Music

This Week’s Heavy Rotation #36

5 songs to add to your playlists

Note: Each week I take a look back at my playlists and share songs that were either played the most, got stuck in my head, or just stood out. Many are new to me, but there are old faves mixed in as well.

There is something beautiful about the resolute endurance of life. Somehow we keep going, sometimes in spite of it all. There are plenty of stories out this week about where people were on 9/11/2001. In fact, you should go check some out here.

20 years — and several lifetimes — later, I want to tell you about where I was on 9/11/2021. I started the day at my son’s soccer game about an hour from our home. It’s a beautiful setting, and while not “severe clear” like 2001, the skies were certainly clear. Not humid, and a gentle breeze. Good playing weather. And of course, plenty of dads on the sidelines doing dad stuff.

All of us old enough to remember exactly where we’d been and young enough to still wonder how we’d got here.

It had been a little over 3 years since I’d been to this complex (to this exact field, actually). Another span of time that feels like a generation and went by in a blink. My son was barely a teenager then, his face still smooth. On this day, he was playing for his high school, much taller and stronger than he was before. A different person in a different era. Seems on brand for a day focus both on looking back and facing the future.

I was a little lost in thought at the serendipity of it all when the silence was broken by a fighter jet roaring overhead. To be clear, we were close enough to an airbase that this is/was totally normal. Maybe not the best day to be flying sorties, but not unexpected.

And yet, at that moment, everyone old enough to remember reflexively looked up, and for a split second we were all back to that fateful day when we wondered if the world was going to end. It mercifully has not.

Despite everything 2021 is throwing at us, these are great days. Some how we all endure.

The Damned-Life Goes On

Years ago, I worked with a guy that would always say, “Remember, these are the good old days.” He’d usually say it when things were going sideways at work — or in the middle of a storm. We’d all politely chuckle and get back to it. He’s long since passed, but I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. One day we’re the new kid, and the next were working next to someone that wasn't even born when you first got hired.

Earlier this week, I was driving on a back road, and stuck behind a slow moving truck/trailer. We were running late, and I was getting annoyed. And then I realized that we were in a beautiful valley, I had my family with me, and the sun was out. I doubt a suburban dad pondering life in a station wagon is what Dave Vanian had in mind, but also I wonder if someday, I’ll look back and remember it as one of the good old days?

Life’s a con a con a con If you think you can’t go on Go on and on and on But always remember This is the happiest day of your life

I Am The World Trade Center- Metro (Brooklyn mix)

I gave some thought to not including this; given the group's name it just seemed ill-timed? But like most good things, music doesn’t keep to a schedule or keep up appearances. Sometimes you find a really good new song at a really awkward time.

I don’t know much about this group. I do know that I found the jangly/futuristic pop sound was just what I needed last week. Interestingly (or not), this song was released less than a month before 9/11.

Bruce Springsteen-Born In The U.S.A.

After my son’s game, we needed to pick up my in-laws truck, so we took the long way back home via back roads. We decided to stop in a small town to eat.

The place my wife picked qualified as a 5-calendar cafe. William Least Heat Moon would’ve been proud. As we walked back to our car — no parallel parking in this downtown!- we came upon a fundraiser for the youth football team in an insurance agency parking lot. And was we waited to cross the street — there in middle america, surrounded by flags and starts and stripes bunting — out of their little boom box came the sound of “Born In The USA.”

I likely will go to my grave and never putting a better scene to paper. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

Warren Zevon-Excitable Boy

Zevon has always reminded me of the sort of guys that would hang around the mini mart by my house; kinda sketchy, but always had a good story to tell. They’d “seen some things” and were all too happy to tell you about it over a hand rolled cigarette and sh*tty coffee. I say this as a compliment, not a pejorative.

And for a guy who’s “biggest” song is often labeled as a novelty and played alongside Monster Mash and Thriller, Zevon still has a pretty outsize influence. He’s been gone 18 year as of last week, and there were no shortage of hagiographies written. We should expect nothing less from a guy that got us all too sing along to a song about building a cage with her bones.

Saint Etienne- Little K

Saint Etienne released “I’ve Been Trying to Tell You” a new album this week, and it’s fantastic. This is the 4th track on the record, but feels like it should be the last one. It plays like a musical denouement. Ethereal and soothing, its the perfect antidote to the chaos of normal life in 2021. . I listened to it repeatedly over the last few days.

Another reason to pretend Another reason to pretend Another reason to pretend Another reason to pretend

Pretend…unwind…escape…

What are you listening to this week? An old favorite? Something new? Let me know in the comments!

As always, thank you to everyone here. We’re building something fantastic and it’s only getting better. Each week we’re seeing new people jump on board. It’s awesome.

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The usual light housekeeping:

In case you missed last week’s list:

Our next Album of The Month discussion is on October 3rd! Get all the details here.

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