Dear Darling Ones,

Since the stroke is on my mind every second of every day, I seek out things that make me forget it for even a moment. Not forget. That’s not a thing that will happen. I’m seeking small segments of time where my brain is distracted enough that it’s not constantly thinking “Wow it’s weird in here. The right side of your face is still numb. Is this how you’re gonna feel forever? Is the floppy scoop still heavy, raise your arm above your head to see.”

Here are four songs I’m obsessed about because they distract me for at least 15 seconds at a time.

Haha, Dead

For inexplicable reasons my brain sings this song about 88 times a day. I think it’s the fun to tongue clicks and clucks at about the two-minute mark. It’s super fun to sing along too. I much prefer this to Dan Fogelberg’s Leader of the Band,” which my brain had adopted as a lullaby.

Darkness, Pinegrove

I don’t know what it is about this song that caught my ear. It showed up in some Spotify mix or played after I was dine listening to the new Bully record for the 88th time. Who knows? The line about “darkness on my mind” snagged in my damage brain and never left. This has a shinier, slicker Gin Blossoms feel to me. Confession: I know zero things about this band other than I like this song.

Basic Channels, Josiah and the Bonnevilles

My music listening comes in two varieties: focussed obsessive listening to a specific band or record (see: Bully comment) or total chaos. Every week I spend time listening to the Spotify Release Radar and Discover Weekly playlists. I’m also inattentive some times and will listen for hours to whatever is shoved into my ears.

Anyway, I don’t know how this song came into my life. It reminds me of a mix between “Fishin’ in the Dark” by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and The Avett Brothers’ cover of “Spanish Pipedream.

Time Ain’t Accidental, Jess Williamson

This song mentions a Raymond Carver and getting head, two of my favorite activities. Williamson is half of Plains, whom I love, and I can’t wait to spend more time with her new record.

What are you listening to?

Love,
Jodi

P.S. the Go Fund Me is going like gangbusters! Together, we’ve raised enough to cover a little over half my debt. I cannot thank everyone enough. I started working on Thank You cards last night. It was a lot of work. Writing is hard! But I loved doing it & it made me feel good. If you’d like one, hit me up jodi@iwilldare.com

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Darling Ones,

My love of 90s-era Matthew Sweet has flared up recently and boy, has it been an utter delight.

As with 98% of all my musical loves, I happened into Matthew Sweet in a haphazard, backwards way. I didn’t fall in love with the “Girlfriend” video like so many people I know.

I didn’t pay attention to Matthew Sweet until some intern at Zoo Entertainment sent a copy of “Altered Beast” to the college newspaper where I was the Arts Editor (Or Arts Minotaur as I was often called, Or Bitter Arts Goddess, nicknames were big around the newspaper office). Two years later some other intern sent me “100% Fun.”

Still, I’m not entirely sure exactly how or when I fell in love. It was probably one of those slowly then all at once scenarios. I do remember at some point in the spring of 1995, my friend Johnson turned to me and said, “You love this guy so much.”

We were in the bubble, a small, glass encased room in the aforementioned newspaper office.

“What?” I asked him, because I couldn’t hear him over the 73rd repeat of “Sick of Myself.”

“God,” he sighed. “You’ve been listening to him for two years straight.”

I hadn’t really thought about it, but Johnson was not wrong. I loved Matthew Sweet! Still do, though after the 90s when my musical taste really diversified, I didn’t pay as much attention to him as he deserved.

Anyway, I got a Greatest Hits According to Me playlist all ready to share with you. There’s a Spotify version and for those who eschew Spotify, there’s a YouTube playlist.

As with all Greatest Hits According to Me lists it’s helpful for you to remember this is the one right and true list. All others are imposters.

Also, I won’t have something to say about every song because sometimes the only explanation is, “I like it because it is good.”

Someone to Pull the Trigger

There’s a certain kind of 21-year-old who hears this song and is all, “yes, yes, this is the truth and it speaks for me.” I was exactly that kind of nihilistic, jaded kid. Still kinda am. I have listened to this song on repeat for hours after every single romantic heartbreak I have endured since 1993. So many hours. I need someone to pull the trigger, cause there’s a hole in my heart getting bigger. And everything I’ll ever be I’ve been. Indeed. Indeed.

