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On The List: The Broken West

No Rhyme or Reason

I should preface this list by mentioning that there’s really no rhyme or reason to it, which is to say there is no theme. Not that I didn’t work very hard on this—I spent the better part of a whole day writing songs down, crossing songs out, thinking of new songs, etc. This was a really fun and vexing task!

I’m not sure how or why I ended up with these 16, and Lord knows there are some great ones on the cutting room floor (The Band’s “Get Up Jake”, Webb Pierce’s “There Stands the Glass”, Paul Westerberg’s “Tears Rolling Up Our Sleeves”, Elvis Costello’s “Green Shirt”, George Harrison’s “I Live for You”), and some of my favorite bands/singers didn’t make the list this time (Teenage Fanclub, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Muddy Waters, Rolling Stones, George Jones, et al). Also, this list does not necessarily reflect my favorite songs by the bands I DID pick—just the ones that felt right today. Without further adieu (and in no particular order)...

- Ross Flournoy

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Tracks

1. Of Montreal - The Party's Crashing Us

This song makes me want to dance, or at the very least it makes me want to move with a rhythmic twitch. (And I resist all opportunities and overtures to dance.) This whole record is pretty cool—at times they’re a bit too precious for my tastes, but this one hits me hard: it makes me feel invincible when I listen to it. The disco-y drums, the fat synth bassline, the programmed claps—it grooves pretty hard. (Also, I love the line, “You fucked the suburbs out of me.”) When I was doing the most menial shit imaginable at my job (stapling and collating large documents), I would listen to this on repeat and the time would fly.

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2. Portastatic - I Wanna Know Girls

I know this is my boss’ band, but I fell head over heels for this song long before he was my boss. This song just slays me. The opening is so incredibly great—just a clean, metallic-sounding electric guitar playing that awesome chord change, then the bass pops up insistently, and finally the drums kick in. At the risk of sounding like Bono or something, the whole song feels like freedom to me. This one was on repeat for a whole Saturday once.

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3. The Hollies - Sorry Suzanne

If you’d played this for me when I was 17, I probably would have vomited—it’s pretty sugary. But at 23, it completely captivated me. The harmonies are great, and, for the time, the production is pretty sweet too: the piano at the beginning, the way the 12-string acoustic introduces the B section. From a music/songwriter-geek point of view, this song is a gem: such a cool structure, changing keys at the B section, the harmonic progress of the verse... oh well, enough of that... it’s just a great song.

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4. Joe Pernice - Prince Valium

I celebrate Joe Pernice’s entire catalog. This song is kind of the perfect exemplar of Joe Pernice’s songwriting (and why he’s so goddamned good)—extremely melodic, timeless, beautiful, aching and melancholic. I swear, had he been born 20 years earlier, he would be extremely rich and famous now (which is to say he would have booted guys like Cat Stevens, Gordon Lightfoot, and The Eagles out of the public consciousness).

Everything about this song is perfect—his vocal, the production, Peyton Pinkerton’s guitar, and, well, the song itself. Again, from a songwriter-geek point of view, this song is tops—such a simple chord progression invested with such sophistication. Also, I love the line, “I see you in the wreckage in the moon”, and who HASN’T felt the money shot of the song?: “So help me Lord/ Get me stoned again.”

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5. Bob Dylan - Wallflower

In the end, I prefer Dylan at his simplest and most direct, and it does not get anymore straightforward than this little ditty. This is not my favorite Dylan song of all time, but it’s so charming and honest: just a guy (at least as I imagine it) spotting a cute, shy girl at a dance or a bar and sidling up to her in as compassionate and non-threatening a way as possible. The arrangement and production are so spare and, dare I say, haunting. Some sick pedal steel playing, too.

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6. Reigning Sound - Your Love Is A Fine Thing

I missed out on—or more accurately, avoided—the whole garage-rock renaissance a few years ago. Though these guys were, from what I read, a touchstone for a lot of those clowns, they are rightly in a league of their own. The guitar at the beginning of the song will quite literally slice through your skull if you listen to it too loud. (Also, on a geeky production note, it’s so cool how, at the beginning, the electric guitar is miked both at the amp AND at the strings... anyway...)

This song sounds like it was written 40 years ago, which is to say it sounds timeless. The chorus sounds like it could have been from a Motown song, replete with tambourines and luscious female backing vocals. And Greg Cartwright sings with such intensity and conviction... not to be missed. (Plus, they’re from Memphis, and so am I.)

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7. Townes Van Zandt - To Live Is to Fly

I can’t say that I’m a Townes Van Zandt completist or even fanatic, but this song has been a favorite since I first heard it. First off, the production’s so incredibly organic and warm; I don’t think there’s a single effect (delay, big reverbs, etc.) on this track. And I absolutely LOVE the bass playing—not sure who it is, but whomever it is, he/she lays down one of those sick-ass, perfectly executed serpentine grooves that seem to have, sadly, faded away with the dawn of the ‘80s.

Anyway, Townes’ vocal is so plain and honest, and the lyrics are just out of this world. Every line is a gem, like a koan: “Living’s mostly wasting time/ And I waste my share of mine”, “Everything is not enough/ And nothing is too much to bear”. Who writes shit like that these days? My favorite, though, is: “I’ll miss the system here/ The bottom’s low and the treble’s clear.” Not necessarily Buddhist, but somehow so perfect.

