As a kid I kept obsessive lists of fun facts & trivia about my “Sweet Valley High” collection. I filled notebooks with brief plot synopses of each book and would often quiz myself on these arcane details. When I couldn’t sleep, which was often, I’d list the titles in order along with publication date.

I’m not sure what that has to do with this, but somehow they feel related. What is this? Well, it’s my playlist collection. I make a lot of playlists in iTunes. There are six folders filled with playlists in that vile piece of software. I hate iTunes but will save that pile of bile for another day.

For instance, I have one folder called R&R Book (aka The Beast). It contains 18 playlists which contain 232 songs or 14 hours and 34 minutes of music.

Because I spend a lot of time creating those playlist and because I like to write about music, I’ve decided to start a series called Into the MP3 Deeps (a play on Ellen Willis’ (AMEN!) Out of the Vinyl Deeps, obviously). I’ll keep this going for as long as it amuses me, which is probably going to be a lot longer than it amuses anyone else.

So, we start with my favorite of playlists the one called Start of a Brand New Hipster Revolution. This has nothing to do with hipsters the people we like to hate, and everything to do with hips the body part with like to love.

We all have our things. Shoulders, breasts, necks, or thighs, asses, ankles. You know what I’m talking about. I’m a hips woman myself. There’s just something super masculine about the narrowness of a man’s hips that gets my blood pumping.

So yeah, I collect songs that mention hips. Right now the playlist contains 50 songs, though I add to it all the time when friends send me songs or I catch the word ‘hips’ in the lyrics. Here’s some of my favorite ones.

The Blonde Valerie, Mike Doughty

Back in the Napster heydays I snagged a handful of Doughty’s spoken word tracks. I love them. This one is great, and a wonderful start to the playlist. It’s just a 31-second track with the line “And a shimmy that sent her hips in a liquid piston motion to the floor like cream shifting in a glass.”

Hips, By Someone I Don’t Know

A friend sent me this song a million billion years ago when I started collecting ‘Hips’ songs. This one has a slow, swingy feel to it, and a chorus refrain that repeats “Shut up, and sway your hips.” It’s way sexier than it sounds.

Why Independent Record Stores Fail, Marah

This one came on a mix-cd from my Westernerd pal, Scooter. I heard it and fell in love. With the song, not Scooter, though I do adore him so. There was a time in the early aughts when I was still working at Hell, Inc. and chasing some emotionally unavailable (to me at least) musicnerd where I’d spend most of my day listening to this song on repeat. It slayed me then. It slays me now.

While the song is written by a man to a woman, you could easily flip flop it to suit your romantic gender of choice. The sentiment of “I ain’t very good at saying things, but I can tape you certain songs” still holds regardless of who is doing to the taping. (also this explains why for about a decade “Singing in My Sleep” by Semisonic appeared on every mix I made for anyone I was even remotely interested in sexually or romantically [yeah, sometimes they’re not the same thing]).

And this line? “My heart is skipping beats as I let the needle fall on Sam Cooke and pray.” Come on! Also at one point he says “hold your gently swaying hips to mine.”

Seriously, this song will make any musicnerd totally gushy with love.

To Destruction, Dolorean

I used this song to get over a particularly painful heartbreak sometime in my early 30s. I can’t remember the year. For a very long time I couldn’t hear it without being super sad, but then I gave it to my friend Ray to get over his heartbreak. Since then song has become quite bittersweet in the great way that things that are painful and lovely at the same time are. It reminds me simultaneously of that long ago heartache, my friend Ray who I’ve know for 20+ years, and that very specific moment of singing with him in Ruby.

Lyric worthy of inclusion: “Your arms are the place I like the best. I cannot lie to your face, your lips, your skin, your hips, or your waist. I have tried to run away, but I am so unhappy when I am alone.”

It’s Only Dancing, Jeremy Messersmith

I’ve written about this song in depth before. I won’t bore you with it again.

Lyric worthy of inclusion: “Let’s tangle up our fingertips and I’ll rest a hand upon your hips. There’s nothing to see it’s all so innocent.”

Jealousy, Liz Phair

I love the line “just putting your body wherever it seemed like a good idea.” This is a pretty decent song about jealousy. But it’s the drum in this one that ties so nicely into the next song that really seals the deal.

Lyric worthy of inclusion: “I saw hips, I saw thighs, I saw secret positions that we never try. I saw jealousy.”

Boy Crazy, Lydia Loveless

I’ve listened to this song fourteen times in the past seven days. Thanks, Last.fm!. This one is off Loveless’ EP “Boy Crazy.” And this song is the kind of song I’d write if I knew how to write songs. It’s sexy and fun and a little wry and the drum kicks all kinds of ass. And there’s the opening line: “Well he lives out in Idaho, and his jeans comes to just below his hip bone and when he lifts up his arms it makes me so wet, well I’d give up anything up for a night with that.” So good.

Commie Drives a Nova, Ike Reilly

My parents drove a cherry red Nova when I as a kid. This has nothing to do with the song, though the song makes me wish I drove a Nova the same way Jason Isbell’s “Cover Me Up” makes me wish I wore cowboy boots. This is one about a guy smitten with an amply-sized communist. As an amply-sized communist myself, how could I not love this?

Lyric worthy of inclusion: “I love the words of my communist. I kiss the lips of my communist. Grab the hips of my communist.”

