 

"Singin' in the Rain" by Gene Kelly - Ya know, whenever I hear this, it actually sounds wrong without Gene's splashing. 

"Steve McQueen" by Sheryl Crow - Sheryl combines Beck and Steve Miller (and McQueen) to smashing effect. 

See? I'm not THAT shallow! To be continued ...

Mother's Day Music in my catalog

This being Mother's Day and all, I thought it would be fun to rummage through my music catalog and see what songs pertained to moms.

Songs with the word "Mom" in the title

Wow. Out of the 6,933 tracks (no, really, I counted) in my library, I find a grand total of ZERO with the word "mom" in the title. The closest thing I've got is "Momma Miss America," a scrappy little instrumental from Paul McCartney's debut album that makes me wish I could play drums, guitar and piano.

Songs with the word "Mommy" in the title

"I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" - And underneath the mistletoe last night, no less. This was originally recorded by the Ronettes for Phil Spector's Christmas record, but I also have a version of the Beach Boys' kids singing it, with Brian Wilson banging away on piano. 

Songs with the word "Mama" in the title

Now we're gettin' somewhere. This more extensive list includes: 

"Blues in the Night (My Mama Done Told Me)" - Wonderfully swingy, torchy song. My version is one of Judy Garland's early Decca recordings, made during her MGM years. 

"Don't Tell Mama" - An, um, eye opening number from the Broadway show "Cabaret." If any of you saw the revival from the 90s, you KNOW what I mean! 

"Goose-Step Mama" A track by the Beatles parody Band the Rutles. Not meant to ape any specific song, I 

believe, but a good representation of their early clubbing days. Probably the zaniest "mom" title in my catalog. 

"I Don't Want to Be a Soldier Mama" - Cacophonous track from John Lennon's Imagine album. Cool sound to the song, but I always thought it was laborious and clunky compared to the rest of the album.

"Mama Says" - Strange little a capella track from the Beach Boys' Wild Honey LP that had been part of the version of "Vega-Tables" from the aborted Smile album. Never be lazy .... POOF!

"Mama Yo Quiero" - Another goofball track, from the Babes on Broadway soundtrack, with Mickey Rooney hamming it up as usual. And in the movie he does it dressed up like Carmen Miranda!

"Mama's Little Girl" - One of Paul McCartney's most charming obscure tunes, this went unreleased for years until he threw it on the B-side of "Put It There." A lovely, lilting mother/daughter song.

"Mama I'm a Big Girl Now" - This song from "Hairsrpay" wasn't used in the movie itself, but played over the end credits sung by all three girls who had played Tracy: Ricki Lake, Marisa Jaret Winokur and Nikki Bonsky. (Movie geek note: Marisa is the girl who works the drive through window in American Beauty and tells  Annette Bening, "You are so busted.") 

"Only Mama Knows" - One of my favorite tracks from Paul McCartney's last studio album released under his own name, Memory Almost Full. ROCKS! 

That's All Right (Mama) - I do not have the recording that launched Elvis' career in my collection, but I do have two versions sung by Paul McCartney - a scratchy Beatles BBC recording and a solo version from his 1987 oldies sessions. 

"When You're Good to Mama" - Show-stopper from the Chicago OCR/OST.  Queen Latifah knocked it out of the prison complex. 

Songs with the word "mother" in the title

"Getting Into Shape/Listen You Screwheads/Gun Play/Dear Father and Mother/The Card." - From the Taxi Driver soundtrack. I hereby retract my earlier statement about "Goose-Step Mama." 

"Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadow" - The Stones. Cool just for its distorted guitar opening. 

"Mother"  - John Lennon's tormented opus. People go on about how he shredded his voice on "Twist and Shout" - that's NOTHING compared to the wringer he puts his larynx through here. 

"Mother" - by The Police. NOT a cover of Lennon's song, but, to the best of my knowledge, Andy Summers' lone solo writing credit with the group. A rather noisy song From Synchronicity. 

"Mother Nature's Son" - "Sit beside a mountain stream, see her waters rise. Listen to the pretty sound of music as she flies. Do do do do do do do, do-do, do-do, do ...."

"Mother's Little Helper" - Ah, the Stones' gentle ode to pharmaceuticals. 

"The Mothership" - Do-do-do-do-dooooooo. WAH-WAAAAAAAH (Window shatters) 

And sort of ending as I began, "Your Mother Should Know." 

