Patriotic Songs

01 Jamas te olvidare, chucho avellanet
I don't think you need to speak Spanish to understand it's a mixed blessing when Chucho says he will jamas te olvidare ("never forget you"). It's like he's walking the Latino version of Johnny Cash's line between menace and flattery with questions like "Where could you be? Who are you with? And tell me who ... who are you kissing?"
Fortunately the bright horn section smooths out any lingering weirdness, and maybe reminds his woman how much fun Chucho is.

02 Electric feel, MGMT
SCENE: My 5-year college reunion, 2:14 a.m.
PETE: Where's Matt?
MATT'S X-GIRLFRIEND: He's playing bass for this one band. They're big in Europe. What do you do?
PETE: I write for a newspaper. It's small in Virginia.

03 White winter hymnal, fleet foxes
I hear the Beach Boys' influence in a lot of music right now. Here, we see what Brian Wilson might have done as a 14th century minstrel.

04 Fidelity, regina spektor
Strictly a crowd pleaser. Its batting clean-up because my girlfriend suggested some of these might potentially alienate a listener. Now the haters can say, "I skipped everything but that HA-A-A-A-A-A-ART song."

05 After laughter (comes tears), wendy rene
Macy said she doesn't like minor songs. But there's hope here. The way Wendy wails at 2:45 suggests some bittersweet make-up lovin.

06 Man made lake, calexico
I've spent a lot of time with most of these songs, so I wanted to include one I heard for the first time last week. I imagined Smith Mountain Lake.

07 Don't be scared, a.r.e. weapons
This song's message is particularly important in the post-9/11 era.

08 Nashville, liz phair
Liz's building, almost breaking, voice at 1:50 is one of my favorite song climaxes. Once, after a concert, I asked her what it meant to "feel it seep through the slick divide." She sang the lyric softly to herself and said, "Well, I was hanging out with Urge Overkill a lot then and it sorta felt like I was about to be famous."

09 Heaven is a truck, pavement
I got into this band when I was in my 20s, but always wished a cool uncle had said "You should listen to Pavement" when I was a teenager. I was iffy about including it. Then Matt mentioned he liked piano hooks.

10 The trident pool, pedro + the dolphins
This is me and my buddy Laurence. Every word is true. My mom walked in on us and, at 1:17, asks "Guess who called." It was still our best take so kept it.

11 Blue room, chet baker
This is like a cross between a love song and a ghost story. Chet Baker was a lifelong addict, who said he had to use the horse to even be able to sing in his unmanly tenor. And here it is totally naked.



Afterword: I wanted to order these songs so that they would be undressing production-wise -- like from heaviest production (Chucho) to as bare as it gets (Chet).