3 song shuffle

My fifth 3 song shuffle post, where I rip off the AV Club’s idea and write up a bit about the first 3 songs that come up on shuffle on my iPod, no cheating/skipping allowed. Let’s milk this Holstein.

“Nothing Was Delivered” by The Byrds (from Sweetheart of the Rodeo)

The only Byrds album I own and, from what I understand, the one that is most up my alley. The album came out in ‘68 and was largely the result of newbie Gram Parson’s countrified influence on Jim McGuinn and Chris Hillman. This song– like another of the better tracks on the album (“You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”‘)– is a Bob Dylan cover, though I confess to never having heard the original.

An old friend once wrote a fantastic review of the reissue of Sweetheart for a short-lived web magazine. This Genesee-drinkin’, banjo-pickin’, Shakespere-readin’, blank verse poet buddy summed it up like this:

Where this album really succeeds is that it plays to its weakness. It is country music from an outsider’s view, a portrait of the indefinable soul of an art form too easily obscured by familiarity. Not the static museum-like appreciation it could have been — which defines so much of today’s alt-country, rockabilly, jazz, bluegrass, and soul — it seeks to embrace that which is most strange. This is an album of quirks and oddities and things that should not be. Unsanitized in either appropriation or appreciation, unsullied by the prevailing wisdom of Nashville, the album is rather a love letter of unusual honesty.

Well put, you old bastard.

“Slave Driver” by Bob Marley (from Catch A Fire)

This is a remarkably literate song, one that speaks profound truths about past and present oppression, of far-reaching societal machinations that hold people down and the power it takes to combat and resist those forces. It is for these reasons that I feel terrible guilt when I hear this song, because instead of protesting, it makes me want to put on board shorts, head to the Keys and dance drunkenly with vacationing secretaries from Iowa.

“Dancing With Tears in My Eyes” by the Old 97’s (from Hitchhike to Rhome)

Remember that line above, the one from my buddy about The Byrds album? The part about “the static museum-like appreciation… which defines so much of today’s alt-country, rockabilly, jazz, bluegrass, and soul?” Well this is what he was talking about. I like the Old 97’s when they embrace rock and pop, because when they do that it’s at least genuine and fun. Hitchhike to Rhome, in my personal opinion, is garbage. This song is typical of the heartless schlock you’ll find on it. Rhett Miller’s voice is too good to be forcing stuff like this.

And finally, for Eastern Market,

truly a home away from home for all who visit her:

“We’ll Meet Again” by Johnny Cash

Eastern Market Rescue: Go out on the Hill next Tuesday in support of the Market.