Wading in the Velvet Sea

But first off, the rules of this particular mix. I’m a big believer in rules when it comes to compilations, because without rules, there’s no order, and without no order, there’s no flow, and without flow, there’s no hustle, and in the absence of hustle and flow, well, Terrance Howard no longer has an Oscar nomination, and we can’t have that, can we? I don’t care about your opinion of Viggo Mortensen’s performance in “A History of Violence”: the Academy members have spoken. So, without further ado, the rules.

1) All the songs have to come from the songs contained in my iTunes library. If I don’t own the song, I reckon I don’t much like the song, otherwise, well, I’d own it, wouldn’t it?

2) Artists can only be represented once on the entire collection. Only exception: say if a solo artist was once in a band, then there’s a possible exception allowed. But only if the artist in question isn’t prominently featured on both tracks. For instance, a solo Phil Collins song could co-exits with a Genesis song, but only if it’s only Phil playing drums on the track. No “Land of Confusion” or anything. Not that “Land of Confusion” would end up on my compilation. Decent video, in that really creepy puppet way, but isn’t making the cut here. Just an example. So, like, back off.

3) The attempt here is not some time capsule to preserve every element of 20th century popular music. I’m not assuming that simply because I’m on a desert island, civilization as we know it has ceased and I only can preserve our Western pop musical heritage with this mix. It’s just stuff I like, and only stuff I like in early 2006 as I prepare for a fictional flight that may or may no crash on a remote island.

4) The compilation is in no way my version of “The Greatest Songs of All Time”. Since that list would make for a pretty horrible compilation. Compilations rely on ebb and flow and an overall coherence that a mere “These Are The Greatest Songs Ever” list cannot. I think “Like a Rolling Stone” is Dylan’s best song, but it simply didn’t fix this mix. Just happened to work out that way. Didn’t have any preconceived notions what may or may not make this list when I started out; just sorta happened organically and truthfully. And what ya see is what you get from the process. Find me in a month and you’ll find another compilation. Don’t much feel the need to apologize for this.

OK, with all that out of the way, onto Disc 1. Disc 2 comes tomorrow.

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“Right Here, Right Now”, FatBoy Slim

Every compilation needs to start off with one of three things: 1) a short, 30-max intro that’s either a) a cool bit of dialogue or b) an easily identified piece of instrumental music, 2) a rockin’ song that propels you into the mix from the first notes, or 3) a song with a long, slow build that has an uptempo crescendo. And that’s it. This song falls into the latter category. Not as well known as “Praise You” or “The Rockafeller Skank”, it’s more epic than both and reaches more interesting peaks and valleys. Best part is that it gets quiet near the end, which leads into…

“Red Rain”, Peter Gabriel

It’s not enough to have good songs on a compilation—it’s necessary as well to have an ebb and flow to the music as well. I toiled over which Peter Gabriel song to put on this compilation, and of the four or five options I would have loved to have added, this one won out in the end. The intro to this song would crossfade nicely with the end of “Right Here”, and has the benefit of having the best bridge in the Peter Gabriel canon. It also functions nicely as a midtempo song, very important to get from the rocking songs like Fatboy’s into the slower stuff later on.

“Fascination Street, The Cure

One of the most atmospheric songs I’ve ever heard. Blends in nicely with the overall ambience of the first two songs, and takes it just a bit darker than either one (another important factor, especially considering what’s up next). I’m a big fan of songs that are cinematic: tunes that can create a mental landscape for me. This song reeks of dank alleys, smoky and wet and dangerous. I love how it layers and layers and layers until it sounds like an orchestra of guitars crashing over my ears, with Robert Smith screaming to be heard over the dim. Just fantastic.

“Ice”, Sarah McLachlin

The end of “Fascination” leaves me pretty exhausted, and so I’m gonna assume other listeners might be tired by this point as well. As such, we’ll throw in a song that starts with a simple, haunting, cascading acoustic guitar line. This is the best Sarah McLachlan song, hands down. This was before the aliens came down to earth, kidnapped her, and left a replacement that went onto record “Surfacing” and other horrifying sonic affronts. Love how the percussion gets slowly added, along with the background vocals, and has the best line of her career: “You enter into me/A lie upon your lips”. Perfectly poetic. It’s the darker version of the famous shot in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” of the two once-lovers sitting atop a cracked ice-covered pond.

“The River”, Bruce Springsteen

Also acoustic-based, also melancholy, but picks up the overall intensity of the compilation as we build back up. The harmonica notes at the beginning are nothing less than the howl of the American Dream gone horribly wrong. Some of Springsteen’s Dylan-esque songs fall short in the lyric department, but this one has the words to back the music up. The river itself, as a symbol of innocence and opportunity lost, haunts both the protagonist and the listener long after the song is over.

