I'm in love with Massachusetts when it's cold outside

[sovay]

I am spending my first night in my new apartment.

It is very much an apartment in progress. There are still-packed boxes everywhere. My books are in the library, stacked against the wall with the closet: there are over fifty boxes of them and they weigh just half a ton, according to the springs of the truck my brother brought them over in yesterday. I had to open three different boxes in the kitchen in order to assemble the pot I warmed tonight's chowder in, the oversized mug and the spoon I ate it with, the water glass on my windowsill and the mug from which I am currently drinking tea. (It has Greek fir honey in it from Follow the Honey, because nineweaving when she gave me the small spinet desk at which I am now writing said no one should ever give a cradle empty, or a desk.) I am sleeping on an air mattress borrowed from gaudior and rushthatspeaks until Friday when the futon mattress I have ordered comes in. I have to be awake and dressed earlier tomorrow than feels medically advisable in order to let in adrian_turtle's movers at ten in the morning, because of logistics. There is no art on my walls, I have no bookcases, I'm going to need to clean everything, and the closet built belatedly across the corner of my already small room is one of the most unhelpful architectural features known to man. My clothes are all in garbage bags.

It is very good to be here.

These are all the songs my computer seems to know about living in Boston. Admittedly I'm in Somerville, but I haven't got any songs for that specifically besides the ENSMB. Anyone know any? Want to write them?

Willie Alexander, "Mass. Ave."

You might see an old friend or run from a ghost
On Mass. Ave.

Jonathan Richman, "Roadrunner (Thrice)"

I can see the whole Boston harbor from where I am
Out on the rocks by Cohasset, in the night

Human Sexual Response, "Marone Offering"

I met you on a Rat date, Rat date by the river
The bonfires on the Fenway stretched away forever

Consonant, "That Boston Life"

They slept sweet on a dirty floor
Just once in that tiny flat
That first night of sirens

The Dresden Dolls, "Boston"

New York will still be there in the morning
Come back to bed, my darling

Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers, "Devils in Boston"

Mama always said Devil'll meet you at the railroad tracks
I ain't seen nothing but the subway here in Boston

Amanda Palmer, "Massachusetts Avenue"

Storrow Drive is pretty in the springtime
Storrow Drive is pretty in the fall
You don't have to go home in a straight line
You don't have to go back home at all

Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band, "Davis Square Double-Time"

Comments

[thistleingrey]

*toasts you*

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

Yay apartment!

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

Jonathan Richman's "The Lonely Financial Zone" and "Government Center".

Yay for the new apartment. The only part I enjoy at all about moving is the opportunity to have a clean slate for arranging the furniture and setting up the rooms.
I'd enjoy seeing pictures of the place, but I also completely understand if you don't want to post them online.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Tea and a writing space (and books waiting)--bliss. May you evermore have rooms of your own.

Hope the desk is comfortable to work at--and may wonderful things be written there.

Nine

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

The first summer after college was made so strange by being hundreds of miles away from my Boston. When we finally travelled back, me helping drive the minivan away from suburbia and back home Home HOME to the city I loved, my flagship song was one I'd learned so many months prior --the Dropkick Murpheys sing "Shipping Up to Boston" and I sing it with them whenever I return.

(and in a quick look in my musicbox, I find I have an instrumental version done by the Pops. Oh *my!*)

That, and the only other band I've to add is Great Big Sea, who sings so mournful that "there isn't that much ocean between Boston and St. Johns"

I like very much your list, and may investigate it all in the near future. In the meantime, I am so happy you are creating a place that feels like home.

~Sor

[ookpik.livejournal.com]

Ellis Paul, "Trolley Car"
Greg Greenway, "She's Just Gone"
--, "[Driving in] Massachusetts"
Jake Armerding, "Peace of Mind (Lost in Back Bay)"


And if you stretch it to elsewhere in Massachusetts
Mark Erelli, "The Farewell Ball"
Denise Gendron, "Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchubunagungamaugg"

[aedifica]

The Tim Malloys' "One Night In Boston," which I think is one of the ones Adam Stemple wrote. (The Tims are a Twin Cities-area Irishish band, and once upon a time my main social activity was to go see them play every Tuesday night at a bar--almost all of my friends would be there too.)

(I went looking for "One Night In Boston" online, but all I can find is the lyrics, and an instrumental piece that's not at all the same song, though it's linked various places as though it were.)

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

I love Somerville. I have family in Somerville, though i have never lived there. I did live in Allston in the late 80's.

There is nothing like that early time in a new place, with boxes everywhere.

I wish you joy.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

How's the postal delivery to your new address?

[gwynnega]

Congratulations on your new apartment!

There's also "Boston" by Gene Clark and "The Boston Rag" by Steely Dan.

[skotodes.livejournal.com]

Titus Andronicus, "A More Perfect Union".

I'm doing 70 on 17, 80 over 84
And I never let the Meritt Parkway magnetize me no more
Give me a brutal Somerville summer,
Give me a cruel New England winter
Give me the great Pine Barrens
So I can see them turned into splinters
And if I come in on a donkey, let me go out on a gurney
I want to realize too late I never should have left New Jersey

The album, "The Monitor", is about moving from NJ to Somerville, then failing at a new life and being forced to go back home. (It's also about the Civil War.) Not the most positive thing to listen to upon moving to a new apartment, admittedly. But if you like lyrically dense punk music, it's basically the best album ever.

[kraada.livejournal.com]

Please email me your new address when you get a chance - I'd love to know whereabouts you are these days :)

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Happy new apartment.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Hell yeah!

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on being in the unpacking stage! I hope this apartment sees many happy days with you and takes next to no time at all to start feeling like home.

My primary Boston song is The Nields' Going to Boston. I have dropped you a copy in the usual way. :)

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I am glad to see you in a home of your own.

[weirdquark]

Yay, having an apartment!

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

Do you need bookshelves? What size/type?

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Hurrah for the new apartment! I hope all's going very well.

Thanks for the tracks! I don't think I've got any songs relating to Boston, unfortunately. I'm acquainted with some very good Irish musicians who live in and around Boston, but for some reason New York seems to have made more of an impact on our lyrics.

I'll try to remember to ask somebody about that.