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You're just too, too obscure for me
I'm not entirely sure what to call this mix. I haven't made one in a while. It accreted around my discovery of the Verlaines earlier this evening; it seems to be mostly about historical figures, with a couple of works of art for metonymy. They are probably not all that obscure. Recommend me some really unknown stuff. Also, enjoy!
Art of Noise, "Il Pleure (At the Turn of the Century)"
When Debussy died on March the 25th, 1918, in Paris
It was being bombarded by the Germans
And it was raining
Billy Bragg & Wilco, "Ingrid Bergman"
If you'll walk across my camera
I will flash the world your story
I will pay you more than money, Ingrid Bergman
Coil, "Ostia (The Death of Pasolini)"
Throw his bones over
The white cliffs of Dover
And murder me in Ostia
The Cranberries, "Yeats' Grave"
And you sit here with me on the isle Innisfree
And you're writing down everything
But I know by now
Why did you sit here in the grave?
The Decemberists, "When the War Came"
We'd made our oath to Vavilov
We'd not betray the solanum
The acres of asteraceae
To our own pangs of starvation
The Divine Comedy, "The Booklovers"
Call me William Makepeace Thackeray
The Dresden Dolls, "Christopher Lydon"
Christopher, I was your listener, Christopher
I've never felt love like this before, Christopher
Gogol Bordello, "Mussolini vs. Stalin"
Mussolini was shaving, whistling tarantella
Stalin was keeping eye on barbecue
When their fish line bell started to jingle
Mussolini caught nothing, Stalin caught two
Human Sexual Response, "Anne Frank Story"
How does it feel to walk through walls when
The walls are landscapes for our heroine?
Kate Bush, "Houdini"
Through the glass, I'd watch you breathe
Bound and drowned and paler than you've ever been
Le Tigre, "What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?"
Hey, where's Gena?
Matmos, "Enigma Machine for Alan Turing"
The Enigma machine featured on this song was recorded at Cryptography Research in San Francisco. We are grateful to Paul Kocher for granting us access to this fragile, historic object. MIDI information within the song is being encrypted by a MAX patch which hosts a java emulation of the Enigma machine's encryption process.
Mission of Burma, "Max Ernst"
People did not like that man Max Ernst
(The Blessed Virgin Chastises the Infant Jesus)
He was so irrational, Max Ernst
(Garden Airplane-Trap, Garden Airplane-Trap)
The Mountain Goats, "Lovecraft in Brooklyn"
Rhode Island drops into the ocean
No place to call home anymore
Lovecraft in Brooklyn
My Favorite, "James Dean (Awaiting Ambulance)"
It is a terrible fall
When your teen idol is proved mortal
Nick Cave, "There She Goes, My Beautiful World"
Well, Karl Marx squeezed his carbuncles while writing Das Kapital
And Gauguin, he buggered off, man, he went all tropical
And Philip Larkin, he stuck it out in a library in Hull
And Dylan Thomas, he died drunk in St. Vincent's Hospital
Pere Ubu, "Heart of Darkness"
Image, object, and illusion go down to the corner
The Pixies, "Alec Eiffel"
Oh, Alexander, I see you beneath
The archway of aerodynamics
PJ Harvey, "Yuri-G"
Yeah, I wish I was Yuri-G
It's just the things that she does to me
Robyn Hitchcock, "I Saw Nick Drake"
As we were carrying the ice together
Beneath the glass, I saw his face
The net was gone
And all the strawberries of English weather
I saw him pass right through this place
Siouxsie and the Banshees, "Metal Postcard (Mittageisen)"
Reunion begins with a glass of mercury
They Might Be Giants, "The Mesopotamians"
This is my last stick of gum
I'm going to cut it up so everybody else gets some
Except for Aššurbanipal, who says my haircut
Makes me look like a Mohenjo-daran
Tori Amos, "Garlands"
Let's go see A Day in May
From The Winged Painter
The Verlaines, "Death and the Maiden"
Do you like Paul Verlaine?
Is it going to rain today?
Shall we have our photo taken?
We'll look like Death and the Maiden
The Watersons, "Hilda's Cabinet Band"
Swing your lady half a mile up the center aisle
Wage-cut your neighbor—do it with a smile
Bow to the caller, do-si-dole the men
And deregulate the couple at the bottom end
And as a bonus track, after all these specifics—
Volcano Suns, "Jak"
Jack of all trades and a master of none
How can a person get anything done?
