ChgoRed, Girl Editor

iPod Playlist: Spring

Not really spring-themed songs, but spring-feeling.  Airy, and just a little romantic.  You could take these to the park with you.

"...the autumn wind and the winter wind, they have come and gone..."

We can hope.

*****

Cae Cae - Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra

Cuanto le Gusta - Carmen Miranda

A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request - Steve Goodman (Playing this is an annual tradition at our house)

Honeysuckle Rose - Django Reinhart

Hoodoo Voodoo - Billy Bragg & Wilco

It Don't Mean a Thing - Lionel Hampton

Life is Beautiful - Keb' Mo'

Me & Julio Down by the Schoolyard - Paul Simon

Paris Montage - Georges Delerue (Marimba/piano jazz!)

Suite from "Pleasantville" - Randy Newman

Summer Wind - Lyle Lovett

Take Me Out to the Ballgame - Steve Goodman (With Jethro Burns on mandolin)

Truck Song - Lyle Lovett (About which I've written before)

Walter Winchell Rhumba - Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra

Yo Te Amo Mucho - Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra

BROOOOCE

It's Bruce Springsteen's birthday today! What better day to go for a ride with the top down, have a catch with your kids, or call up your old high school sweetheart? You know Bruce would appreciate it.

The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive
Everybody's out on the run tonight
but there's no place left to hide
Together Wendy we'll live with the sadness
I'll love you with all the madness in my soul
Someday girl I don't know when
We're gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go
and we'll walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us
Baby we were born to run

Sometimes They Take the Great Ones

Grammy-Winning Crooner Ray Charles Dies

"Music's been around a long time, and there's going to be music long after Ray Charles is dead," he told the Washington Post in 1983. "I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind. If it's a big record, that's the frosting on the cake, but music's the main meal."

He left us a banquet. R.I.P. Mr. Charles.

The Varied Carols I Hear

I admit it—I have a few personal Christmas traditions that other people might find odd. I collect bird ornaments, I only eat peppermint ice cream when it’s in season (December through about February), and I actually like Christmas music.

Hypocrisy in da House

I don't like Eminem. At all. I think his views, attitudes and behavior are vile. I wouldn't take one of his CDs for free, much less actually buy one. But I'm not too keen on hypocrisy either. Thus, this article in Newsday caught my eye.

Magazine: Eminem's Low Note

Plays '93 recording of rapper disparaging black women

The ongoing battle between Eminem and The Source magazine escalated to the next level yesterday, as the magazine called a news conference to play an untitled song that features the Detroit rapper using a racial slur and disparaging black women.

Eminem doesn't dispute the tape's authenticity, which sounds like a freestyle rap.
...

However, Kim Osorio, the magazine's editor, said, "These are racist remarks by someone who has the ability to influence millions of minds."
The magazine plans to devote its February issue to the tape and plans to include a CD of the song in the issue so fans can hear it. "This is something we can't turn a blind eye to," said Mays, the magazine's publisher. "This is the key unlocking a much bigger picture."

Wow. Props to The Source for taking the moral high ground here. It sure is a good thing the magazine is busy ferreting out sexists and racists in rap, seeing as how they're so well hidden. And it's also good to know The Source has never profited from such purveyors or promoted them. Because that would be downright hypocritical.

Just for a lark, let's check out a recent cover of the magazine. Hmm...Ludacris. OK. Not a rap fan myself, I'm thinking that would be the same Ludacris who wrote the touching songs, "Ho," "Move Bitch," and "Freaky Thangs," where he shows the depths of his senstivity with lines like:

"I love them chicks that be thick as a loaf of bread
Long as I can still grab her legs, and push 'em up by her head"

Nice. I'm sure NOW will be sending him flowers any day.

Or, you can go two-for-one on insensitivity to African Americans AND women with "Hoes in my Room." Everybody sing along:

"Now it was five B.A.P hoes and they look like trash
But one was midget, so we'll just say four and a half."

Surely The Source will do an equally in-depth investigation of Ludacris next month. They won't even have to dig up an old tape for the press conference; they can just play one of his CDs. These won't be hard to find, given that Mr. L's sales make him, "someone who has the ability to influence millions of minds." Failure to follow up this way would make the magazine’s publishers look like little more than hypocrites with a vendetta.

Perish the thought.

Lyle Is the Man

Some years ago, one of my friends was trying to understand the appeal of Lyle Lovett. Being sadly uninformed, and British, her attitude toward him was summed up with, "Uuuh, that hair." I tried to tell her--how I'd been listening to him since college; how his music had gotten me through many homesick, lovesick, and happy days; how he'd worked for hours to sign every autograph at the signing where I got his picture, smiling all the while and quite possibly missing his plane; how he wore a suit and tie in concert, and nice ones at that. No dice; she wasn't having any of it.

And no matter, because he's still one of the coolest, smartest, most underrated musicians out there. As you might guess, I got the new album last week and I'm already wearing it thin. It's not quite as good as "Step Inside This House," but still better than anything you'll ever hear on country radio. Accomplished, grown-up, fun, witty. I'm loving it. Best song: The Truck Song, which bounces along like it was driving over gravel. Only Lyle could put baling wire and Wim Wenders in a country song, and actually make it work. Plus, this song gives the answer I was trying to give my friend all those years back.

From an article in the St. Louis Dispatch:

According to a recent interview in the alt-country magazine No Depression, Lovett's truck references were a kind of touchstone for the recording. Commenting on lyrics that contrast a visit to Paris (not the one in Texas) and a London meeting with director Wim Wenders with a chorus about a truck held together by "B.F. Goodtire and baling wire," Lovett says the truck is much more important.

"That's cool, but ultimately you're not responsible for Paris or London; you're responsible for your own place in the world," he explains. "Ultimately the most important thing in life is driving to see your girlfriend. That's the thesis statement for the album - that when it comes down to it, we're all just driving around this world in a truck."

Who couldn't like a guy like that?

Buy the album. It rocks.