Monday, August 10, 2009

Roman Candle - "Why Modern Radio is A-OK." Black Mountain - "Lucy Brown."

"This one's for North Carolinaaaaa" - Petey Pablo.


John Prine-ish lyrically. I'm in love with this.
And the singer...cadence-wise, he's giving me a "Tangled Up In Blue" kind of thing. Plus they have a member named Logan. Add it all up and what you got is my sincere/heartfelt proclamation to Roman Candle:


You're the Band of the Day in apt. 302!

Roman Candle - "Why Modern Radio is A-OK."

mp3.


It's shocking, right? You look at them in the sun-dappled forest in that pic up there and you just about fall over when you hear they're from North Carolina. Shocking. They're from Chapel Hill, one of those places that annoys me because I don't live there even though I should; I hate Duke and I like jangly guitars and sitting on porches and I read Harper's and I'm well-versed in literary theory, stuff like that. I fully expect that I'll be bumping into this crew at TJ's someday like my buddies in Drummer and Drink Up Buttercup and Local Natives, and I'll be able to finally tell them how they've made my latest "summertime, wearing a sundress, eating a nectarine, and thinking about heartbreak like it's something only other people experience" white-girl song. Jesus, I bet this is fun to sing along with live.


And those lyrics, you guys! You better not ever, ever ask me why I created a
"Song lyrics = life instructions" tag on this here web log.



Now he didn’t know, but while he was in jail,
I’d had my heart broken by a woman to wondrous to tell
and we‘d fallen in love to half the songs that jukebox played.
So when he flattened his dollar on the side of the machine
and I saw “Comes a Time” come on the karaoke screen
I knew there was a couple things that I'd forgot to say:
Don’t play Neil Young,
Don’t play Van Morrison,
Just let some high school emo band start versing and chorusing
Because there’s no way it will break my heart as far as I can see
and that’s why modern radio is A-OK with me.


He said a pop song used to be a powerful thing,

you could turn on the AM and John Lennon would sing

or Frank Sinatra would be talking to all of the girls.

And you could think like a hawk or think like a dove

or think of a winter afternoon when you fell in love

and ten songs on a record sounded like a string of pearls...





PS - Did somebody say "white girl in a sundress, eating a nectarine" song? Here's the Canadian version. You and I are totally doing this next time at karaoke if "Islands in the Stream" is out of your vocal range.

Black Mountain - "Lucy Brown"

mp3.



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1 comment:

danps said...

You have a knack for zeroing in on the best lyrics (must be the English degree). "Just let some high school emo band start versing and chorusing" is brilliant. Just started listening to this & it's a winner. Your taste in music is even better than your taste in sun dresses. :)