So Darling Ones,

Because I had an overnight houseguest last night I didn’t get a chance to tell you yesterday was my favorite night of the year. The overnight houseguest was Sister #4 who came in from Brookings because she had a company meeting/holiday party in town. I wrote that first sentence in such a way as to make you think I might have gotten laid and was going to dish some juicy romantic details.

Alas! You should know, getting laid would be a reason to make a day my favorite day of the year. However, I’m talking about Spotify Wrapped day, where Spotify dishes all the juicy music details of your year in listening. I love Spotify Wrapped day because I cannot get enough useless data about myself. Also, it gives me a chance to be smug, sanctimonious, and a smidge sheepish.

It’s a day where my emotions run the gamut. It bums me out because so many of the men I like had lists that were completely made up of male artists, proving for the one millionth time that men do not value art made by women. It also bums me out because people are assholes right out loud judging people for using Spotify, for sharing their Wrapped lists, and in general not appreciating music the right way.

Spotify does suck and vastly underpays artists. I cannot argue against that. However, just because a person uses Spotify does not mean they don’t listen to music in other ways. I have bought (and pre-ordered) an embarrassing number of records this year. Some through Bandcamp, others from the artist’s website, some through record stores. I use Spotify as a try before you buy kinda situation. Just like I use the library to read a book before I buy it. I’m almost fifty, I’m tired of inviting untested garbage into my house.

Because I spend a broad swaths of time completely alone and frequently in a world that isn’t entirely real, Spotify Wrapped feels like a nice check-in that the year actually progressed the way I thought it did. I went through my Wrapped list and was all, “yep, yep, sounds right, makes sense, that’s embarrassing, yep, yep. right on.”

Spotify said I listened to something like 90 hours of Frightened Rabbit, specifically the song “The Twist.” This makes sense because I listened to Midnight Organ Fight every night before bed for months on months on months.

Julien Baker made my Top 5 list. Of course. I listened to Little Oblivions on repeat to see if a song could, indeed, be too sad. And The Marfa Tapes record is in there under Jack Ingram’s name. This might be my favorite record of 2021. With the Julien Baker, the latest Liz Phair,a nd Lucy Dacus’ VBS coming up close behind.

If you are so inclined you can peep my Top Songs of 2021 Spotify Playlist, which includes, much to my amusement, “Just What I Needed” by The Cars, “Magic Man” by Heart, and “Into Your Arms” by The Lemonheads.

Always in love with that song,
Jodi

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Well, Well, Well, Darling Ones,

Guess which band made a huge announcement about the 40th Anniversary of their debut album today?

Obviously there is some universal Replacements’ vibe in the air this week. Am I excited to hear 67 new Sorry-era tracks from my very favorite band? Kinda. Do I want to read more words written by Bob Mehr regarding The Replacements? No. Not even a little bit. Do I think they missed a huge opportunity to do something cool like, oh, I don’t know, an All-Woman Tribute to The Replacements? Hell yes. I’m just sitting here with giving away free good ideas to get women interested in old sad bastard rock & roll and introduce the ‘Mats to a whole new audience and they’re all, I know. . . let’s release four CDs and have the guy who wrote the really boring book write more words. Genius.

So, anyway, the best thing about putting a daydream out into the ether is when people decide to play along. Westernerd Chris made a YouTube playlist of all the videos I linked to yesterday. It is amazing and makes my heart glow with happiness. At one point in today many-tentacled ‘Mats discussion on Twitter Wolfdogg said he could hear Liz Phair doing “Answering Machine” so clearly in his head that he was trying to will it into existence.

The best part were all the people suggesting more songs by more women. All these people talking about women covering the ‘Mats got me a little choked up. Their love of the music was so sincere and it was just a really nice thing to have happen on a day where I’m a little down deep into the darkness.

Here were the suggestions I caught.

Sharon Van Etten, Merry Go Round

Kate suggested this one and it’s so perfect that I’m a little miffed my brain didn’t think of it first.

Janelle Monáe, Go

This came from Westernerd Chris and he added that maybe she’d do it in the spirit of “Cold War.”

Aimee Mann, Swingin’ Party

My long-time Westernerd Pal Areg suggested this and it’s perfect. Just imagine a “Save Me”esque version of “Swingin’ Party.” Doesn’t it kind of make your heart race?

Margaret Glaspy, I’ll Buy

I’m not sure what Chris was thinking on this one, but after listening to “Stay With Me” I can kinda see Glaspy pulling this off.

