Big romantic stuff

[sovay]

I haven't posted any music in a while. I'm not sure I'd call this a mix in the consciously assembled sense so much as a selection of songs that have been on rotation recently. Some have more obvious aetiologies than others. I could have sworn I owned the Dresden Dolls cover about ten years ago, as a concert bootleg, but I had to go looking for it again after being reminded of its existence. In my junior year at Brandeis, I learned "If Love Were All" from the singing of Alan Rickman in Private Lives. When a song gets in my head, I listen to it wall to wall. I've never known if that was normal and I don't think it makes much difference.

Alan Rickman & Lindsay Duncan, "If Love Were All/Someday I'll Find You"

But I believe that since my life began
The most I've had is just
A talent to amuse

Alan Vega, Alex Chilton, Ben Vaughn, "Fat City"

Looking at my tracks, I miss my train

Angela Burns, "All Together"

No, I don't need you to keep me whole and safe
From the dangers behind that thick brick wall

The Dresden Dolls, "Life on Mars"

Oh, man, look at those cavemen go

Elvis Perkins in Dearland, "Weeping Pilgrim, 417"

I weep
I mourn
And I move slowly on
I'm a poor mourning pilgrim, I'm bound for Canaan's land

Jake Xerxes Fussell, "Pork and Beans"

See my clothes string hanging on your line
Tell by that, well, I got a rambling mind

The Jezabels, "Dark Storm"

But when I took it to the sky
To the bright white cockatoo on a satellite
She looked down on all my years
With a click of a finger

Joan Armatrading, "Woncha Come on Home"

Every light is on, but all the rooms are empty except one
Oh, baby, don't stay too late
You know I hate to be alone
And I'm alone

Johnny Flynn, "Lost and Found"

Just a lonely radio
Just a makeshift show and tell
Playing out the lives of the lost and found

Comments

[sovay]

Except I'm just as likely to do it with entire albums as with single songs.

I listen to new albums straight through, and I can play them on repeat if they catch me—as with Fussell's self-titled debut, which was a solid soundtrack for two or three days—but in almost all cases favorite tracks eventually emerge and these are the ones which see the most replay.

All these rules change with writing music, I think. If I am writing to an album, it just plays over and over, alternating with whatever else is in my head at the time, and usually rates a mention in the text somehow. So John Roberts' "The Boatman's Cure" and Cordelia's Dad's "Delia" are individual songs that influenced the writing of "The Boatman's Cure" (Ghost Signs), but I also listened to a tremendous amount of Peter Bellamy's Kipling settings and a soundtrack mix for The Lady's Not for Burning that I got from derspatchel, a lot. [edit] I did not track music for that story as carefully as I have with others, I suspect partly because it was written over a period of nearly three years. I have much more in the way of notes on "The Salt House."

(And let's not even get into my Hamilton obsession/addiction.)

I know! Everybody on my friendlist is listening to Hamilton except me! I will almost certainly like it when I do!