City Songs

On Sunday Peter of PeterDeWolf.com made the huge mistake of leaving a comment on my blog indicating that he loves theme based mix tapes (ok, fine, cds. FINE, playlists but I won't pretend to like that magic-less nomenclature.). Seeing an opportunity for free music AND the chance to disappointingly write about music for the second time in one month I jumped on him with the request for some theme based music trading. And (likely mistake number 2) he agreed. Fool! Barely 24 hours later I had the following collection of songs with cities in their title delivered to my inbox

Bobcaygeon -- The Tragically Hip
Newcastle Jam -- Crowded House
Kreuzburg -- Bloc Party
Atlantic City -- Bruce Springsteen
Rio -- Daran Duran
New York's Not My Home -- Jim Croce
Jackson -- Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash
Luckenbach, Texas -- Waylon Jennings
L.A. Woman -- The Doors
New Orleans Is Sinking -- The Tragically Hip

You'll immediately notice that Peter totally cheats.

My first issue was with the song called Bobcagen but while at first I thought this was some Canadian word likely having to do with maple syrup processing or beavers it turns out to be the name of a town (though notable a town that even the (presumably Canadian) guy on the intro has never heard of) and since I come from a place that insists on calling itself a city despite having only 4000 human inhabitants I’m apt to let a lot of things slide. It helps that of the 5 new songs on the list this was by far my favorite.

The second cheater issue is that Peter includes 2 songs by the same band. This was not an explicit rule for the creation of this mix but I was fairly certain the all reasonable people knew that mixes have a MIX of artists. Peter tried to defend his behavior using the following pathetic excuse, “But it’s The Tragically Hip!” Which is Canadian for “but it’s AC/DC” which is Australian for “My country only has one famous band” (cue half of Canada calling me names -- save it folks, I am actually a huge fan of your country's contributions to auditory stimulation and I'm not even mad about the Celine Dion thing.).

There are 4 songs on this list that are songs that I forgot that I loved which means that I spent most of my listening time rewinding (fine, clicking the little back arrow) and thinking "Oh my god I DO want to move to Luchenbach and raise some fine youngin's and then maybe dress up like a bird of paradise and take a side trip to the Rio Grand and dance on a keg in some bar to make my husband jealous!"

Of the remaining 6 remaining tunes I already knew and sort of liked "Atlantic City" (though it's no "Thunder Road") and I'm sure I had heard "L.A. Women" at some point in the past and generally found it too much like the kind of song the fake stoner in the WASP-y frat loved. I was surprised to like Kreuzburg and I can tolerate Newcastle Jam and New Orleans Is Sinking. I know that come some dreary day in February when the subway smells particularly bad and the streets feel particularly harsh I will be very glad to have New York Is Not My Home to commiserate with.

Peter tells me that NaBloPoMo posts are supposed to suck. Thank God. One more day.