My FFJ is going through a nasty bit of rough and thus needed to spend some quality time with a bottle of wine, a pack of cigarettes, me, and some Potato Oles.

I’m not gonna lie, one of the best benefits of being my friend is my house’s proximity to Taco Johns.

The last time I had a sleepover with someone who wasn’t a nibling might have been in the 80s. I’m sure I spent the night at friends’ houses in college, but drinking until you are too incapacitated to leave isn’t really a slumber party.

Slumber parties involve giggling and junk food and much talk about boys and sex. Duh. In my younger days these parties involved taking every quiz in every issue of YM, Seventeen, and Sassy on hand, but Facebook & Buzzfeed have pretty much ruined quiz taking forever.

While we alternately damned and praised the various men we’ve known and wanted to know, we got on the topic of music. Of course we did. Whenever I’m around the topic of music comes up usually right before or after books.

She mentioned how she and her favorite ExBF would always get it on to The Cure’s “Disintegration.” She might have even dubbed it the best record to fuck to (all quote are approximate I was two whiskeys into the night at this point). I probably wretched for a good ten minutes after that announcement not only because I loathe The Cure (really, really loathe) but because it was Sister #2 & Ben’s sexy-time record back when we lived together in the early 90s, and there are not enough emphatic BARF!s in all the land to express how unsexy the idea of that record is to me.

So I confessed that I don’t have any get it on music. Never have. I lost my virginity to the soundtrack to Super Mario Bros., and not even the sort of dark and dangerous below ground music either. Just the boring, above ground music.

While I have seduced many with my music collection, I’ve never had like a go-to seduction record, a record that means Jodi wants it and is gonna get it. I’m just no good at that. Seduction, I mean.

I have, however, ruined many a man’s seduction game by being super annoying about music. “What is this?” I’ll ask at not so opportune times. Or “Is this so and so?” Or “I love this song have you heard. . . ” It’s a wonder musicnerds ever get laid.

But I’m not immune to the erotic qualities of music. I’m not a robot. However for me, it’s not so much a rhythm thing or beat thing or even lyrical content thing. No, it’s something else.

Here’s what I confessed to FFJ Friday night: “Certain voices go straight to my clit,” I said.

And if she were a dog her ears would have shot straight up as she turned to look at me. “What?”

“Billy Bragg’s voice makes all my sexy parts tingle,” I said.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” she said, because she is a fabulous friend.
“Oh, I don’t think so either,” I explained. “But it’s not like you can say ‘Hey, let’s put on ‘There is Power in Union’ and make out.'”

She laughed, which was my goal. And in Billy’s hot, hot voiced defense, he has plenty of songs you can put on and make out to (New Brunette, Walt Whitman, New England. . . in an odd way).

Another one that gets me in the naughty bits? Glen Hansard. Also the dude who sings under the name The Tallest Man on Earth, especially the way he says “slumber” on the song “I Won’t Be Found.” And Jason Isbell, but only on “Cover Me Up.”

I have to stop now.

The post Slumber Party Confessions: Music For Getting it On appeared first on I Will Dare.

Now, this isn’t the same as just grooving on a song or having to repeat a song 183 times because it’s fitting with something you’re writing. It’s different because you have to listen to the song so often because of the way the words are said. It’s the combination of the words and not even the words specifically. It’s not like the phrase is beautiful or clever. It’s just the sounds. It doesn’t happen a lot. At least not for me. Here, I’ll show you what I mean.

Carl Perkins’ Cadillac, Drive-by Truckers

TRUE STORY: I had a spiritual experience at Sun Records in Memphis. It was weird and it made me feel tingly and weepy & totally embarrassed Sister #4. This has nothing to do with the words they say in the song. It’s just that I thought about it right now.

ANOTHER ASIDE: I think I have a thing for songs about singers (see: Alex Chilton and Emmylou, which are the first two I can think of right now). I should probably start a new playlist.

