songs:365

Month: November 2021

  • day 324: Wanted Dead or Alive

    Wanted Dead or Alive, by Bon Jovi.

    This song is an all-time wishlist song, like, one that I imagined playing a thousand times but never learned. Was I “over” Bon Jovi at 13 when I started playing guitar? I don’t think so? Maybe? It seems weird that I overlooked this one. The riff that I mess up like four different times is A LOT like the descending thing in the coda of Patience, just before Axl and I hit the big finish. I did not attempt to play the guitar solo correctly, but I lucked out a couple times and played a right-ish thing.

    If you’ve ever seen me sing this at karaoke, first of all, I’m sorry, but second of all, I think you’ve seen me sing it better than this, despite the doubling and autotune and reverb and delay and whatnot. But we’ll take it. Full send, dead or alive, rocked them all, etc.

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  • day 323: Gouge Away

    Gouge Away, by the Pixies.

    This song is one of more than one canonical examples of Pixies doing the whole quiet/loud thing, pre-Nevermind, and I managed to mess it up thoroughly, but had a lot of fun getting the fuzz pedal set just the way I wanted it, and playing mostly the right chords nice and loud. (I mean, I’m missing Kim’s bass, which is the quiet part, really.)

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  • day 322: We Sing Hallelujah

    We Sing Hallelujah, by Richard and Linda Thompson.

    This song is probably, maybe, but not promised to in fact be, the last Richard and Linda Thompson song of this project. I had a list of other songs from this record to do, and this one popped into my head, so here it is. Not sure this is exactly the right key, but it worked for me.

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  • day 321: These Arms of Mine

    These Arms of Mine, by Otis Redding.

    I’ve had this song on the list from nearly the beginning, and just went for it today. We can’t have a horn section every time we want one, right?

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  • day 320: Careless Whisper

    Careless Whisper, by George Michael.

    Somehow, this is TikTok’s fault?

    This song is one I’ve imagined singing since I was little enough to sit in the back seat of dad’s 280ZX, but it was obviously my George Michael tape we were playing. I acted out the sax solo, surely, and probably, maybe, kinda, there was some choreography? I remember some choreography.

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    I did a George Michael song at karaoke once, though, and quickly discovered that my range was a lot better in my head. Likewise on this occasion!

  • day 319: The Gambler

    The Gambler, by Kenny Rogers.

    This song is one I’ve heard a thousand times, but, as usual, for whatever reason, I am transported to one particular evening in the first house I lived in as a kid, but after the studio addition was built, but after that room had been converted into the TV room, after mom’s first retail storefront studio had been built out, etc., but we still had the old brown radio tuner and speakers (though the 8-track had been retired) in the old wall unit, I think. So it must’ve been playing on Love 94, though it seems unusual we had the radio on at night. That’s how I remember it.

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    An increasingly rare cowboy hat appearance, because how could I not?

  • day 318: Making Love Out Of Nothing At All

    Making Love Out Of Nothing At All, by Air Supply.

    It’s been a bit of a day, and I’m pretty fried, so this song is just the kind of easy listening for the job. The hardest part about remembering which Air Supply song was my favorite is the massive amount of overlap in the lyrical content. Did you know that “Here I Am” and “The One That You Love” are two completely different songs? What is that about, exactly? Did you know that Air Supply is Australian?? Did you know that the guy who wrote this song (not in the band) also wrote TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART?) Dude had a wicked year in 1983. But didn’t we all.

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  • day 317: Lean On Me

    Lean On Me, by Bill Withers.

    We go pretty hard on the weekends around here. Working farmer’s markets, chauffeuring across the DC-MD-VA region for soccer tournaments, and even fitting in Sunday School, and this weekend is a perfect storm, so this song is also doubling as my last rehearsal before our first in-person gathering with our congregation since March 2020.

    (Not a cover-of-a-cover, but full respect to the Club Nouveau version, which I now realize I have full internalized in my headcanon version of it.)

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  • day 316: Particle Man

    Particle Man, by They Might Be Giants.

    Welp, I tricked the 11-year-old into liking TMBG again, and now every car ride involves at least this song, plus Birdhouse (which I demand), as well as Istanbul (which we both enjoy), so I’ve got that going for me for a while. In the car. Where I spend a lot of time with the 11-year-old.

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    I am no accordion.

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  • day 315: I and Love and You

    I and Love and You, by the Avett Brothers.

    This song is just too damn pretty, even if the “Brooklyn, Brooklyn” line is probably both a symptom and cause of quite a bit of gentrification of some neighborhoods that look a lot more like the Avett Brothers than they did when I lived in New York City, myself an early-ish gentrifier of a block that famously (in a story that I often tell) from cockfighting to French restaurants in six years.

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