15 Comments
Jan 11, 2021Liked by Ariel

From my spotify top 10 of the year... History Repeating (Propellerheads), Road to Nowhere (Talking Heads), Your Racist Friend (TMBG). Mad World (Gary Jules) - being played with frequency over the past umpteen years of pandemic. You Think You're a Man (Divine) & Fight Song are there too, but from high frequency play through a different, and more personal frustration ;)

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Jan 13, 2021Liked by Ariel

Back To Work by BC Camplight. A funny song that well captures some of the monotony of 2020

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Jan 13, 2021Liked by Ariel

Sault, Wildfire.

It is just a weirdly soothing sound love the languid vocals. But the message, esp the year of BLM marches, could not be a more haunting, quietly furious protest song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRC4Ac6IB1w

Thief in the night

Tell the truth

White lives

Spreading lies

You should be ashamed

The bloodshed on your hands

Another man

Take off your badge

We all know it was murder

Murder, murder

Murder

Texas Sun by Kruangbin (Sp?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSWNWWREtsI

I discovered this one on my birthday last Feb, and it was such a great, warming song in the middle of winter. Made me feel like I was in the desert, driving in a pickup truck, on a glorious road trip. Little was I to know how restricted movement was about to become.

And finally I got in one of those obsessive listening loops to a song I posted on FB, the one by Sara Bareilles sung by Leslie Odom Jr where they imagine Obama’s thoughts when Trump was running in 2016. It felt so resonant again this week. I am not a musical theatre person, but there is something powerful about singers with theatre training who have the ability to fill each word with intent.

This verse:

So hear me now

Before the truth gets drowned out

By a demagogue flexing

A demagogue flexing

He's history repeating

https://www.facebook.com/sarabareilles/videos/10153813254241432

And that final request that we take this moment seriously, and try to understand how and why we got here. This week of the riots on the Capitol in Washington, it was perfectly my mood.

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Both sides now by Joni Mitchell.

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In keeping with a year of intense vulnerability I have gotten very into Alanis Morissette lately, particularly "Thank You."

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Jan 10, 2021Liked by Ariel

Bohemian Like You by The Dandy Warhols is always a go-to for me. When that opening drum line kicks in, I can't help but get excited.

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Jan 10, 2021Liked by Ariel

All My Happiness is Gone (Purple Mountains). Self-explanatory.

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Jan 10, 2021Liked by Ariel

Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen sung by K.D. Laing

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A number of mixtape requests have come in via Facebook: MIA, "Borders." Prince, "1999". Lenny Kravitz, "Let Love Rule." Black Pumas, "Colors." "Bella Ciao." Drowning Pool, "Bodies." Ladytron, "Destroy Everything You Touch."

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If nothing else this is giving me a great playlist of new songs to usurp the Birdsong of South America.

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Spotify tells me that my Top 10 songs in 2020 were all hip-hop tracks including "Godzilla" by Eminem feat. Juice WRLD and "The Box" by Roddy Rich, but those all came from the 10-year-old in our home whose wakeup routine involves asking Alexa to play music inappropriate for a 10-year-old. The most-listened-to track that I actually requested, in amusing contrast, is "Capuchino Pecho Blanco" from the album "A Guide to the Birdsong of South America." When you ask Spotify for a radio playlist based on that track, it generates a rather lovely list of coffeehouse-style tunes that make a great background for household chores.

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