WSIR

Hello faithful few readers. Sorry I haven't posted anything in this space in quite some time, but outside of my movie-going, not a lot has happened in my life - at least not that I'm prepared to write about yet.

But Friday evening, while listening to Internet radio, I hit upon  (or heard upon) a fun topic - my strange musical taste.

I am quite famous for my Beatlemania, of course, but believe it or not, it's not the only music I listen to - although it is fair to say my taste is pretty retro, as this post will show.

I decided to do this post two ways. First I would turn on my custom-tailored Internet radio channel and list the first 10 songs I heard. These were not chosen by me, but were selected randomly by the computer. They were:

1. Are You Happy Now, Michelle Branch - One of my favorite singer-songwriters. I tend to gravitate toward young female chanteuses. I wish she'd put out the new material she's working on.

2. You Tell Me Why, The Beau Brummels -  I suppose the radio picked this for me because of it's Beatle-y sound. Didn't make much impression on me either way.

3. Chimes of Freedom, The Byrds - Again, the Beatle connection rears its mop-topped head. Lots of that jangly guitar.

4. Wouldn't It Be Nice, The Beach Boys  - Uuuum, YEAH!

5. Sleepyhouse, Blind Melon - Pleasant listen. I was never into Blind Melon, but I recall them because a couple of the guys in that band produced Anna Nalick.  Speaking of whom:

6. Citadel, Anna Nalick - What a coincidence! This was a live acoustic version of one of my favorite songs from her first and so far only album. I really would love to see her drop back on the face of the earth. Met her once at one of her shows. Great singer, fun girl.

7. Tired of Waiting for You, The Kinks - A groovy little tune from a truly underappreciated band.

8. Hey Bulldog, The Beatles - Yup, this computer knows me.

9. Save the Last Dance for Me, Ike and Tina Turner - From the Phil Spector box set. Funny, the backing to this sounds eerily like "Heroes and Villains" by the Beach Boys. Speaking of whom:

10. I Just Wasn't Made for These Times, Brian Wilson - If any song is a personal anthem for me, this is surely it. Interestingly, the computer picked the live version from Brian's Pet Sounds tour, which I had the honor of seeing twice. I was most definitely made for THOSE times.

For the second part of this experiment, I decided to pull out my Gigabeat (my MP3 player) and put it on random and see if I could get some truly weird segues.

1. Alone, Wilson Phillips - Ah, the one WP song solely written by Wendy, my favorite member of the group. She struck me as the smart, low-key one.

2. She's a Woman, Paul McCartney - Acoustic version from his Unplugged album. Has a cool swing.

3. A Hard Day's Night, The Beatles - If you threw me against the wall, held a gun to my head and asked me to name ONE favorite Beatles song (and believe me, that's the only way you could get me to name ONE) - it would be this one. This was a slightly remixed stereo version from a Making of Hard Day's Night video. Has a longer fade than any other version. Yes, I'm a complete geek.

4. Little Bird, The Beach Boys - Dennis Wilson's writing debut, from the 1968 album Friends. Pretty impressive for a start. One of the few songs I can think of that sports both a cello and banjo.

5. Everything I Need, The Wilsons - My, we're on a Wilsons kick. Not that I mind. This is a song written by Brian Wilson and Tony Asher (Pet Sounds) from a solo album by Carnie and Wendy. Brian sings too.

6. On and On and On, The Internationals - Now HERE'S a weird segue. Rockin' track from my friend Todd Pack's former band. Has some of his tastiest guitar playing.

7. (Just Like) Starting Over, John Lennon  - And we segue into a track by Todd's favorite Beatle, which, despite its jaunty sound,  will always have a wistful air of melancholy about it because this was the song that was out when he died.

8. When Your Mind's Made Up, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova  - My second favorite song from the Once soundtrack, after the Oscar-winning "Falling Slowly," of course.

9. Got My Mind Set on You, George Harrison - George's last big solo hit - which is actually one of my least favorite songs from his Cloud 9 album. I prefer the ones he wrote. This was an oldie by one Rudy Clark.

10. Ezekiel 25:17 - The "great vengeance and furious anger speech" from Pulp Fiction, from the opening scenes of the film. What a track to end on. I think I'd best be going now.

Cue "Surf Rider" by The Lively Ones ...