*Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, Mother's Day, Flag Day, Bastille Day, V-J Day, Labor Day, Halloween, Black Friday, Christmas, Kwanzaa at Tim Meadows house
**Presents involved: Roses, Beads, Appreciation, Bitchin Flags, Wine (Preferably boxed), Sushi, Football, googly Eyes or freedom to express themselves, Something expensive and without meaning that is on sale, Things of great meaning that are corny to give on Christmas or lingerie, Bushels of corn or a Lexus
However, I am extremely giving so I am presenting you with my supposed to be weekly mixtape, and supplying two lists just in case you aren't all head over heels tomorrow.
(Videos after the jump)
The Title Track
Sam Cooke - "Cupid"
First, let's acknowledge the brilliance of Sam Cooke songs by making him the only artist to get two tracks on each list.* Simplicity is something that I don't cherish anymore, as it tends to be the modus operandi of the bubble gum pop music being unleashed upon us today. This song however is perfect in it's simplicity. It is a song about longing, full of earnestness but also incredibly playful. No man ever put loneliness and happiness on such an equal plane, but Sam Cooke songs seem to meld the two to create a harmony of the two themes pervading Valentine's day: Love and loneliness. So no matter the playlist, this is the first song.
*Let's also acknowledge how he is probably the last musician to be robbed by a hooker and then shot for being a large naked black man in his hotel lobby. That is not only a rock star weird death, that is a 1960's death, as every artist from the early rock and roll days seemed to die in strange fashion.
For the Lovers:
Sam Cooke-"Wonderful World"
Simple magic. In fact, the song doesn't make any sense, although perhaps being an A student leads to a better romantic life and that might explain a few things. I think to go deeper it is a song about having to impress women to get them to love you, but Chuck Berry would tell me it's a third grade ditty and I shouldn't think too much about it. Sam Cooke would tell me like all of his songs, the dude in it is incredibly desperate, but it does make me happy and maybe that's enough.
Murder By Death-"Foxglove"
I talk about this song too often, as these guys don't do love songs. This in essence is a beautiful song, but the name has always grabbed me. The foxglove is a beautiful flower, but is also highly poisonous. I'm sure that was the idea they went with when naming the song. However, name aside I think the sentiments in the lyrics are perfect for Valentine's Day, just don't say anything about the beautiful poison part, especially to a woman.
Jack Johnson- "Bubble Toes"
Romance is in many ways not loving a person for their perfections, but for their imperfections. Like a strange birthmark,* or in the case of this song the girls tar covered feet. "Her beauty will follow her wherever she goes" is a strange line as well, as women worry far to much about how we feel about their appearance. I think the sentiment expressed tells women that their looks are probably the last thing we think will disappear.**
*A butchered appendectomy or maybe my grotesque belly-button in my case. Lafayette county doctors aren't the best, but I am alive I guess.
**Everyone knows the charming disposition disappears first, followed by the sex, and then the man hangs himself on accident while practicing auto-erotic asphyxiation. Or so I've heard.
Adele-"My Same"
"Favoritism ain't my thing, but in this situation. I'll be glad to make an exception."
Mumm Ra- "She's Got You High"
Love is a feeling that you feel somehow in your gut, a euphoric condition. This song epitomizes that euphoria and how you get it before your brains catch up to your "heart". It also it the closing song to the anti-romance "500 Days of Summer", but it fits the ending perfectly. If you haven't seen it yet then you need to get off your ass, and go pick it up.*
*Netflix on demand is probably what you kids do these days, and also doesn't require your effort
Buddy Holly and the Crickets- "Everyday"
I can't hear this without seeing Ewan McGregor stand in a field of daffodils, so thanks "Big Fish". I put the Big Fish scene on here instead on the song, because it is one of the best romantic scenes and much more fitting. Like the Sam Cooke song, "Everyday" is incredibly simplistic, but then again what else is needed to be said with this song?
