Seven Song Spin: Goodbye 2020

There's no unifying theme this time around—maybe a bit of winter melancholy? But nothing so heavy that a little Lavern Baker can't brush aside. This blog has been a lot busier than ever in 2020—here's to a better if not busier 2021.

This whole playlist can be found here.

There I was, a child bride: This literally haunting waltz by Toni Childs, "Heaven's Gate," has such a grabby, over-the-top premise I don't want to spoil it. Suffice it to say it's like a folk tale. And good luck getting its music-box-angel dance out of your head after hearing it.

A song that's hard to even play: I can't quite account for the hypnotic appeal of this Gram Parsons tune, "New Soft Shoe," except to postulate that its ostensible subject—Indiana car-maker E.L. Cord—is a rough analogue or kindred spirit of Parsons, a not-quite-household name with a short, intense career, known mostly by insiders for his craft. I swear by the slow-as-a-morphine-drip version on the indispensable live album Gram Parsons & the Fallen Angels: Live 1973.

Cornflakes and peanuts: The jazzy minor-key chords on guitar and electric piano, combined with a yearning, sincere melody, somehow elevate the Shonen Knife classic "I Wanna Eat Choco-bars" to something more than a mere jingle. (Key detail: Nothing as crass as the song's title is ever sung; instead it's, "I like choco-bars," and, "I eat choco-bars.") Much as I love the song, oddly enough it never makes me hungry.

The nearest to being alive: It was one of those Rolling Stone "best 100 albums" lists that turned me onto Richard & Linda Thompson's Shoot Out the Lights, which I embraced only at arm's length except for a few standout tracks: "Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?," "Backstreet Slide," and this stirring closer, "Wall of Death."

And I was the goat: Harry Partch didn't just have great taste in sound, what with all the microtonal instruments he built; he also had an impeccable sense of drama, as this setting of a remarkable letter from a hobo friend of his shows. There are at least three turns in this narrative that will make your hair stand on end.

Scrape off the juice from your boots: I haven't heard a lot of work by this rock heir, but my ears perked up when he was working with Cibo Matto on their greatest record; this, from his album Friendly Fire, is from the same period. The lyrics are almost unsettingly incantatory, and extremely puzzling—the opening image, for instance, is striking: "Would I be the one to bring back the tears from your eyes," he sings. From your eyes, not to them?

Hunkies, hunkies, fishes bite: I think I came across the irrepressible Lavern Baker when I discovered she did the original version of "Jim Dandy," which I first knew from the Black Oak Arkansas version featured so memorably in Dazed and Confused. That led me to "Tweedle Dee," as fine a ray of musical sunshine as I know.