frank sinatra "i fall in love too easily" i prefer sinatra in his 40s, once his voice took on some character. he was a bit of a generic crooner in the beginning, but there's something genuine in his voice on this track from early in his career:
chris stamey and the dB's "(i thought) you wanted to know" - i came across this song by accident while downloading something else. don't know anything about chris stamey aside from being aware that there was once a band named the dB's.
i have favorite songs, and favorite albums, and favorite bands, but the music that means more to me than anything else is the music of maurice ravel. while driving across country on a move from california to delaware we stopped at a store and my dad picked up some classical music tapes for the trip. years later, back in california, i claimed the ravel tape as mine, and along with "appetite for destruction" (my official lawn mowing album) and a jazz mix my band instructor put together, it was the soundtrack of junior high and my freshman year of high school. really it's "daphnis et chloe suite no. 2" that i'd say is the best piece of music ever written, but it's broken up into 3 tracks and it would be a shame for anyone to hear it with two long pauses while the player loads the next track. so, here's "alborado del gracioso" and two versions of "pavane for a dead princess".
"pavane for a dead princess" (solo piano) - the amazing thing about this performance is that it's actually ravel himself playing the piece, even though he'd never been in a recording studio. He did "record" some of his pieces onto a player piano reel. supposedly player piano technology of the time did allow for a piece to be reproduced exactly as it was originally performed. decades later they put a player piano in a studio and recorded ravel's performance, minus ravel.
pavement "strings of nashville" - even though i don’t listen to pavement all that much anymore, they still hold that 1 spot on my list of favorite bands. so, it would only make sense that they also hold the 1 spot on my list of favorite songs. "strings of nashville" was a b-side on the "gold soundz" single. here it is placed over another reel of old home movies from when i was a kid. the wind sound effects from the song go nicely with the film flashes as the camera dies. also, the reel length fit perfectly with the track length as the song abruptly ends right as the picture goes.
2 on the list is camper van beethoven’s "all her favorite fruit" - i’ll always remember the first time i heard this song. senior prom night, sitting by myself in the back seat of a minivan on the way to dinner. it was a long adventurous night, and i remember it coming up more than once. most everyone has seen the picture by now, but it goes with the song, so here it is again:
foghat "trouble in my way" - i don’t know how a foghat song made it on here. maybe it’s cause i found it on my own and no one else know it. i mean who likes foghat enough to know anything but "slowride"? they kinda suck.
dinosaur jr "water" - not even my favorite dinosaur jr song, but i’d classify this as a sacred song after spending 4 years at pepperdine looking out over the ocean, but never really going to the beach.
