I had to do my Random Ten on the way to work this morning, forgoing my usual "Little Steven's Underground Garage" on Sirius Radio. We've all got to make our sacrifices.
1. Pink Houses- John Mellencamp2. You're A Big Girl Now- Bob Dylan
3. Earn Enough For Us- XTC
4. Darling Be Home Soon- The Lovin' Spoonful
5. Phantom 309- Red Sovine
6. Do It Again- Steely Dan
7. Singing Winds, Crying Beasts- Santana
8. Good Vibrations- The Beach Boys
9. Emma- Hot Chocolate
10. Viva Las Vegas- Elvis Presley
Notes:
1. Mellencamp is among this year's inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with Leonard Cohen and the Dave Clark Five.
2. This is a demo of this song, which appeared on Blood On The Tracks. The demo is on the Biograph collection.
3. One of my favorite XTC songs.
4. John Sebastian composed this song, which is about as lovely a song as has ever been written. Slade did a cover of it in the seventies.
5. A great country song about a phantom truck driver who helps out a hitchhiker, that been redone and rewritten and number of times. Former Wall Of Voodoo singer Stan Ridgway redid it as "Camouflage," about a ghost Marine helping out another Marine in the Vietnam War.
6. A hit from Steely Dan's first album.
7. This one is an instrumental from the great Abraxas album.
8. A Beach Boys classic. Contrary to what most people believe, the electronic instrument played was not a theremin, but a tannerin-- a keyboard instrument that sounds a lot like a theremin but is not played by waving the hands around the antennae.
9. Hot Chocolate's big hit was "You Sexy Thing," but they also had a couple of more hits; "Everyone's A Winner," which was used in a great scene in one of my favorite movies, Detroit Rock City, and "Emma," a song I loved when I was a teenager.
10. How better to end my Random Ten with Elvis?
7 comments:
The first thing I saw when I clicked on your blog was, "Pink Houses". Do you want to make a guess as to what is now playing in my head?
Widget is in the way of your wonderful words. Wanna hang with us at Exit tomorrow night? Love to see you.
Oh I love Pink Houses. I saw John Mellencamp when he was just John Cougar Mellencamp. What's with all the name changes? Anyway, thanks - I'll be singing that song all morning.
Hearhear! From "Little Pink Houses" to Vegas on fire. The DK's cover of "Viva" is kinda funny. Along with "Winnebago Warriors". Ha!
XTC is for me. Love them.
The BBs reference reminds me of Jon Langford and the One Hit Wonders' rendition of Rocket Man, which I'm listening to right now :)
Thank you, Ira Glass!
Great list, and great video! Fortunately, since I read fluent Asian, I could also enjoy the subtitles.
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