Playlist 6

[stoutfellow]

Counting down towards the twelfth and last.

• Someone Saved My Life Tonight, Elton John. This may have been the first of his songs to catch my attention.
• Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Gordon Lightfoot. Lightfoot's at his best, to my mind, in his specifically Canadian songs, and this one is marvelously evocative.
• Old Familiar, Kathleen Wilhoite. This one's about as close to sentimentality as Wilhoite gets, a song of sad reminiscence.
• I Remember LA, Celine Dion. Another song of reminiscence, but this one's thunderous and passionate.
• Respect, Aretha Franklin. Or should that be R-E-S-P-E-C-T? Aretha at her sassy best.
• Peace Train, Cat Stevens. Another train-as-salvation song; for some reason, the rapid clap-clap-clap in the chorus pleases me.
• Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell. "Don't it always seem to go / That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?"
• Castles in the Air, Don McLean. I love the mouth-feel of this one, the tripping alliteration in the middle of the opening lines: "And if she asks you why you can tell her that I told you that I'm tired of castles in the air..."
• I Know A Place, Petula Clark. My second-favorite of her songs. Thematically, it's pretty much the same song as Downtown.
• No Time, the Guess Who. The growling background sets off the lead singer's voice very nicely. The Guess Who used voices as sound (irrespective of content) about as well as any group I know of.

Comments

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

"Someone Saved My Life Tonight, Elton John. This may have been the first of his songs to catch my attention."

My all-time favorite Elton John album was the one titled "Elton John." The songs that I listened to over and over again (sitting in my Dad's big leather chair) were Border Song, Take Me To The Pilot, and Your Song.

"Respect, Aretha Franklin. Or should that be R-E-S-P-E-C-T? Aretha at her sassy best."

This song could get the dead dancing! She is an amazing voice and presence.

"Peace Train, Cat Stevens. Another train-as-salvation song; for some reason, the rapid clap-clap-clap in the chorus pleases me."

Yes, this was such a hopeful song. I think we need it to become popular again...

"Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell. 'Don't it always seem to go / That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?' "

This one made me "sad in advance" when it came out. The future/present it portrayed made me melancholy to contemplate living in a parking lot the size of Manhattan. I find it uplifting that in cities, or at least our city, which was wont to asphalt over everything, traffic designers are now making freeways attractive, and developers are tearing up parking lots in malls to put green *islands* with trees and landscaping.

"No Time, the Guess Who. The growling background sets off the lead singer's voice very nicely. The Guess Who used voices as sound (irrespective of content) about as well as any group I know of."

Agreed, totally.

Reading your post made me want to look at my playlists to see what I want to listen to while dusting. I am paralyzed with indecision (g). Maybe I'll post what I listened to later.

[filkferengi]

Why count down? There's always something new and gorgeous to listen to. If you run out, just ask; we'll find you something nifty. :)

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Oh, of course. It's just that, at the moment, I only have 26 playlists, and I started this with #13.

I will shortly be augmenting my collection with songs by Stevie Wonder, Sade, Bob Marley, Bela Fleck, and Paul Revere & the Raiders, at which point I will probably boost the number of playlists.

[filkferengi]

Those sound like lots of fun blasts from the past; I look forward to reading it.

Have you gotten your membership for Nasfic yet? Don't forget to recon the cool restaurants for next year. Also, does the Nasfic have fan group meetings, like previous WorldCons have done? You're the man on the ground. :)