from Hello Hello Hello to Here And Now

Day 631, Session 116:
When/Where: Wednesday March 12th - Running (not literally) around the neighborhood catching up on chores
First song: Hello Hello Hello by The XYZ Affair
Last full song: Here And Now by Del Amitri
Progress: 1862-1877 of 5814 (skipped one podcast)
Total Songs Heard: 1495

Sweet Jesus Beverly, I believe winter may finally be giving up its icy grip on Chicago. Yesterday, for the first time in forever, I was able to go outside for an extended period without wearing a coat. Man that was refreshing.

Musically the day started with The XYZ Affair. To the best of my knowledge, the musical version of The XYZ Affair has nothing to do with the late 18th-century diplomatic imbroglio between the U.S.A. and France. I found the XYZ Affair after watching this video on the You Tubes:

I like this particular song, All My Friends, quite a bit. I decided to investigate more XYZ Affair after seeing this video. If you grew up at the same time I did, you also loved Double Dare and Marc Summers. The idea of Marc Summers keeping green slime in his fridge at home immediately endeared this band to me. If you'd like to discover some XYZ Affair for yourself, check out their website.

Then there was Hello, Dolly!

It was April 3rd, 1992. It was a Friday. I was 16. It was the night of my first real date. Yes, I was 16 and it was my first date. Why, you may ask, did it take until I was 16 to have a first date? There are a few reasons: 1) Have you seen me? I look pretty much the same now as I did then, only without the beard (which is to say, like a dweeb. For some reason the girls didn't go for the dweeb look.) B) It would be much more effective for the rule of threes if I had a solid B in place here, but I'm having trouble thinking of one so I'll move directly onto... III) There was only one girl I wanted to date.

The problem with reason III is that while the girl and I were very close friends, she was consistently dating people who weren't me. In fact, I had just about given up on the girl. Around Christmas she had been boyfriend free and we started spending a lot of time together and I took the plunge and asked her out... and she said no. Then around my birthday I tried again... and she said no. At that point I had just enough pride to tell her that I wasn't going to ask her out again. Of course since I still wanted to go out with her, this made the relationship a little awkward over the next month until finally I told her that I needed to break up with her as a friend.

About a week later she asked me out. Her sister drove. Two other friends were there too. I spent the whole show trying to figure out exactly how I had ended up there and hoping my hand didn't start sweating too much while holding hers. It wasn't really just the two of us until after the show. "Mysteriously" after the show everyone else disappeared for a little. She was sitting on a window ledge. I was standing next to her. I remember thinking, "So, here we are," as she leaned over and we kissed for the first time. My first kiss. (did I mention I was 16?!?) I had been waiting for it for 4 years. It was totally worth it.

I don't remember a damn thing about the show itself, but when I heard Hello, Dolly!, all the rest came rushing back.

Turns out there is an advantage to having a severely limited dating history. All the important individual moments stay within reach in my swiss cheese brain.

Hello, Dolly! - Bobby Darin

from Giving It Back to Gold

Day 577, Session 106:
When/Where: Friday January 18th - In the living room.
First song: Giving It Back by Matthew Sweet
Last full song: Gold by Interference
Progress: 1606-1635 of 5652
Total Songs Heard: 1299

Why would a man need a version of God Bless America on his ipod? The first reason of course would be if he were a great patriot. The second reason, and the one that applies here, is if he's a Philadelphia Flyers fan. Kate Smith was an American singer and radio performer who did most of her work in the 1930s and 40s. This version of God Bless America was recorded for the 1943 movie "This Is The Army," but found its place in the hearts of Flyers fans when the team began playing it before big games. The Flyers had an unbelievable record when kicking things off with Kate Smith. The high point of this pre-game tradition came in 1974 when the Flyers were playing the Bruins in the Stanley Cup finals. Kate Smith appeared live and thus inspired, the Flyers went on to win the game and their first Stanley Cup title.

