Last week I was getting up and heading to Charlottesville, full of expectation for a good time, good drive, good friends, good music. Anticipation of small, solo roadtrips to wanted destinations always bring me to a very specific and active place.
Woke up and went straight to the iPod to play "Lucky" by Radiohead. Because, if I'm feeling it, I can have Thom Yorke reinforce "it's gonna be a glorious day." And, their new album The King of Limbs had just debuted a couple of days prior and that was most definitely gonna be on the day's playlist.
I put the mp3's to random for a while after that, and then relistened to Arcade Fire's The Suburbs (top winner at both the recent Grammy's and NME's.) I like this album a lot.
As soon as it ended, Jeff Buckley's "Parchman Farm Blues" came on. Heck yes.
Hit the road, radio was on. Pink Floyd-into-Florence & the Machine-into-Springsteen. (Tramps like us!) I think that's one of the best rock songs ever written.
Put on Monster by REM. It's the 1994 CD I've had for sixteen years, and its lived in my rarely used CD changer for about two. I like it there, a familiar, grungey surprise when I need to change things up. (Other CD's who live in that purgatory include The Moon and Antarctica (can you believe it's eleven years old ?!?), a Grateful Dead greatest hits compilation, and Tom Petty's greatest.)
Monster, though, lives with me like a cousin. I know a lot about it, remember a lot about it, visit it a couple times a year, and either reminisce or learn something new (good if both). I know, for instance, that the first track, "What's the Frequency Kenneth?" skips if I just play the CD. Instead I have to push play, skip forward about fifteen seconds, and hit play. It works fine that way. If I just let it skip through the first fifteen seconds, though, it continues to skip through the whole song. There's a weird intimacy in that. I never bought a new CD. Never burned it, put it on iTunes, nothing. Just leave it in the charger in my trunk for years at a time and finangle when the need hits me.
It's a damn good album. "I don't sleep, I dream." True.
And don't even get me started on "Strange Currencies." One of the most beautiful, anthemic songs ever.
Speaking of Radiohead & REM, here's a copy of them duetting on "Lucky," which makes me feel like I'm on a cloud.
