This is where I collect fragments, bits, and pieces of ideas that don’t have a home anywhere else. Maybe I’ll spin some of these into something bigger, maybe not. These pages may or may not self-destruct.
The assignment: Every few days, I will write one sentence (or maybe more!) about a song or a playlist. Maybe that way I won’t forget how to write.
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Neko Case, Calling Cards
I’m sorry I’m sorry but every August as soon as the season starts to show the slightest whiff of wanting to change my brain gets totally colonized by nostalgia and all I want are moody tunes about missing people. Somewhere I still have an old calling card that I could use to make long distance…
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Jackie DeShannon, Needles and Pins
Jackie DeShannon is so underrated. Just about she wrote is a total banger (see: When You Walk in the Room, Breakaway, even Put a Little Love in Your Heart, which has deeply corny hippie-pop vibes, yes, but it’s great anyway and the horn section is killer). She may have co-written Needles and Pins but didn’t…
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Teena Marie, Lovergirl
I truly cannot get enough of Teena Marie and the way she lets you know a song is going to be a total banger by starting it with a whoop. So many of her songs are such odd assemblages of hooks, strange vocalizations, and bridges that take you to unexpected places. Teena Marie was so…
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Lady Gaga, Alejandro
I’ve probably only actually done karaoke once or twice in my life, and I cannot think of any circumstance in which I will be singing karaoke any time soon. However! This does not mean that I am not always on a quest for a perfect karaoke song. Gaga is generally near the top of my…
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Dum Dum Girls, There is a Light That Never Goes Out
Nothing calms me down light wave after wave of guitar distortion that just obliterates and washes away my anxious thoughts. I could float on it forever.
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Gossip, Your Mangled Heart
I had forgotten how deep and crunchy the bass lines are on the Gossip’s first few albums and when I was listing to Yr Mangled Heart in the car tonight it flooded back. I remember loving this song at a moment when I was haunted by boys who had hurt me but now it feels…