Fiona Apple, All Shook Down

This was another Kate suggestion, and I’m down for this. I love Fiona Apple and there was a while there this winter where I had to listen to her cover of “The Whole of the Moon” everyday to ward off the creeping darkness.

Margo Price, I’ll Be You

I’m not a Margo Price person. Like conceptually I should be one of her biggest fans. She checks all the boxes of things i like, but for some reason my soul doesn’t connect with her music on any level. However, since Kate did such a good job with the other two suggestions she can have this one and maybe it will bring me around on Price.

Courtney Barnett, Color Me Impressed

Dan on Twitter said he could hear her doing “Unsatisfied” but I already have Laura Marling stuck in my head for that song. However, I can also hear Barnett doing this one in my head. So win-win.

Lucy Dacus, Darlin’ One

My pal Tony suggested this one, which is wonderful. I was kind of bummed when I couldn’t immediately think of anything for Dacus to cover yesterday. As soon as Tony said “Darlin’ One” it clicked together perfectly.

Bjork, Never Mind

My friend Kurtis suggested Bjork and my brain first went to “Otto” but then I wanted her to have more words to sing and I would love to hear what she creates for “the words I thought I brought I left behind so. . . never mind” line. Like I keep thinking of something surprising and delicious like she does on “Oh So Quiet.”

If I write you a letter tomorrow, I promise it will not be about The Replacements.
Jodi

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Hi Darling Ones,

When I woke up at the crack of 9:54 a.m this morning I did not leap from bed in a panic for sleeping so late. I did not bounce joyfully out of the covers refreshed and eager to seize the day. Instead, I turned on Lucy Dacus’ new record VBS and laid in bed watching the blurry ceiling fan spin around and around. I refused to put on my glasses and wake up my eyes in case I wasn’t really done sleeping.

I’ve listened to VBS every day since it was released. This is a thing I do now, I guess, listen to new records ad nauseam until I have to go and listen to one-hit wonder from the 90s for a week because I’ve begun to annoy my own ear drums with the incessant spins of one record. Lather, rinse, repeat. I’ve been doing it ever since the COVID hit — Waxahatchee, Kathleen Edwards, Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, Liz Phair, The Marfa Tapes, and now Lucy. And don’t forget that I am still listening to Midnight Organ Fight nearly every night as I go to sleep.

Sometimes this repetition makes me feel like maybe I’m a little less than sane, but really it’s probably a way of coping with low-level anxiety and also an all-consuming love of music.

This morning I kept repeating the titular song “VBS” because I’ve head the lyric locked away with jam jars in the cellar of your heart rattling around inside me all week.

As I free-associated through the song trying to shake off a particularly icky, vivid dream,** I thought about how I really like phrases about hearts being things other than hearts or having things inside of them.

Of course I thought about my own particular favorites: ice-robot heart and chicken mcnugget heart. Then the idea really picked up steam and I recalled everyone’s got a maze inside their heart from Liz Phair’s “Soberish.”

When I tried to remember the origin of this penchant for heart-things I figured it probably sprung from my love of ol’ Edward Estlin Cummings, whose poetry I fell in love with as a teenager. Specifically, the line i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it.

Those were the ones I thought of off the top of my head, though when I went to see if I had any in the note I keep on my phone of lines I love from books I also found these three:
“before I carried in my heart this broken piece of glass which I’ve been careful not to disturb lest it cut me.” Liz Phair, Horror Stories

“His heart has a draft. It lets in light. It lets in storms. It lets in everything.” V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“His rib cage is a haunted house built around his heart.” Sherman Alexie,* You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me

I’m sure there are more that aren’t coming to me right this minute or right that minute. Eventually I had to get out of bed because I was hungry and there were donut holes downstairs.

<3, Jodi  
*Sherman Alexie is a dirtbag. I know that, and I really wish it was easier to carve my love for this sentence out of my memory and my heart, and yet I cannot. It’s so hard when dirtbags write something really beautiful that you commit to memory and never seem to be able to forget.

 
**In the dream I was part of a sex study that involved having various women perform oral sex on me, one of whom was Betty White.

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Hi Darling Ones,

Did you miss me terribly?

Having my family here was delightful and exhausting. They left yesterday morning and I’m still recovering. The only things I’ve managed to do since this weekend is eat, sleep, read, and listen to Lucy Dacus’ new record Home Video.

My actual record hasn’t arrived yet even though it allegedly shipped on June 21st, and I’m a little salty. According to Instagram I’m the only person on the planet who has not gotten it yet.

