Spring Sprung

From an e-mail address I didn't recognize: "List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring."

This isn't easy, given how little music I've been listening to lately, but why not try?

1. "Wichita Lineman," Glen Campbell.
I don't know how I managed to miss the incredible majesty of this song through all these years. The first time I ever heard it (I confess) was when R.E.M. covered it in a documentary around the release of Monster. Their version did not blow my mind, though it's good. Neither did song author Jimmy Webb's. But this one, by Glen Campbell, the definitive arrangement, is so powerfully melancholy, so epic (and still so camp) that I have been spending long hours of rehabilitation just walking around with it on repeat in my headphones. For like, hours.

2. "The Disappointed," XTC.
From Nonsuch, one of their lesser-loved latter day LPs, this is yet another of Andy Partridge's perfect songs, the kind that seem like someone must have written it 25 years ago. But no. The cleverness of the lyric and the construction form a typically effective sfumato to obscure the haunted emotions hidden inside. "I'm the king of broken hearts," indeed. And the leaping melody on the chorus. I can't wait till the world wakes up to Partridge. I basically believe that this song—like many of his best works—is exactly what pop music is for: a vehicle to both wallow in misery and elevate yourself up out of it.

3. "Better Off," Let's Go Sailing.
I don't know. I just love this song. I love the whole record, actually, but this is the masterpiece, I think. I only wish the radio sounded like this. It used to, kind of, didn't it? College radio, anyway? Maybe? Sorta? A tiny bit? No? Ok. Well, there's a beauty in the way Shana Levy stretches for the high note on the chorus that pleases me more than almost anything I can think of. And of course, the jaunty, jangly feeling throughout the verses conflicting with the resignation in the words. The theme has emerged, I daresay.

4. "Keeping the Weekend Free," Liquorice.
I've never understood why no one seems to remember the impeccable Liquorice record Listening Cap (though once when I played it KEXP, the drummer—now a powerful indie rock booking agent—e-mailed me to say thanks), or, for that matter, why you can't find a Tsunami CD, even used, in a record store east of the Mississippi. (Funny, though, how clearly I remember how people loved to "debate" the morality of an indie-ass album like this being released by a major label like 4AD—imagine that debate happening today.) Written by Franklin Bruno, sung by Jenny Toomey and Dan Littleton (of Ida), this is another quiet ode to romantic agony—but, crucially, one whose narrator is prostrating herself rather than lashing out—that feels like it's torn right out of my unconscious. The songs I like best are the ones I feel like were written exclusively for me.

5. "Suedehead," Morrissey.
I never really paid special attention to this song, just kind of took it for granted as one of those perfect early Morrissey singles, not as flamboyant at "Hairdresser on Fire," not as exciting as "Picadilly Palare," just right there in the middle of Viva Hate, right at the end of Bona Drag. Just more evidence of his greatness. But just lately, I've been closing in on just how strong this number really is, how many levels it operates on, from sorry to sickened to vindictive (and so many things in between). The swerving emotions of a person trying to get over someone else, but still yearning to address them—the attempt to squeeze reason from a stone heart. "Why do you come here when you know it makes things hard for me?" So enigmatic, but so direct. And "you had to sneak into my room just to read my diary/it was just to see, just to see all the things you knew I'd written about you." There's even a punchline. "It was a good lay." Always a comfort. PS The proto-alternative rock production, guitar solo intro, prominent snare, and strings—are part of the solution, not part of the problem. Is it time yet to admit that it's possible to remember the sound of the early '90s fondly?

6. "A Really Good Time," Roxy Music.
Another dispatch from the crosshairs of epic melancholy and camp. I love singing along with Bryan Ferry always, but especially on this song, a highlight from my favorite Roxy record. Partly because he's usually so inscrutable, but also because of the piano and strings attack, Ferry sounds so vulnerable here—no trouble imagining him imagining someone specific when he talks about the girl he used to know whose face is her fortune and who has a heart of gold. Nor is it possible to imagine him thinking of anyone else but himself when he sings "you never bothered about anyone else. You're well educated with no common sense. But love, that's one thing you really need to get by" or "all your troubles come from yourself. Nobody hurts you, they don't care." That's the kind of self-pity I can approve of. This song is the chink in his armor. And then there's "all the things you used to do, a trip to the movies, a drink or two: they don't satisfy you, they don't show you anything new." By then, he's talking to me, I'm pretty sure.

7. "Crying, Waiting, Hoping," Marshall Crenshaw.
Written and originally performed by Buddy Holly. The first version I heard was a clean-cut, George-sung live take by the Beatles on the radio show "The Beatles at the Beeb" in the mid-'80s. I think the Stones did one early on, too. This rendition, from the La Bamba soundtrack (on Slash Records, thank you very much), puts them all to shame. Maybe it's that Marshall C. was acting the part of Buddy, and not trying to do too much of his own thing, maybe it's the players, I don't know. i just think this is definitive reading of a song that distills the essence of the pop singer voice—"maybe someday soon things'll change and you'll be mine"—in a way that's still being employed all the time by almost everyone who writes songs. It's a total bummer, but you listen again and again. I do, anyway. And I've been listening to it on the cassette I bought at Music Plus in Thousand Oaks, CA the day after I saw the film in 1987. It's the only song I like on that tape, I admit.

General observations: The most recent song is about three years old, the oldest is nearly 40. I don't think that means anything important. I suppose the absence of more difficult music on this list could have something to do with the choppy waters I've been swimming in lately, but it could also just be the case that this is the form I love best. In any case, my relationship to music is changing a lot lately, but I still feel an attachment to the infinite when I hear these songs. I guess that's the best criterion I can think of for enjoying songs, or for letting them shape my spring.