Music (a Meme)

If gardening is my biggest passion, music is a close second. My brothers and I are infamous for being able to sing along to almost anything that plays on the radio, regardless of the station. My former husband and I filled several 1000-CD storage shelves in our new house, attended numerous concerts, and still trade music to this day.

I met one of my very best friends, the person who probably knows me better than anyone else, because I always heard such good music coming out of her dorm room that I stuck my head inside and introduced myself one day. Jess took me to my first concert (The Violent Femmes, at Bogart's in Cincy) and we ended up DJ'ing together at our college radio station for several years. And a hot topic of late-night conversation amongst my freshman-year friends was which songs (and in which order--very important) would make up your personal "Songs to Make Love To" soundtrack.

So when I got tagged by a friend for a music meme, I was immediately excited. Here's the deal: List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

So in no particular order, here's my spring music list: (Note that the remainder of the links on this page, which appear in red, are all links to YouTube and other sites that make the song play as soon as you visit... not something you want to do if you're reading this at work!)

1. Jeff Buckley - "Hallelujah"

The inimitable genius Leonard Cohen wrote it... some kid with adorable dreadlocks did a perfectly serviceable rendition of it on American Idol this past season and (happily) introduced it to millions of people... but IMHO Jeff Buckley OWNS this song. I bought a Buckley CD almost 10 years ago after discovering a live version of "Lover You Should Have Come Over" on Napster, and felt like someone had socked me in the gut the first time I got to "Hallelujah" on that CD. Amazing.

2. Foo Fighters - "Long Road to Ruin"

Forget Kurt Cobain. If anyone from Nirvana is a god, it's Dave Grohl. (In full disclosure, I must also admit that he regularly makes my "Top 10 celebrity males you would like to date" list.) This song is one of those epic sing-alongs that sneaks up on you: You find yourself humming a strange melody and you wonder, "Hey, what is this song that's all stuck in my head?" It takes you a few minutes to ID it, but after that you're completely hooked.

By the way, the Fighters of Foo do some amazing live covers, too. Sax or no, they rock "Baker Street" like Gerry Rafferty never could.

3. Over the Rhine - "Hush Now (Stella's Tarantella)"

OTR is this great little band out of Cincinnati... a husband/wife duo, really, who live in the depressed neighborhood for which the band is named. A college roommate from Cincy introduced me to their CD "Eve," and I was smitten by Linford's arrangements and Karin's angelic vocals. "Ohio," "Drunkard's Prayer" and "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander" are some of my other favorite OTR songs, and their "Darkest Night of the Year" is my favorite Christmas CD of all genres, hands down.

Unfortunately, there's no good free online recording of this particular OTR song, and it's hard to explain how lyrics like "Spin me 'round this kitchen floor/Like a carnaval/Troubadour/I know we're only two-bit clowns/In a one-ring circus" get so embedded in your brain without hearing the music to go along with them. So instead of a link to "Hush Now" I'm sharing OTR's version of Hallelujah. Yeah, Jeff Buckley still owns the song, but Over the Rhine can borrow it for a few minutes with this kind of treatment:

4. Tool - "Aenema"

Want commentary on the sorry state of human affairs alongside music that could easily fuel a kickboxing session? That's Tool. I would've linked to the "Aenema" video on the heading, but this song includes liberal use of "the f bomb"... if you want to hear it anyway, now that you've been warned, go here.

5. Robert Plant & Allison Kraus - "Gone Gone Gone"

My spring songlist would have included their rendition of "Black Dog" or "When the Levee Breaks," but neither of those songs are on "Raising Sand." I don't feel too cheated with this fun Everly Brothers tune, though. It's good, and it also kind of reminds me of driving around in my parents' black Olds Cutlass, listening to the real Everly Brothers on 8 track, when I was a kid.

6. Metallica - "Creeping Death"

Erm... well, sometimes Tool isn't quite hard enough. This song also reminds me of when I was younger, by the way, but more in the time of cassette tapes than 8 tracks. My uncle Bruce used to listen to old Metallica (and Deep Purple, and the like) in his truck, and we would rock out to it on the way up to the river where the whole family still goes to swim, ski, and hang out.


7. Radiohead - "Street Spirit (Fade Out)"

Radiohead's "The Bends" is one of my regular go-to CDs, and I've been on a real Bends kick lately... so much so that I could have put "Just," "Fake Plastic Trees," "My Iron Lung," or "High and Dry" on this list... but "Street Spirit" is the last song on the CD, and very haunting... and since I'm thinking about college radio shows, I'm putting this here in tribute to another old friend of mine, Lourene. I lost touch with her over the years, but she always used to close her own radio show with this gem.


The garden pictures that go along with this post were shots from the last week that look like they could go with music... swaying grasses, a mosh pit of golden-edged thyme and pink dianthus, and an allium (schubertii) with a pretty punk-rock look about it.

And with that, I am off to overanalyze my song choices, as I tend to do with things like plant names... but first, I'll tag the requisite 7 people to play along:

Annie in Austin, The County Clerk, Benjamin (if you can spare a minute from thesis writing, and living), Dig This Chick, Meresy_G, Lisa at Millertime, and Craig at Ellis Hollow. If you guys don't want to make a list, that's fine, too... but if you all (or anyone, really) wants to play along, I'd love the chance to see what's in you iPods or CD players this spring!