Grab bag: Paul Simon edition

New mix: every day is getting straighter

This mix has been percolating a while. I didn’t know how to move beyond Jeff Buckley’s absolutely epic reading of his lament for his dead father, but it turns out that anger works remarkably well when played against grief and loss. And that’s how the rest of the mix went.

I make no apologies for the elegiac (some would say self indulgent) triple punch of the Death Cab, Cure, and Jane’s songs stacking up all together. Somewhere there is a sixteen year old who’s just broken up with his girlfriend who only wishes he could put that much misery together in one place on the mix that he’s going to send her.

Bascom Lamar Lunsford’s a cappella version of “To the Pines, to the Pines” is both more matter of fact and more chilling than the version by Leadbelly (and the bloodcurdling Nirvana cover it inspired).

  1. Dream BrotherJeff Buckley (Mystery White Boy (Live))
  2. Careening with ConvictionMission Of Burma (The Obliterati)
  3. Written In ReverseSpoon (Transference)
  4. Company in My BackWilco (A Ghost Is Born)
  5. What Is Your Secret?Nada Surf (The Weight is a Gift)
  6. RevelatorGillian Welch (Time (The Revelator))
  7. The Queen Is Dead (Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty)The Smiths (The Queen Is Dead)
  8. Pump It UpElvis Costello (The Very Best of Elvis Costello And The Attractions)
  9. Radio CureWilco (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)
  10. ProgressMission of Burma (Vs. )
  11. TransatlanticismDeath Cab for Cutie (Transatlanticism)
  12. DisintegrationThe Cure (Disintegration)
  13. Then She Did…Jane’s Addiction (Ritual De Lo Habitual)
  14. To The Pines, To The PinesBascom Lamar Lunsford (Ballads, Banjo Tunes, And Sacred Songs Of Western North Carolina)
  15. Einstein’s DayMission of Burma (Vs. )