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8. The Glass Family - There's a Light Waiting For You

The Glass Family is a band from Austin. This song is epic, complex, and almost proggy, but with more heart than any prog-rock I know. Frank Alexander’s piano playing rocks my world, and Michael Winningham’s voice stirs me. The song keeps building and the payoff is when the horns come in around the 3:00 mark. A sight to behold live... gives me goose bumps just thinking about it. Everyone should check these guys out—a truly special band.

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9. Hoagy Carmichael - Stardust

I can’t put in to words how this song makes me feel, so I won’t try. Well, except to say that it conjures intense (and unfounded) feelings of nostalgia—quite simply, it awakens my imagination. I feel like I’m at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 1938, hanging out with Bertolt Brecht and William Faulkner. The melody is unparalleled, and, though the song’s been covered a trillion times, Hoagy’s rendition—so simple and elegant—is the best. His whistling during the solo section is pretty great.

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10. The Ramsey Lewis Trio - The 'In' Crowd

I discovered this song at my best friend Dave’s house. His dad has all this crunk vinyl, and one winter day when his folks were out of town, we went to the “vinyl” wing and put this record on, kind of at random. I think I played it 4 or 5 times in a row. I love how the applause opens the track, and then from there, well, it’s just a jam. (A lesson in dynamics for the musicians out there.)

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11. Guided By Voices - Game of Pricks

I was late to Guided By Voices. I have my friend Dave to thank for introducing me to them. It was a toss-up between this and “Glad Girls.” Nevertheless, this is pretty much a flawless pop song. A great melody, superb structure—all in all, a totally rocking tune. I really like “I never asked for the truth/ But you owe that to me.”

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12. Pavement - You Are A Light

I know it’s hipster heresy to say anything nice about Terror Twilight, but I think this record has some pretty great songs. “Major Leagues” and “Spit on a Stranger” are sublime, but this song sticks out for me because of one line: “Watch out for the gypsy children in electric dresses they’re insane/ I hear they live in crematoriums and smoke your remains.” Wow—what the fuck? Just conjures something equally beautiful and terrifying within me every time I hear it—I picture these little waif children with pointy teeth and pale blue eyes dancing through a pile of ashes. Also, the quasi-atonal Casio outro is pretty cool, though that was probably all Godrich.

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13. Hall & Oates - I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)

I swear to God, I honestly love Hall and Oates. This is not some hipster gimmick selection—I genuinely appreciate these guys. Granted, my love for them has its roots in my mom’s Volvo in 1984 hearing them on the radio... nevertheless, they wrote some truly special songs. It was hard to pick one—“Sarah Smile”, “Rich Girl”, and “She’s Gone” were all strong contenders.

This one just strikes me as them at their prime—such a TOTALLY sick bassline. It’s got this almost menacing, funky R&B feel, then they seamlessly switch moods to this airy, major seventh-y chorus, then BACK to the funk. Also, make sure you get the five minute version and NOT the 3 1/2 minute radio edit—trust me, you want the 20 second trap-kit intro.

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14. The World Record - Serious

Just about a perfect pop song... the beginning is so beguilingly vulnerable, and then the other electric guitar and bass come in and the song opens up magnificently into this transcendent second verse, replete with some great harmony singing courtesy of Will Courtney (guesting on this track but with a great band of his own, Austin’s Brothers and Sisters). The B section is so spare and works in great contrast to the power of the rest of the track. AND, the horn solo section makes me want to smile and cry at the same time—how often can you say that about a piece of music? This whole record is great—another one you should check out as fast as you can.

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15. Jeff Lynne - September Song

I count ELO, and specifically, Jeff Lynne, as a big influence. I was first made aware of Jeff Lynne when my folks got the first Traveling Wilburys album, and I really liked his voice, and I like the production of that record, which I believe he’s responsible for. I remember, when I was about 10, seeing a list of new releases on MTV some random week and Armchair Theatre was one of them, so I bought the tape! (That ended up leading me to ELO several years later.) You probably have to be a hardcore ELO fan to dig this record, but as such a person, I love it. Sadly, it’s out of print, I believe. This track is out of this world; first off, this song—written by Kurt Weill—is simply amazing. The melody is beautiful, haunting, and wistful. And this has a lot of the trademark Lynne production qualities—love the footstomps under the solo section, and George Harrison lays down one of the most elegant, ghostly slide guitar parts I’ve ever heard.

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16. Chris Bell - I Am The Cosmos

Anyone who listens to my band can probably tell pretty quickly that I am a big Big Star fan. I knew about “I Am the Cosmos” a long, long time before I finally heard it, which wasn’t until last summer. But I was instantly smitten. As is the case with “Stardust”, I can’t even begin to adequately describe how this song makes me feel or even how much I love it. The closest I could say would be that it completely breaks my heart every time I hear it. It’s just this swirling storm of... well, something; the important thing is that it’s swirling. The whole record is great—buy this immediately.

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On The List: The Broken West

No Rhyme or Reason

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