“Jane”, Barenaked Ladies

Picking up on the acoustic-based theme, and increasing the overall mood of the mix, is this, my favorite BNL song. As perfect a pop song as it comes. Some people think “pop” is a bad word, and that’s probably because they associate it with the crap on TRL. But give me pop like this and the kind produced by people such as Matthew Sweet and you’ll find a happy camper in me. Still has a hint of sadness (BNL can do serious a lot better than most people give them credit for), while adding a needed sense of whimsy. Needed because our next song is…

“Experimental Film”, They Might Be Giants

First heard this song thanks to this little film on Homestar Runner. Haven’t gotten remotely sick of it yet. Doesn’t hurt that it reminds me of The Girl, and I’ll need one or two of these if I’m trapped on a deserted island looking at her charred corpse. Poor girl wasn’t as lucky as me. But perchance she is lucky, having died quickly, whereas I am going to slowly waste away due to trauma and starvation? Whew. This island blows.

“Everloving”, Moby

Since we’re on the subject of The Girl and since we need to take things down a notch, here’s an old standby of mine. I made this song the emotional centerpiece of my production of “Romeo and Juliet” back in 2001. I played this song for the actor playing Romeo one night before I’d shared it with anyone else in the show. I told him that a kiss would happen at the crescendo of the song. He heard it, blinked, looked at me, and said, “That’s gonna be helluva kiss.” This is one of the 83 bazillion reasons why I love music so much.

“Dry The Rain”, The Beta Band

A slow, hypnotic track from a band I will confess to not knowing a lot about. It’s something I found on the “High Fidelity” soundtrack, a track I really didn’t even really like at first (I was into the Velvet Underground stuff, along with Stevie Wonder’s “I Believe [When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever]”). Just love how the song exists as a soundscape, love the place it takes me to emotionally. I don’t have to respond to a song intellectually to make it a valuable piece of music; in fact, it usually prevents me from loving it.

“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”, Bob Dylan

Case it point with this song. Like with most Dylan songs, I don’t quite know exactly what it’s about. Thing is, after watching a few documentaries on him (“No Direction Home”, “Don’t Look Back”), I’m not sure he even knows what they are about. More to the point, he doesn’t care to know what they are about. To assign a song a specific meaning, rather, a universal meaning, is to strip it of its allure, its mystery, its sexiness, it’s whatever-it-is that makes the song so powerful in the first place. All I know is that the last line of this song sounds to me like nothing else except one of the great kiss-offs in pop history.

“Take Me Out”, Franz Ferdinand

Speaking of kiss-offs, here’s a guy kissing off…himself. As stated before, I usually like organic segues between songs, but every once in a while, it’s OK to surprise the listener. In this case, the blaring first chords of “Take Me Out” stand in sharp sonic contrast to the spare folk song that preceded it. Also, I don’t wanna just sit around mopey on an island. I occasionally want to dance/thrash about on the sand. Nothing wrong with a little dance now and then. Maybe those dance lessons will pay off after all.

“Loving Cup”, The Rolling Stones

This romanticism in this song stands in sharp contrast to Franz Ferdinand’s song, and since I’m essentially a romantic at heart, I’d rather give Mick the counterpoint and last word. I can’t explain why this is my favorite Stones song. Intellectually, I understand there are many “better” songs, but I love the sloppiness of the song, I love the sentiment, I love the piano, I love the tension/release of the bridge, I just love it. And it’s MY compilation, damnit, so it’s on.

“The Scientist”, Coldplay

Some songs I admire for their complexity; others, like “The Scientist”, I admire for its simplicity. Just feels like something that should have been written beforehand, and yet never was, but when you hear it, it feels familiar, it feels comfortable, it feels ineffably sad and inspiring all at once. I overrated “X&Y” when it came out last year, but “Rush of Blood” as an album still holds up amazingly well. “X&Y” is the sound of a band trying to reach the back row of a stadium; “Rush” is an album that draws that back row in effortlessly. No song does that better than this.

“Love is Blindness”, U2

A surprising choice for me. Shouldn’t really surprise me, in that it’s my compilation, damnit, but I always enjoy the process of making these to find out what’s making me tick at a certain point in my life. Cuz hey, I usually have no idea. I’m stupid like dat. Helps that this track was written for the end of “Achtung Baby”, and therefore has that coda-like feel to it, but the song has more going for it than that. It also contains the major themes of the mix: atmospheric production, a hint of melancholy, and ultimately, an affirmation of love as a simultaneously vital and precarious endeavor.

(This last sentence is a product of four years as an Ivy League English major, where I developed the art of bullshitting the last line of an essay to trick the grader into thinking I had a coherent point all along. Thanks, Mom and Dad, your hard work and sacrifice has paid off.)

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OK, kids, that’s all for Disc 1. Disc 2 coming tomorrow. Any thoughts on today’s compilation? Leave ‘em below.