It takes me a really long time to properly absorb a record. I’m not one of those people who can form a coherent opinion after listening to a record only once or twice. About the only opinion I form upon first listen is if I want to listen to it again. So that’s something.

My hunch is I’m going to love this one and it will replace Liz Phair’s Soberish as the record I need to listen to every day at least once. Right now I’ve got a giant crush on the song “Brando” which reminds me of a conversation Sister #4 and I had six or so years ago.

She was dating some guy who might have been named Tony. I had recently been decimated & humiliated by the Young Chef. She was telling me all the things she liked about the guy. He was ambitious, kind of looked like Paul Bunyan, was getting his master or PhD in something I can’t remember.

“What I really like,” she said as we were driving back to Supergenis HQ from some cousin’s bridal shower, “is that he tells me all the time that I’m smart.”

I was driving Ruby at the time, but my face must have said something out loud.

“What?” she asked. “I’m smart! Not as smart as you, but I’m smart!”

For the record, at the time, she was in the process of getting her masters degree or her PhD. I can’t remember.

“I know you’re smart,” I said.
“Then what is it?” She asked.
“I just much rather be told I’m pretty.”
“WHAT?” She screeched. For real, she screeched.
“Yeah.”
“That surprises me,” she said.
I shrugged. “I know I’m smart. I don’t need anyone to tell me that. But I rarely get told I’m pretty.”

The conversation moved on to something else as it often does, but that portion always sticks with me since it tells you so much about each of us in the simplest way.

Whenever the would it have killed you to call me pretty instead line comes up in “Brando” I chuckle a little. It not only reminds me of that conversation with my sister, but every man who told me I was smart. Or scary smart. Or too smart. And the silent “no duh” I said inside my head whenever they said that to me.

I feel a little creaky with the writing like the Tin Man after Dorothy finds him. Tomorrow will be better. I have so much to tell you about last week.

It’s good to be back here,
Jodi

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Hello Darling Ones,

I spend roughly six to eight hours a day listening to music. This isn’t an exaggeration. I usually put my headphones on as soon as I’m done with breakfast and don’t take them off until it’s time to make dinner. Sometimes I put them back on after dinner. It’s why 90% of my selfies include headphones, my hair has a permanent headphone divot in it.

My sisters laugh at me because I wear headphones all the time even though I’m the only one here and I won’t disturb anyone with my loud rock & roll music. I like them. I find it nearly impossible to work without headphones on. I blame all those years in corporate America.

After rediscovering The Kooks, I decided to take a stroll through the music I loved in 2006 via my Top 25.

For many, many years I would keep track of the Top 25 most-played songs in my iTunes. It is a wonderful time capsule and as I was perusing 2006, I wished I had kept up with that. I had kinda given up the ghost when I stopped using iTunes in 2012.

Since I only had 30 minutes of work to do today (for real, the lack of work is killing me) guess what I did? I logged into last.fm and then I created seven years worth of Top 25 lists. It was the most fun I’ve had, well, I had some fun when I woke up at 6 a.m. this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, but other than that it’s the most fun I’ve had all week.

So far. I think I might watch “Twister” tonight while eating a frozen pizza, because this spinster knows how to party.

It was fun watching my musical taste evolve. The early aughts lists are very dude dominated and you can watch them virtually disappear once the Turnip was elected. You can also tell when I switched from just listening to songs to listening to entire albums. Here, I’ll show you, these albums show up nearly in their entirety on that year’s Top 25:
2010: “The Wild Hunt” by Tallest Man on Earth
2011: “Wild Flag” by Wild Flag
2012: “Gossamer” by Passion Pit
2013 “Southeastern” by Jason Isbell
2014: “Somewhere Else” by Lydia Loveless
2015: “Short Movie” by Laura Marling
2016: “My Piece of Land” by Amanda Shires
2017: “The Nashville Sound” by Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit
2018: “Historian” by Lucy Dacus (Though Phoebe Bridgers’ entire “Stranger in the Alps” is on the list too)
2019: “The Highwomen” by The Highwomen

2008’s list is probably my favorite because it makes no sense. It’s The Decemberists, Liz Phair, The Hold Steady and then randomly “Peg” by Steely Dan. Who was I?

The one thing I tripped over that broke my stupid heart was Ryan Adams’ “Dear Chicago” showing up six times over the years. I fucking love that song and I have failed thus far at carving it out of my heart. It’s so hard to do and something I struggle with when I have fallen in love with art made by men who turn out to be bad people. Like, I get that he is a dirtbag extraordinaire, but my heart doesn’t nor do all my memories and associations with this song. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?

Barf,
Jodi

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