obsesso-songs 2006 (original) (raw)

Last year's list of obsesso-songs is here.

This is a list of the songs that took over my head in 2006, presented more or less in order. It is not a representative list of everything I listened to, or even of the CDs I acquired. It is not necessarily a list of the best songs on the CDs in question. It is simply a list of songs that burrowed into my brain and wouldn't come out for weeks at a time. And, as we all know by now, my brain can be an odd place.

I'm not linking to band sites or other information, for lo, I am lazy. If you want to know more, google is your friend. I think that at least a few of these are available for listening on the bands' sites.

Matt Pond PA, "Halloween" (Several Arrows Later)
"Heard it's modern to be stupid / you don't need a thought to look good / and pardon the intrusion / could we leave before it gets bad? / I might smash up all these windows / and set fire to the curtains..." Oh, Matt Pond PA, how I love you and this CD and this song. Crystal-clear production, gorgeous instrumentation, catchy melody, singing that's gotten so much better, songwriting that combines hopefulness and hopelessness and odd detail in just the right proportions.

Matt Pond PA, "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" (Winter Songs EP)
"And one day we will die / and our ashes will fly / from the aeroplane over the sea / but for now we are young / let us lay in the sun / and count every beautiful thing we can see." I've always liked this song, and I like this amazing cover even better.

Owen, "Note to Self" (I Do Perceive)
"I don't care what you're looking for / but I do know / that you don't like drinking alone / and you're too smart to act so dumb." Opens with evocative little guitar noodlings which fade into lyrics that leaven Owen's usual bitterness with a wistfulness that makes the whole thing that much more affecting.

Peter Mulvey, "Knuckleball Suite" (The Knuckleball Suite)
"Billy C is drinking Sandeman port down at the old cafe / and the river goes by slow / the river likes it that way." One of Peter's mellowest and most quietly happy songs, with music that starts simple and swells to something much bigger and then settles down again into an optimism that I would find deeply satisfying even if I didn't already know and feel deep affection for the old cafe and its proprieter.

Peter Mulvey, "You and Me and the Ten Thousand Things" (The Knuckleball Suite)
"Marcus Aurelius and old Lao Tzu / set sail in a sieve on the ocean blue..." As with so many of Peter's songs, the recorded version of this one can't hold a candle to his live performances, but the lilting jazziness of the arrangement almost makes up for it.

Peter Mulvey, "Girl in the Hi-Tops" (The Knuckleball Suite)
"The pretty young girl in the hi-tops / is speaking of Shelley to me / I'm drinking red wine, I feel fine as she tells me / we lose all the best to the sea." As with Kitchen Radio's "Shirt," Peter manages to make an unbelievably catchy and hopeful-sounding song out of getting older and letting go.

Jeffrey Foucault, "One Part Love" (Ghost Repeater)
"I tumbled out of Gateshead / it was a lazy afternoon / I put the pedal down for southbound / beneath an early rising moon..." This is that particular kind of Jeff song that starts with a deceptively simple narrative and brings it to a conclusion so much deeper and more moving than you could have thought possible.

Jeffrey Foucault, "Ghost Repeater" (Ghost Repeater)
"Well, the movie's over, the theater is empty / the credits are starting to roll / and the wages of sin don't adjust for inflation / it's a buyer's market when you sell your soul." Features a terrific selection of Jeff's usual indelible images and clever lines, wrapped in music that just keeps chugging along; this song is proof positive that Jeff can do wry wit just as well as he does hopelessness and heartbreak.

Fruit Bats, "Traveler's Song" (Spelled in Bones)
"God's no better than you, just bigger is all." That line, right there, is the reason I love this song so much.

Josh Ritter, "Good Man" (The Animal Years)
"I fell in love with your sound / oh, I love to sing along with you / we got tunes we kicked around some / we got a bucket that the tunes go through..." Possibly the single catchiest song Josh Ritter's ever written, which given that the last CD featured "Snow Is Gone" is really saying something.