FINALLY: The way one of the Truckers (I don’t know which one it is, because I am a bad fan) sings ‘all y’all’ is so dreamy and awesome I want to buy it ice cream.

Walt Whitman’s Niece, Billy Bragg & Wilco

I have been known to say that if I were the marrying type and it were legal, I’d totally marry the way Billy Bragg says the word “poems” in this song. It never, ever fails to make my parts all quivery.

Fort Hood, Mike Doughty

Now, there was a time in the not-so-distant past where the mere mention of the name Mike Doughty made me think all kinds of sexy thoughts. I had a real Mike Doughty thing going for awhile, a thing that was bigger than my love of his music. But as is often said, familiarity breeds contempt and after seeing him in concert what felt like 728 times in the span of a few years the sexy-crush wore off and I was just back to being a regular, old Doughty appreciator.

Now if you’re a fan of The Doughts (as I have taken to calling him in my head) dating back to the Soul Coughing-era you know he’s got a way with pronunciation. I could probably write an essay on the way he says lisssening (I wont. At least not today). So, it’s probably surprising that it’s not one of the Soul Coughing-era words that gets me. In fact, ‘Fort Hood’ is a pretty recentish song and I remember (surprising because there was a lot of gin involved that night) the first time I heard this song at HippieFest down somewhere in MN that is not here. From that moment the extended ‘parking looooooot’ got me. Still does.

Pancho & Lefty, Willie Nelson (with Merle Haggard)

As you may not recall (and why would you?), I’m a relative newcomer to the wiles of Willie Nelson and a lot of this newfound appreciation can be laid right at the feet at the way he says the word ‘Federales.’ What great fucking word. I wish I had more use for it in my everyday life.

I Love Rock’n’Roll, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts

I hopped on the Joan Jett bandwagon pretty young — ridiculously, elementary-school, not even fully understanding the Joan Jettiness of Joan young. There was two reasons for this: 1.) getting a 45 of that “Crimson & Clover” cover she did in the early 80s from my Mom’s cool friend TJ and 2.) the fact that I was pretty sure Joan Jett was Leather Tuscadero from “Happy Days” (she was not, though she did cop her style from Suzi Quatro).

I wish I could remember the exact first time I heard “I Love Rock’n’Roll,” but I can’t. All I know is that whenever I hear Joan scream “OWWWWwww” my heart soars. It’s not the same kind of jiggly heart that the opening to “I Will Dare” gives me, but it’s close.

There are more, and perhaps I’ll write a part II but right now I’ve begun to bore myself so I’ll stop.

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(Parenthetical aside [which were also quite big in 2002 blogging]: did I ever tell you about that time I went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and they had some sort of Woody Guthrie display that made me burst into tears? Well, I did. I went through a serious Woody/American Folk Music phase when I was about twenty-five)

But this is not 2002 and now we’re supposed to be serious professional bloggers with agendas and goals and editorial calendars. Barf.

However, having lived through blogging in 2002 (and my fair share of posts about sandwiches most of which I deleted), I know that a post about a sandwich is no good. So I will include a picture of a robot The Tibbles and I fell in love with at the MN State Fair this weekend.

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Whenever I get to the part of the song that goes “what if I’m a mermaid in these jeans of his with her name still on it.” I think of this short story I heard read back in like 1992 or 1993.

So as I’m listening to the song for the sixth time, I think I should write about how amazing that story is because I still remember it after only listening to it once seventeen years ago. That’s a long, long time to remember a story.

But as I was writing I had that odd sense of deja vu. Wait, wait. . . yeah I did write about that back in 2004. How annoying (the cryptoblogging at the beginning of the post, clearly I didn’t want to talk about the takeover of little software company by Hell, Inc.).

So here’s the conundrum one with an aging blog and nearly nine years of archives intact faces, is it okay to repeat yourself? Because really how many people have been lingering around since 2004 and remember that one lame post with the cryptic beginning? Or do you just suck it up and marvel at that story all alone?

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