Sick of Myself

While not my favorite Matthew Sweet song (see above), this is by far his best song. It’s sugar-coated power pop deliciousness. And it’s infectious as fuck. Just objectively perfect.

Evangeline

The intro to this one is so enticing he could sing nonsense or made up words and this would still be a great song. But he’s not signing nonsense, he’s singing about wanting a girl who does not want him back.

Girlfriend

Sometimes I wonder if I’d have fallen so hard for Matthew Sweet’s music if I had discovered him through “Girlfriend.” I don’t think so. I’m all for a good love song, and even more so for a good “wanna love me?” song, but I much prefer the “I’ve been decimated by love” songs (See: obsession with Frightened Rabbit).

Devil with the Green Eyes

See above and then add these lyrics: Cause I came up from a dark world, and every love I’ve ever known is dead.

Thought I Knew You

This Moment

When I wrote The Jayhawks’ Greatest Hits According to Me I said I would include the track an artist did on “Sweet Relief: A Benefit for Victoria Williams.” I am not a liar.

Time Capsule

Super Baby

This is one of those songs that causes a physical reaction in me. I wish I had a better knowledge of musical vocabulary. I don’t always know what things are called. Maybe this is a guitar lick? I think it might be the melody. I don’t know but it’s the five or six guitar notes, then it goes high, then it goes low again and on like the third repeat the drums drop in. Holy cow! My body loves that part of the song and then when promise you won’t go far, I want you right where you are part of the chorus kicks in? I feel that right between my legs. Damn.

Where You Get Love

I dig the throwbacky vibe.

Superdeformed

God love Matthew Sweet. It seems like he never met a compilation record he didn’t want to be a part of.

Smog Moon

I like songs that mention the moon.

What Matters

Write Your Own Song

I also like songs about writing songs. See: Stevie Nicks’ “That Made Me Stronger” and Frightened Rabbit’s “I Feel Better.” I should make a playlist of those some time.

Dead Smile

I forgot about about this one until my friend Tony brought it up in a Twitter discussion last week.

Let Me be the One

As I said, the man never met a comp he didn’t want to be apart of. I blame this Carpenters’ cover album for making me think I’d dig Sonic Youth, but in the immortal words of Juno MacGuff, “I bought another Sonic Youth album and it sucks. It’s just noise.”

And Your Bird Can Sing

Suzanna Hoffs + Matthew Sweet = bliss.

Ballad of El Good

It’s not a revolutionary cover, but I love this song as much as I love Matthew Sweet.

That’s enough typing for now. Happy listening,
Jodi

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Dear Darling Ones,

The very best thing about having a personal blog that exists for your amusement is you can randomly list seven songs that are either about the moon or mention the moon and you don’t have to explain why if you don’t want to.

I wondered, I guessed, and I tried. You just knew. I sighed, but you swooned.

I’m so tired. I wish I was the moon tonight.

Like a moon and a lonely star, you’re gone.

Everywhere I looked I saw the haloed moon through the window and I was underneath you.

But there’s one thing we’ve got going, and it’s the only thing worth knowing. It’s got lots to do with magnets and the pull of the moon.

I bought a map of the moon. There’s a crater with my name on it and a really good view.

There’s a smog moon coming I can always feel it.

The moon never beams, without brining me dreams,
Jodi

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Dear Darling Ones,

I’m in a funk and it’s boring the daylights out of me. Most of my funks, I think, are boredom induced. I know only boring people get bored, but you should have figured out by now that I am fucking boring.

The one-two combination of a seasonal work slowage + the dying of the light has incapacitated me. I’ve done nothing for past four days except read books, crochet, and watch Buffy. Last night I was feeling a little crazy and made soup. However, I make soup every week so that should probably not be applauded.

