December 2011
68 posts
Mother Thinks the Birds Are After Her
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I made you this mix for the holidays. And it’s a mix full of songs about God. Mostly.
I’m not religious. I never really had to form an opinion about the whole thing. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.
I do like songs about God. The same reason I like songs about love or heartbreak. We get it. It’s shorthand. These songs are really about fearing death, or loving someone too much, or, well, Doctor Who. You know, Christmasy shit.
The thing is: I used to do a Christmas mix every year but that got too hard or too easy or something. So this year I’m giving you songs about God. Mostly.
I hope you like it.
The songs on it are:
1. Joseph Looney by Ollie Gilbert
2. Fear Not of Man by Mos Def
3. God Knows (You’ve Got to Give to Get) by El Perro Del Mar
4. A Martyr for My Love For You by The White Stripes
5. Lord Knows Best by Dirty Beaches
6. God’ll Ne’er Let You Down by Sufjan Stevens
7. Where I Thought I Met the Angels by The Tallest Man on Earth
8. Into My Arms by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
9. I Like the Christian Life by The Louvin Brothers
10. Song for Ten by Murray Gold
11. Forgotten Star by Harmony Trowbridge
12. Goal\Wide by Javelin
You can download or stream them as one big MP3 here or download a zip here.
“I think having a sense of humor is a powerful and human thing, it’s one of our survival mechanisms, and it’s never destroyed. Equally, a sense of humor can be cold, almost ruthless, but I’ve never found a situation - not my mother’s death, not my overdose, not anything - in which something funny hasn’t happened. That’s why I think it’s so, so wrong to write with a Comedy or Tragedy label in your head. Life isn’t like that.”
—Russell T Davies, The Writer’s Tale
“Seven scripts are now being rewritten, including scenes that are actually being filmed today! Lines handed to the cast on the spot. Someone said, ‘We can’t do it. It’s too late.’ I said, ‘I’d make you do this at your mother’s deathbed on Christmas Day if it makes the show better.’ And it does.”
—Russell T Davies, The Writer’s Tale
Fast Peter
Moonface
Moonface - “Fast Peter”
I’ve met Peter, the Fast Peter of this song, and I heard about his lover on the other side of this country. It sounded very nice. But when Sunset Rubdown’s Spencer Krug heard this story, at a party, when he was high on drugs, it hit him in a different way. It hit him like a slug to the chest, I guess. Because he bicycled home and he wrote this song, which is fast and yearning, romantic, kissed. It is almost the entirety of a happy ending.
Said The Gramophone did their yearly “Best Songs” list. Said the Gramophone is the best.
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“My mind has an uncanny knack for organization when it comes to pain. Nothing tormenting is lost, never even diminished in color or intensity or quality of sound. These were filed near the front.”
—You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers (via measureofhealth)
“If I could legally kill a celebrity it would be your mother. FIrst I would invest a lot of time and money getting her a marketable entertainment skill and promoting her till she’s famous, then I would hit her in the face with a pan that kills people when you hit them with it. Sorry. You asked. It just happened to be the truth.”
— Louie CK, on Reddit.
“I’m not an athiest. I think god is there and that he is watching and he made us. I just don’t give a shit.”
— Louis CK, in his Reddit IAMA, which you should be reading
“Sometimes the beauty of the world is so overwhelming, I just want to throw back my head and gargle. Just gargle and gargle, and I don’t care who hears me, because I am beautiful.”
—Jack Handey (via fuckyeahjackhandey)
“But here’s what “Regional Holiday Music” reminded me: Liking things is vital. Liking things makes life bearable. I’m not trying to say here that I’m a cold, guarded cynic, or that I have trouble giving myself over to things (some might say I have the opposite of that), or anything like that. I’m here to say that for as much as random people who stumble into comments to tell us that this show isn’t good or that it wasn’t as good as it was or whatever, it doesn’t matter. Nobody needs to like what you like. (Hopefully, a large enough number of people will like what you like to make sure that it stays in production, but, hey, we all know how that goes, right?) It’s enough that you like something, that you find something that makes you happy and people to share that something with. In some ways, the Internet has made this easier and harder than it was. Now, we can all come together to talk about how Community is the best, but that also makes us feel a little more alone when we head out to family holiday celebrations, and say, ‘Guess what? I love Community!’ and everybody says, ‘What’s that?’ or, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of that one. Doesn’t it have Chevy Chase?’”
—AV Club’s recap of Community (via tvhangover)
