The Weekly iPod Shuffle: 5/19/07

(Okay, it's forty-eight minutes late. My apologies.)

1. "Burning Down the House," Talking Heads
David Byrne's voice has the ability to immediately make me feel six years old again. I remember my mom listening to "Once in a Lifetime" and "She Was" over and over when I was a kid, too. This was a personal favorite of mine -- my childhood hero, David Copperfield, used it to underscore one of his in-retrospect-lame-as-all-hell Big Illusions, which I just have to share with you (of course, this is a later-released DVD version, which doesn't feature "Burning Down the House," instead going with Seal's "Crazy," for some reason):



2. "Ultra Violet (Light My Way)," U2
The Joshua Tree gets all the credit, and deservedly so, but U2's follow-up, 1991's Achtung Baby, is their greatest achievement. This track isn't among the best ones, but it's still a decent enough track.

3. "Having a Blast," Green Day
Taking all you down with me. Explosives duct-taped to my spine, nothing's gonna change my mind. I won't listen to anyone's last words. There's nothing left for you to say, soon you'll be dead anyway. I remember once listening to this song thirteen times in a row, headphones playing at almost painful volume, my eyes fixed so hard on the wall in front of me I forgot to blink. I had some emotional problems in junior high school. ("Had some emotional problems?" a voice calls from the back. Thank you, sir, thank you. Security!)

4. "Army," Ben Folds Five
I first heard this song on an alarm clock during my trip to Philadelphia senior year. I was there for the Business Professionals of America National Championship Finals, where I was one of the Texas representatives. I did databases and spreadsheets in Excel so well I got a trip to Philly out of it. The fact that they actually have competitions for stuff like this boggles my mind to this day.

5. "My 1st Single," Eminem
Wow, Eminem's last album had a shelf life of about two weeks, didn't it? I loved it to death until I listened through it twice, at which point it was removed from the CD player and mostly ignored. I guess after beating his mom and his ex-wife in rap feuds, he had nowhere else to go. (Except "Mosh," of course, which was notable for being the election call-to-arms that he put on an album released two weeks after the election. Nice try.)

6. "Yellow Submarine," The Beatles
The left speaker on my laptop doesn't work, so it's fascinating to listen to this song: all the instruments are panned to the left, so all I hear are the vocals and the sound effects. It's really cool, like having my own personal remix. And really, really bizarre.

7. "Dreamer," Ozzy Osbourne
Ah, Ozzy shows his sensitive side. 'Cause you know, he's really not such a bad guy. He's actually really zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz -- Huh? Oh, sorry, left this song playing while I was trying to write. Probably not a good idzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

8. "I Wish You Were Mine," Ray Charles
Is it too weird for a Ray Charles song to feature the lyric, "From the moment I first saw you"? It is, right? The song is pretty catchy, though.

9. "Sweet Up and Down," Dave Matthews Band
From the aborted album-that-never-was, The Lillywhite Sessions. This was seven years ago, and Daveheads are still clamoring for a proper studio recording. The song is good and all, but come on, people. Move the fuck on, you know? But those are Daveheads for you. Actually, those are diehards fans of anyone -- inevitably, your best work is long behind you, and no matter where you try to take your art, thousands of people will be there to crap on it. Or as Henry Rollins put it about people saying the same things to him: "We liked you better before you got fat and died."

10. "Scentless Apprentice," Nirvana
Hey, remember that movie Perfume: The Story of a Murderer that came and went without anyone noticing a while back? No? Neither does anyone else. But it was based on a book called (duh) Perfume, which Kurt Cobain read back in 1993. It inspired him to write this song, which is one of Nirvana's very best tracks. On the With the Lights Out box set, there's a track that actually lets you hear the band writing the song -- Dave Grohl says, "Let's try that riff I wrote," and the band jams around it for eight minutes, eventually stumbling across the melody and structure.