Only two good things have happened. One, I read a biography of Louise Fitzhugh (author of Harriet the Spy and it was mind-blowingly amazing. It included a line from one of Fitzhugh’s past lovers who was angry about the current lover erasing Fithugh’s homosexuality after her death that made me cackle. The line: “[they were turning her into] a chaste spinster lady with a good sense of humor.”

Don’t let them do that to me, Darling Ones. Just because I might be more chaste at the moment than I’d prefer, that doesn’t make me chaste spinster lady. I would much prefer to be remembered as any other kind of spinster.

The second good thing that happened is I fell in love with a song. It’s called “Nothing But the Radio” by Maia Sharpe and I love it because it’s not chaste at all and also includes handclaps. I have a theory that handclaps improve a song by at least 47%. Because I’ve been spending all day every day trying to fruitlessly trying to amuse myself, I’ve listened to this song about 38 times. It makes me wiggly and dancey, which momentarily pauses the funk.

Yesterday while singing the song I had a revelation that I like a lot of songs about the radio. This makes sense because I fucking love the radio. The radio & the library are the two most important institutions in my life. Take that, all other institutions including the garbage US government!

Because topical playlists are my jam (as is saying things are “my jam”), I made a Radio, Radio playlist featuring the first twelve radio related songs I could think of. You can listen to it on Spotify or if you’re a total weirdo you can listen to it on YouTube, which is a thing people do. I’m not people.

Here’s the tracklist.

Turn up the Radio, Autograph

When I was in 9th grade Roosevelt Junior High had this weird Christian cover band called Free Far come and play in the gym. I only remember them playing two songs, “Sunglasses at Night” by Corey Hart and this one. I love this song. Various lyrics of this song have been taglines to this here website over the past twenty-one years. I cannot listen to this song without counting it off one-two-three with my right hand every time.

Left of the Dial, The Replacements

Obvs.

Nothing But the Radio, Maia Sharp

The narrator of this song is so hopped up to see her lover that when they get there she tells them to take off their coat and don’t stop until there’s nothing but the radio on. It’s fun and sexy.

Radio, Radio, Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Radio Free Europe, R.E.M.

Cuckoo, Lissie

I tried really hard to have the main character in The Beast try to write a song like this and failed miserably. Lissie’s lyrics are just too exquisite. I specifically wanted to capture the emotion of “I fell in love with being defiant in a pickup truck that roared like a lion. When you’re with us, you don’t have to be quiet no more.”

Everything I wrote was hollow and trying too hard. Anyway, she mentions the radio in this one.

Do You Remember Rock ‘n Roll Radio? Ramones

On the Radio, Regina Spektor

This is the song I meant to pull up when I searched for “On the Radio” in Spotify.

On the Radio, Donna Summer

This is the one that came up. I forgot it existed.

Radio Song, R.E.M.

It delights me that there two R.E.M. songs on this list.

Overnight Sensation, Raspberries

My Westernerd pal Scooter went through a Raspeberries thing in the early aughts and some of it got on me. This song specifically.

Video Killed the Radio Star, The Buggles

I know there are a million more songs about the radio, but I got distracted. I’m sure I’ll add it to it more as they occur to me. Also, I specifically left off Queen because I’m not a big Queen fan.

You can always find me left of the dial,
Jodi

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Dear Darling Ones,

You know that parable about boiling a frog? The one that says if you drop a frog in boiling water it jumps out right away, but if you put it in cold water slowly heating to a boil you can murder the frog because it adapts to its environment.

I feel this way about the music of The Jayhawks, but without the murder. It’s like one day I was humbly existing listening to The Spin Doctors, Pearl Jam, and The Cranberries, and the next day The Jayhawks were everywhere. And they were my all-consuming aural fixation for awhile.

While I don’t have an exact memory attached to my very first introduction to The Jayhawks, I’m 99.99% sure it was one of those Cross Country Boys who brought them into my life. They brought a lot of music into my life — The Replacements, The Gear Daddies, and The Jayhawks.

It’s a little sad this Minnesota girl had to go to college in Wisconsin to discover everything thriving in her own backyard, but there you have it. I usually like to blame my lack of imagination on discovering these bands that were so close to home so late. The truth is, I didn’t have the mental or emotional capacity to dig beyond what was served up to me on my the radio. Poverty, abuse, and constant bullying at school kept my mind pretty preoccupied.