If you can live with yourself, you can fool anyone
Art of Noise, "Il Pleure (At the Turn of the Century)"
When Debussy died on March the 25th, 1918, in Paris
It was being bombarded by the Germans
And it was raining
Billy Bragg & Wilco, "Ingrid Bergman"
If you'll walk across my camera
I will flash the world your story
I will pay you more than money, Ingrid Bergman
Coil, "Ostia (The Death of Pasolini)"
Throw his bones over
The white cliffs of Dover
And murder me in Ostia
The Cranberries, "Yeats' Grave"
And you sit here with me on the isle Innisfree
And you're writing down everything
But I know by now
Why did you sit here in the grave?
The Decemberists, "When the War Came"
We'd made our oath to Vavilov
We'd not betray the solanum
The acres of asteraceae
To our own pangs of starvation
The Divine Comedy, "The Booklovers"
Call me William Makepeace Thackeray
The Dresden Dolls, "Christopher Lydon"
Christopher, I was your listener, Christopher
I've never felt love like this before, Christopher
Gogol Bordello, "Mussolini vs. Stalin"
Mussolini was shaving, whistling tarantella
Stalin was keeping eye on barbecue
When their fish line bell started to jingle
Mussolini caught nothing, Stalin caught two
Human Sexual Response, "Anne Frank Story"
How does it feel to walk through walls when
The walls are landscapes for our heroine?
Kate Bush, "Houdini"
Through the glass, I'd watch you breathe
Bound and drowned and paler than you've ever been
Le Tigre, "What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?"
Hey, where's Gena?
Matmos, "Enigma Machine for Alan Turing"
The Enigma machine featured on this song was recorded at Cryptography Research in San Francisco. We are grateful to Paul Kocher for granting us access to this fragile, historic object. MIDI information within the song is being encrypted by a MAX patch which hosts a java emulation of the Enigma machine's encryption process.
Mission of Burma, "Max Ernst"
People did not like that man Max Ernst
(The Blessed Virgin Chastises the Infant Jesus)
He was so irrational, Max Ernst
(Garden Airplane-Trap, Garden Airplane-Trap)
The Mountain Goats, "Lovecraft in Brooklyn"
Rhode Island drops into the ocean
No place to call home anymore
Lovecraft in Brooklyn
My Favorite, "James Dean (Awaiting Ambulance)"
It is a terrible fall
When your teen idol is proved mortal
Nick Cave, "There She Goes, My Beautiful World"
Well, Karl Marx squeezed his carbuncles while writing Das Kapital
And Gauguin, he buggered off, man, he went all tropical
And Philip Larkin, he stuck it out in a library in Hull
And Dylan Thomas, he died drunk in St. Vincent's Hospital
Pere Ubu, "Heart of Darkness"
Image, object, and illusion go down to the corner
The Pixies, "Alec Eiffel"
Oh, Alexander, I see you beneath
The archway of aerodynamics
PJ Harvey, "Yuri-G"
Yeah, I wish I was Yuri-G
It's just the things that she does to me
Robyn Hitchcock, "I Saw Nick Drake"
As we were carrying the ice together
Beneath the glass, I saw his face
The net was gone
And all the strawberries of English weather
I saw him pass right through this place
Siouxsie and the Banshees, "Metal Postcard (Mittageisen)"
Reunion begins with a glass of mercury
They Might Be Giants, "The Mesopotamians"
This is my last stick of gum
I'm going to cut it up so everybody else gets some
Except for Aššurbanipal, who says my haircut
Makes me look like a Mohenjo-daran
Tori Amos, "Garlands"
Let's go see A Day in May
From The Winged Painter
The Verlaines, "Death and the Maiden"
Do you like Paul Verlaine?
Is it going to rain today?
Shall we have our photo taken?
We'll look like Death and the Maiden
The Watersons, "Hilda's Cabinet Band"
Swing your lady half a mile up the center aisle
Wage-cut your neighbor—do it with a smile
Bow to the caller, do-si-dole the men
And deregulate the couple at the bottom end
And as a bonus track, after all these specifics—
Volcano Suns, "Jak"
Jack of all trades and a master of none
How can a person get anything done?
If you can live with yourself, you can fool anyone
no subject
no subject
It's one of my favorites.