The Drifters- "Save the Last Dance for Me"
If you are getting the drift, we don't do love songs like we used to. There's a reason that the same songs get played at every wedding; it's because we did love songs their due back in the early 60's.* The Drifters were the best, and it does stand to reason, that they are the only of these early 60's artists that I have a CD from. I could add all of their greatest hits to either list. "There Goes My Baby" is awesome depressing, and not for tomorrow unless I was trying to make people suicidal or alcoholics.
*Followed by protest songs (late 60's), album rock (early 70's), dance music (disco), androgyny (80s), heroin and self-loathing (90s), boy bands and bubble gum pop (late 90s-present), and hip-hop auto-tuned songs. I predict in tens years music will be dead to mainstream Americans.
Wait, who could I think of that can write love songs and be mainstream in America?
Cee Lo Green- "Satisfied"
Baby...
Where's the road taking us
And maybe that's why they call it making love
And darling I will do my best
I'm falling at the feet of your highness
Don't need to ask the answers always yes
Well the least I can do is try
I want you to think your satisfied
Oh let me satisfy you
The least I can do is try
I want you to think your satisfied
Oh let me satisfy you
This album is sex, oozing hot sex. That's all I can say about it and I hope it suffices.
Stevie Wonder- "You Are the Sunshine of My Life"
Admit it you get some perverse pleasure also from a blind man using the expression "apple of my eye". No, maybe I have a problem, but at least admit that you get some pleasure from Stevie's songs. He probably would have done some baby making damage like the next man if they weren't contemporaries.
Al Green- "Let's Stay Together"
You didn't honestly think this list would omit Al Green. Yes, most black people I've met think I have never heard of this man; yes, that is incredibly racist and nearsighted. The looks I get in the city singing this song are worth more to me than you could understand. Half the children born in the 1970s are this man's fault, because even his sad songs are baby making songs. The night's over, better end it with some Al Green.
For the Hopeless Romantics:
Old 97s-"Valentine"
I'll let the middle verse's lyrics speak for themselves.
True love, I knew some thought of leavin' you.Rhett Miller-"My Valentine"
Bad thoughts I had, when valentines were due.
Of all the many ways a man will break his heart,
Well there ain't none meaner than he pulls his own apart
Valentine, the destroyer, Valentine, you belong
In the stars, where you are, always rollin' on.
Cried, I've cried till I couldn't carry on.
It's a lonely, lonely feelin' when your Valentine is wrong.
It's a lonely, lonely feelin' when your Valentine is wrong.
I could make an entire Old 97s/Rhett Miller/Murray Hammond play-list of these songs, and you would realize that his songs usually fit in either list. Reason this song makes the list is two lines:
"Sex in wartime is better than peace."
"We've gotta smoke some grass, we gotta shake our asses right this instant."
Okkervil River-"Girl in Port"
Oh, the song for the wandering eye and steady heart. Okkervil River's songs are lately more about the rock star life than this one. The lead here is a man much in my mold, constantly searching for someone who is never bound to come or hoping that someone can mold themselves into such a person.
Dire Straits-"Romeo and Juliet"
I'm posting the Killers version, because it's better quality video, I like it better and I find the sacrilege hilarious, but it is a Dire Straits song. Romeo and Juliet is the most amazing story, as the romance of it has been overblown.
Broken Social Scene-"Texico Bitches"
This song has nothing to do with love or Valentine's Day, so I why include it? Because it's fucking Valentine's Day and you don't have to wallow in pity. Rock out, and be happy. Drink some beers with some friends, have casual sex*, don't commit any crimes, and live to tell about it.
*Safety first kids
If you never learn else anything from me, learn this lesson that I never learned well enough. Fuck scheduled sentimentality. Give women flowers on Tuesdays or St. Patrick's day. Buy them chocolates on a Sunday. Make them breakfast every day. Tell women how beautiful they are even if they don't want to hear it from you specifically. Love them always. Don't be that dick who one day out of the year pretends he's Prince Charming. Be the man who women know exactly how you feel by the look in your eyes, the feel of your touch, and the words on the tip of your tongue. Be honest, be forthright, be daring, be romantic. Don't be a tool.
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