Thanks to the magic of the internet, you can actually see the performance. It's not the greatest version of the song ever, but check out the crowd reaction. The ovation the crowd gives before a note is even sung captures the true bat-shit insane electricity of the moment. I've been in the crowd for some pretty exciting moments, but I don't think anything compares to this:

Goose bump city.

The original version of the song isn't bad either:
God Bless America - Kate Smith

Warning: Stop right here if you want a avoid a big sticky pile of sap.

I kind of have issues with "home." I grew up outside of Philadelphia and since that's where I grew up, that's where I've thought of as home for most of my life. One problem though, I don't live there anymore (and neither do my parents, so I'm almost never there.) It's been almost 14 years since Philly actually was home even though it still sometimes feels that way.

Even though I've been in Chicago for almost 7 years now, the first 5 and a half of those years were spent moving from apartment to apartment, never really settling down. Now The Wife and I own a house and 18 months into that experience we're really starting to make the place ours. When I got to the Barenaked Ladies song Go Home I started thinking that maybe this place is it. This feeling has been enhanced recently by our attempts to tackle some home improvement projects. If you know me, you know I'm not exactly a handyman, so several of the projects have been much harder than they should be. This is mostly due to my ineptness. For example, yesterday I broke off a drill bit and couldn't find where the broken bit piece ended up. This leads me to believe that it may be embedded somewhere on my body (possibly in my eye because safety glasses are for suckers.) My ineptness makes me feel kind of useless, and it's hard to feel at home in a place where you feel useless.

Through a quirk in scheduling I barely saw The Wife yesterday. I got home late last night and tried to sneak my way into bed. As I slipped under the covers The Wife, still 90% asleep, rolled over and wrapped an arm around me and said "There you are."

And there I was. That was home.

Go Home - Barenaked Ladies

I am lucky to be one of the few who has found somebody who can tolerate me.

Finally, if you were wondering how many different versions of Go Your Own Way one guy needs, the answer is three (original and live version by Fleetwood Mac, cover by The Cranberries.) I bet you thought the answer was less than 1.

from F.O.D. to Fallible

Day 434, Session 90:
When/Where: Thursday August 30th - Desk to train, train to Belmont, 1.5 mile walk home.
First song: F.O.D. by Green Day
Last full song: Fallible by Blues Traveler
Progress: 1256-1271 of 5300
Total Songs Heard: 1038

The problem with occasionally posting to my MySpace blog, besides the inevitable question as to why exactly I have a MySpace account (the answer: I'm 12,) is that I ended up posting there something that would have fit in pretty well here. Or at least it would have fit in pretty well with the woe-is-me attitude of the more recent posts. Anywho, if you want to read it, there's a link over on the right.

And some good news (that still has nothing to do with music...) I am now officially an uncle. Congrats to the sister on the birth of Orion Francis. I've been holding off on that announcement until she posted about it on her own blog. Took her almost a week... I couldn't figure out why it took so long but then she mentioned something about having a newborn baby, so I guess that's understandable.

From the music front today I heard one of those songs that shocks me into remembering that apparently, I may actually have a romantic side. Fallen For You by Sheila Nicholls is from the High Fidelity soundtrack. (I've previously mentioned my affinity for that particular film.) It's a piano-driven gut punch tale of unrequited love; and really, who among us hasn't been there? She does a great job of laying out that feeling of longing for someone so much... and yet knowing it's just not going to work out. How you play that game with yourself of pretending like you don't care around the other person and yet wishing that they would see right through your facade. Such a pretty song; the type of thing you could play for a first dance at a wedding... until you listen to the words and realize that it's completely inappropriate seeing as how it's about specifically NOT finding love.

Kind of like how More Than Words by Xtreme sounds like a really nice love song until you listen to the words and figure out that they're basically saying, "If you really loved me, we'd be having sex right now."

Fallen For You - Sheila Nicholls