Party in the U.S.A., Miley Cyrus

I’m not even exaggerating when I say that I watched the ASL video for this song 92,146 times. Longtime readers will recall that I’ve written about this video before. (aside: how can that be four years ago already. How?) Would I love the song without this specific video? I doubt it. I probably would have never heard of this song without this video. And I still get a little swoony when he does the “moving my hips like yeah” part.

When We Swam, Thao & The Get Down Stay Down

Okay, I am getting bored with this list and not all of these songs have significant meaning in my life. Some I just like because the chorus is “oh, oh bring your hips to me.”

The post Into the MP3 Deeps: A Selection of Hips Songs appeared first on I Will Dare.

The problem comes from spending all my time writing marketing copy and thinking about how to write the marketing copy that when it comes time to write something that isn’t marketing copy the words come out all stilted and crappy. Next to poor writing and improper use of the begs the question, forced writing is that which I detest the most.

Since I was complaining (at least in my head, I didn’t have to time to craft a snarky 140-character comment) this morning about it being “trying too hard Monday” (really people, we can tell when you spend a lot of time trying to craft the perfect re-tweetable tweet and we think you are LAME) it just didn’t seem right to foist upon you something that was forced and icky.

Plus, I’ve been slowly picking my way through Ander Monson’s Vanishing Point: Not a Memoir* before bed. Rather, I was picking my through it. Now I’ve become totally captivated by Travis Nichols’ Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder, and since Nichols is reading at Micawber’s* on Saturday and Monson won’t be here until June, I kind of want to get that book read first.

But my point was that reading Monson has made me realize that I’m a non-fiction writer. I know, it’s something I’m still coming to terms with. I’ll have more to say about that later, but for right now it’s Ander Monson’s fault that I can’t post anything of real substance because I have to think about it and craft it.

So instead I am going to share this song that I am addicted to. I promise it’s not going to be as captivating or as life-ruining as my Miley Cyrus signing young imaginary boyfriend’s video (seriously I lost hours watching and rewatching it, and I know I’m not alone), but i’s just as good. There’s something hypnotic about about the way she sings “Oh bring your hips, oh bring your hips, oh bring your hips to me.” I’ve been singing this song all day every day for the past week. Actually, I can’t even comment on the goodness or badness of the video, I haven’t watched it all the way through. Mostly I just wanted to share an awesome song. It’s called “When We Swam” by Thao with The Get Down Stay Down. Trust me it rules.

*You can find details about the upcoming readings over on the MN Reads Lit Calendar.

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“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m watching it over and over so I all the things that bug me about Freedom won’t bug me anymore,” she said. “I’ll just be used to them.”

For the past, oh, twenty years I’ve thought she was totally insane for doing that. Now, I am ashamed to admit, I can kind of relate.

Ever since Gideon drowned a two weeks ago, I’ve been a little scattered. Matters have not been helped by the fact that I’ve had a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. I still do, in fact. Putting these two conditions together has led me to make some minor, stupid, and annoying mistakes. Mistakes like putting the wrong date for an event on a newsletter, forgetting to properly check-in some files, and well that’s all I can think of right now. Are these major earth-destroying, baby killing problems? No. Are they worse than that time I goofed up the phone number and had our customers calling an “adult” phone line? No. Do I still beat myself up about them as if they were? Yes.

Self-esteem around these parts has been pretty close to zero, and I’ve been a little bit blue. But yesterday I discovered something that cheers me up, at least for three minutes and twenty-nine seconds. Are you ready?

Yeah, it’s a doofy kid signing to a Miley Cyrus song. I cannot stop watching it. I’ve probably seen it about 48 times since yesterday. I find this kid irresistible. And you need not remind me that I’m old enough to be his knocked-up in high school unwed teenage mother. I know that, and I don’t care. Coo coo ca choo, darling ones.

Long time I Will Dare readers will know exactly what it is I love about this song and the cutie signing it. The rest of you will have to suffer without the knowledge of the fetishes that thrive in my depraved mind.

If I had a waterbed, you’d find me sitting on the edge of it with a remote rewinding this over and over and over. Only I wouldn’t be trying to acclimate myself to annoying ticks. Oh no, I’d be trying to decide which part of the video is the most adorable (probably 0:54, you know why or maybe the look on his face at 1:50 or maybe I need to stop).

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Why yes, I did stay up until midnight so I could purchase Golden Delicious (only $6.99 for the download on Amazon). I guess that’s just what we fan girls do. We make sacrifices for the rockers and the rollers in our lives (even if it is our fantasy lives).

And you can just shove it about the fact that I don’t generally go to bed until 1 a.m. anyway, okay? We’re calling this a sacrifice, because dude I’m really tired. So I’m taking a quick trip through the new album, listening to about 30 seconds of each song to determine the song that will become my new favorite when I hear this:

I wrote a song about your car. I wrote it with your hips in mind. . .

Hello, nurse! It’s a well-known fact that I have a hips fetish, specifically a songs that mention hips fetish (as it stands now the Hipster playlist is up to 40 songs). And, as we all know, bold and fearless young women like me love their cars (or trucks as the case may be).

So what conclusion can we draw from this? Probably nothing. But in our sleep-deprived, hyperunstable state of mind, we’re totally going to believe that Mike Doughty wrote this song so we would be happy because that’s what he wants. And, really, ostensibly, don’t all artists want their art to make someone happy in some way, shape, or form? So it’s not that far afield, or insane. At all.

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