from Doug to Downeaster

Day 210, Session 73:
When/Where: Thursday January 18th - Coming home from work.
First song: Doug Levy by Moxy Fruvous
Last full song: Downeaster "Alexa" by Billy Joel
Progress: 1008-1014 of 4802
Total Songs Heard: 864

A couple things to say before we hit the music.

First, sweetness! I think I've set this dealee up so that whenever I'm linking directly to a song, you should be able to play it without leaving the page. For now that mostly means Coulton songs will play directly on this page. (Of course if you like those songs, I can't recommend highly enough that you go to his site and pick up a cd or find out when he's playing near you.) For the future that opens up all sorts of possibilities, most of which I'll probably never fully realize.

Second, not so great, as of this evening this blog now appears on the first page of results if you Google zip gun plans. Even though THERE ARE NO PLANS HERE. (I realize of course that by typing this I'm only encouraging Google results to point this way, but maybe that's actually my plan. If people can't actually find the plans they're looking for that potentially means one less gun out there. Grass roots gun control at its lamest.)

Let's see about using that new feature. The first song of the day was another Fruvous fan song:
Doug Levy - Moxy Fruvous

Give it a shot. Let me know if you were able to play the song with the little blue button.

There was a little juxtaposition of two of the last songs from today:
Down to the Old Pub Instead by Stephen Lynch is an old Irish song encouraging the guys to get away from the wife and off to the bar during certain days of the month.
Down To The River To Pray by Alison Kraus (from "O Brother Where Art Thou?") is an old timey gospel type song encouraging everyone to follow the lord down to the river for some good old fashion baptizin'.

It was jarring to hear these two songs back to back. I'm pretty sure if you combine the two songs together, you should make sure your old pub is not located in shark or piranha infested waters.

from Dog Days of August to Don't Drink the Water

Day 196, Session 69:
When/Where: Thursday January 4th - At the desk for the first hour of the work day.
First song: Dog Days of August by Garrison Keillor
Last full song: Don't Drink the Water by Dave Matthews Band
Progress: 961-973 of 4785
Total Songs Heard: 829

Let's get right down to business shall we? Lots of advice coming from these song titles, telling me what not to do. Let's break them down:

Don't - Jewel: Yes, more Jewel. Just Don't? I need a little more clarification than that. Since it's Jewel I'm assuming she means one of two things: a) Don't listen to my music, or 2) Don't keep looking at my bewbs!

Don't Ask Me I'm Only The President - Badly Drawn Boy: Wouldn't be surprised if the current president actually used this answer under oath. I'm pretty sure I agree with BDB here. Let's hope this one is the last.

Don't Ask Me Why - Billy Joel: Ok, I won't ask, I'll just point out here that Christie Brinkley is still bringing it.

Don't be afraid of the dark - Y & T: Thanks guys, I'm not 6. This isn't really a problem anymore. I'm assuming if you're still afraid of the dark Y&T must stand for Young and Terrified.

Don't Be Afraid Of Your Anger - Clem Snide: This is good advice. I am not afraid of my anger. I embrace it. Revel in it even. My goal is to make other people afraid of my anger. I think it's working. You should also know that this song contains a fantastic line:

Don't be afraid of your anger. I'll eat it with mustard and wine.

I have no idea what it means, but it's fantastic.

Don't Change Your Plans - Ben Folds Five: This is advice I did not follow.
Don't Change Your Plans (live) - Ben Folds Five: Ok, technically maybe I did follow the advice of the song, since it specifically advises to not move to LA. Of course I was never really planning on moving to LA.

Don't close your eyes - Kix: I don't know how you guys sleep, but I'm an eye closer.

Don't Drink the Water - Dave Matthews Band: I believe in good hydration and generally drink 6-8 cups of water per day, so shut up DMB.
Don't Drink The Water - Dave Matthews Band: What's that you say? There's blood in the water? Ugh, I wish you had told me that 4 cups of AB-Negative ago.

Tuesday November 21st - Evening

Day 152, Session 53:
Location: At the end of the train.
First song: Come Monday by Jimmy Buffett
Last full song: Comfort and Joy by Simon and Garfunkel
Progress: 659-668 of 4446
Total Songs Heard: 616

Oops. Miscounted last time and totally missed the fact that 600 songs had been passed. Song 600 was Colleen Campbell, another in the long and impressive line of Fruvous fan songs.

Jimmy Buffett is an interesting case. The wife and I went with some friends to a Buffett concert at Wrigley 2 summers ago. It was a crazy day. Ten of thousands of people drunk off their asses for the better part of a day. Everyone wearing Hawaiian shirts. People singing along to every song. It was everything that's great about Buffett (community spirit, enthusiastic crowd, fun songs) and everything not as great about Buffett (too many amateurs drinking, hard to hear music over crowd, songs that all kind of start to sound the same) all rolled into one. Then I heard this story from Slate.com and I came to appreciate the whole Buffett phenomenon a little better.

That's what makes Come Monday such a strange case. It's not another song about some sort of tropical fantasy. It's a simple ballad about a guy who misses his woman during weekends away doing shows. Back when I used to make mix tapes this song ended up on one I listened to a lot after college when driving back and forth the 2 hours between Dayton and where The Wife was living at the time. We saw each other some weekends and then spent weeks apart. It was a strange time in the relationship, often we weren't sure exactly when we'd see each other next, but we made it through. Whenever I heard the song during one of those lonely rides home I would replace the word Monday with "some indeterminate weekend that hopefully will be sooner rather than later." It really didn't fit very well into the rhythm of the song.

It's not my favorite Buffett song, but it's up there. Of course when he performed it at the show, I sang (the right words) drunkenly along with the rest of the Parrotheads... as the wife elbowed me for singing too loud at a concert.