Rainer Maria, "Catastrophe" (Catastrophe Keeps Us Together)
I love the way this song crashes back and forth between major and minor keys, the way it starts with apocalypse and finds hope in it: "I've got a plan / I'm gonna find you / at the end of the world." It just kills me that this is the last Rainer Maria CD; I'm happy that they're going out on top of their game, but god, I need more songs like this.

Rainer Maria, "Already Lost" (Catastrophe Keeps Us Together)
"I waited up all night / and my thoughts were all of desolation / but the best part of waiting up all night / was in the morning when I didn't feel a thing." I love this song like crazy, and I love how flexible Caithlin's voice has become: delicate and strong and broken by turns.

Rainer Maria, "Southpaw" (Catastrophe Keeps Us Together)
"But my heart isn't in this / I'm supposed to be a seasoned fighter / it feels like my first hit / and it hurts like — / I didn't see this coming anyway / yeah, it hurts like hell." I love the complicated jagged rhythms of this one, the way the melody hesitates and then tumbles forward and hesitates again.

Rainer Maria, "Burn" (Catastrophe Keeps Us Together)
Why yes, this is one of my favorite CDs of 2006. How did you guess? "You said that you believed in me / and would burn for your beliefs. / I watched you burn / I watched you burn for me."

The Church, "Almost With You" (acoustic) (El Momento Descuidado)
"I never dreamed we'd meet here once more..." This song has been one of my all-time favorites for nearly twenty years; the new acoustic version gives it a hushed sense of wonder and hope that made me fall in love with it all over again.

The Helio Sequence, "Everyone Knows Everyone" (Love and Distance)
Ah, small-town life. In high school I would have latched onto the line "It's raining now and I can't wait / to get out of here someday." These days I'm more drawn to "There's no escaping / there's nothing to escape / For no good reason / I think I'm gonna stay." Also: only Helio Sequence could pull off this mix of delicate electronica and hard-edged harmonica riffs.

Kris Delmhorst, "Water Water" (Strange Conversation)
"Water water / I desire / Here's a house made of flesh on fire / Open the fountains and the springs / Come you all with your bucketings..." This one was a favorite from pretty much the first time I heard Kris play it live, well before the CD came out; it's one of the ones I was most looking forward to having a recording of. The CD version doesn't get anywhere near the intensity of a live show, but it's well worth having. Plus: seventeenth-century British poetry! The geek factor, it is high.

Kris Delmhorst, "Sea Fever" (Strange Conversation)
"And all I ask is a windy day / with all the white clouds flying / and the flung spray and blowing foam / and the seagulls a-crying." This song has joined the select group of songs that make me weep every single time I hear them. The poem is lovely, and the music Kris made for it is gorgeous in its simplicity and yearning. Oh, that cello...

Jabe Beyer, "Paradise" (Where Are We Going & When Do We Get There)
"There aren't many things left to count on / there ain't many things left to lean on / it's all right, it's all right / I ain't going nowhere." Not as good as the Redbird cover, but still damn good, and catchy to boot.

Jabe Beyer, "Broken Back Road" (Where Are We Going & When Do We Get There)
"Time rolls / time rolls on / and we ain't getting any younger / don't I hate to say / Time rolls / rolls on by / what a price to pay / Baby we got to roll / so pack your things and let's go." This one proves that "Paradise" isn't the songwriting fluke I feared it would be; Jabe's gotten good.

Amanda Garrigues, "I Cannot Be Brave" (GroundSwell)
"He said: I cannot be brave tonight / I can't forgive, but I won't fight / Just show me the fire door / and I will be all right." A good song and a terrific album-opener.

Blake Thomas & the Downtown Brown, "Anyone Tonight" (Real Like Theater)
"I'm just one of a thousand dogs / howling at an unstoppable moon / just one of a thousand soldiers / trying to keep myself from ruin / and you could be anyone tonight, honey." Because sometimes you just need a honky-tonk folk-rock song about getting drunk and having pointless sex.

And on that note... here's to 2007!