Anyway, like I said one day they didn’t exist and the next day I was seeing them live as much as possible. BFK and I were recently reminiscing about the early days of our friendship. One of our first non-work friendship outings involved me fifth-wheeling it with her, Atom, and another married couple to the Basilica Block Party where I promptly ditched the marrieds to go watch The Jayhawks. We suspect that might have been the only reason I went along, but aren’t sure.

It was that conversation plus the internal debate about whether “Save it For a Rainy Day” or “Blue” is my favorite Jayhawks’ song that led to this list. I don’t have actual reasons for why I chose all the songs I did. Most of the reason is, “it sounds good and I like it.”

Without further ado: The Jayhawks’ Greatest Hits According to Me (you can listen on Spotify if’n you want).

01. Blue

This is like the Platonic ideal of a Jayhawks’ song. The lyrics. The harmonies. The aching sadness cloaked in such a warm, friendly sound. On certain mornings when it’s been cloudy for too many days in a row and I haven’t spoken to anyone in awhile this song will make me cry.

02. Save it For a Rainy Day

There is a strong bias towards 2003’s Rainy Day Music record. It’s the record I turned to when dealing with my first adult heartbreak. This song in particular was super comforting.

03. Waiting for the Sun

This would be the Platonic ideal Jayhawks’ song if “Blue” didn’t exist.

04. I’m Gonna Make You Love Me

I like sweet love songs, sue me.

05. Quiet Corners & Empty Spaces

Use an ampersand in your song title? Right to Greatest Hits.

06. Take Me With You (When You Go)

Remember how I said I loved sweet love songs? I super love sweet love songs that involve dying. See: #16 and Death Cab For Cutie’s “I’ll Follow You Into the Dark.”

07. She Walks in So Many Ways

08. I’d Run Away

Tomorrow the Green Grass is one those solid front-to-back albums. Kinda like Sugar’s Copper Blue, when I hear any song from the record I have to listen to the entire record in order or my brain feels like it’s short circuiting.

09. Tailspin

10. Bad Time

Do you remember where you were when you learned that “Bad Time” was a cover of a Grand Funk Railroad song? I DO. It was a Sunday morning in, I don’t know, maybe 2012? 2013? I was driving to get a sausage biscuit and a Mocha Frappe from McDonald’s. I was stopped at a red on Marschall & Vierling when the song came on the radio. I was all, “hmm, this doesn’t sound right.” I thought it was someone covering The Jayhawks. I had no idea. I was shook to say the least.

11. Lights (From Sweet Relief vol. 1)

I would venture to guess if I made a Greatest Hits According to Me list for every artist on Sweet Relief: A Benefit for Victoria Williams, every single list would include thier song from that project. Pearl Jam & Crazy Mary? Yes. Soul Asylum & Summer of Drugs? Youbetcha. The Waterboys & Why Look at the Moon? Why do you even have to ask?

12. All the Right Reasons

13. Smile

It’s the line genuflect beneath the starry skies for me. Genuflect has been one of my favorite words since I first learned it in junior high. Any band with the audacity to toss it into a song gets that song automatically added to their Greatest Hits.

14. Angelyne

It’s pretty basic, but I like the snowflake/ache & winter/linger rhymes in this line, Snowflakes make your bones ache in the winter. Your face will not fade, it will just linger.

15. Two Angels

This one starts, I’d hope to find you this morning, talking to the trees.
My college roommate F.R. Chicken & I used to drive out to the edges of Eau Claire to visit her favorite tree. I had never heard of someone having a favorite tree before, but since then I’m always picking favorites. In fact, this is the time of the year where I actively flirt with trees and cat call them (in my head) as I drive by.

16. Will I See You in Heaven

See #6.

17. Miss Williams’ Guitar

18. Falling Star

19. A Break in the Clouds

Okay, I’m gonna stop with the jodisplaining because this is nearly one thousand words already.

Thought I was someone, turned out I was wrong,
Jodi

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