← a sentimental journey | Main | surely the world is full of ghosts →

August 29, 2004

roadrunner

The latest issue of Les Inrockuptibles come with a “50 years of rock” CD. Though it doesn’t seem to cover 50 years at all, I enjoy the tracklist, featuring:

1. The Modern Lovers
2. Love
3. The Velvet Underground
4. Buzzcocks
5. The Feelies
6. Young Marble Giants
7. The Last Poets
8. ESG
9. Boards Of Canada
10. Felt
11. Nick Drake
12. Scott Walker
13. Brian Eno
14. Lee Hazlewood
15. Sun Ra

I try to think of what I would have put instead of Boards of Canada to segue between ESG (You’re no good) and Felt (Penelope tree). Stockholm Monsters maybe, or a slow one from Unrest, I don’t know really. This sunday morning, “Why” from Slumber Party. It depends how I feel. I love playing around with iTunes playlists, for this reason.

One memory clenches my heart when I think about it. My parents had an old wooden turntable furniture piece that we called the pick-up. It was in the basement, next to our playroom. I was 5, then 6 and 7 and always listened sitting on the floor, my head against one speaker. I liked the ones I couldn’t understand the lyrics of, but mostly I liked the french version of “These boots are made for walking”, it was so powerful, so evocative. In hindsight I can say it made me travel forward in time, in a time where I could fall in love and wear big boots, stomp, stomp. My favourite music has always been the songs, be it the music or words or both, that made me feel about so much more going on, proofs of so much more being possible.

And I often feel I sound silly when I talk about the music I really love. So I never managed to write record reviews, though I admire people who go on and on about music (thinking of The war against silence closing down). I do try to write songs. Here is my latest one, set to the chords of “Walking with Jesus” - an affectionate, cautionary tale, mix of many influences.

—-

Fallen trees
Makes me so sad
But driving drunk
Into a tree
Babe, it just drives me mad

Here…
Here it comes
Here comes the sound

Hey, ho, what’s that sound?

——

Posted by nathalie at August 29, 2004 11:36 AM

Comments

i wasn’t drunk, i just had a stomachache from drinking! when i drink too much i hang out in montrose for a couple hours before driving home.

Posted by: chris on August 29, 2004 2:30 PM