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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Hi Darling Ones,

I’ve been thinking about The Jayhawks a lot lately for reasons that will become clear at some point in the new future. Just to be clear, I’m talking the rock & roll kind, not the Kansas kind.

Other things on my mind include: brussels sprouts, how much I hated the John Cougar Mellencamp biography (more on that later too), extra sharp cheddar cheese, my randomly sore throat, the fact that Wendell figured out how to get into the drawer where I hide his pipe cleaner friends, sex, and what kind of soup I should make this week.

My brain is full of it.

I thought a ton of things about and around The Jayhawks today. I made notes so I wouldn’t forget. One of the things I thought about was seeing them along with Matthew Sweet and Soul Asylum at Midway Stadium on August 17, 1995. I know it was that night, and not the 16th, because of the “Rhiannon” cover.

My friend Anderla and I drove two hours from Eau Claire to St. Paul to attend this concert. We stopped at the McDonald’s in Hudson on the way because every human being who has ever made the trek from Eau Claire to the Twin Cities in the 90s was required by law to stop at the McDonald’s in Hudson. While there we ran into a bunch of the Cross Country boys who were headed to the same concert.

Since this concert was twenty-six years ago, I don’t remember most of the details. I remember smoking cigarettes on the way home while singing along to Joan Osborne’s “One of Us” and “Rhiannon.”

I lost my shit when Soul Asylum busted into the Fleetwood Mac song. In my memory none of my twenty-something pals were that familiar with the song, but I knew every word. We were pretty close to the stage, if I remember correctly, which was not a thing I did often because people get very angry at very tall people in front of them at concerts. There I was dancing and singing along to “Rhiannon” with my whole chest. I remember Casey, one of the Cross Country boys, leaning toward me and shouting into my ear, “Sing it, Chromes!” He smiled at me and nodded his head in approval.

And I fucking did. It was a glorious moment where I temporarily dropped all my inhibitions, where I danced even though I knew he was watching. Oh, to be twenty-three again.

I’m like a cat in the dark and then I am the darkness,
Jodi

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Hi Darling Ones,

You in the mood for a list? If not, I’ll talk to you later. If you are, it’s your lucky day!

• Multi Grain Cheerios. It seems as though I have finally forgiven General Mills for discontinuing my beloved Peanut Butter Cheerios.* I’m chowing down like a box of week of these suckers. They’re my go to for any meal I’m too lazy to prepare or just as a snack. I don’t like to run out of them even though there are perfectly good, unopened boxes of Trix and Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch sitting on my shelf.
• The Jayhawks. Specifically 2003’s “Rainy Day Music.” I’ve listened to “Save it for a Rainy Day” seventeen times in the past four or five days. This means my neighbors have had to hear my a cappella version seventeen times because it’s open window weather and I sing along while wearing my best yellow cans.
• Red Hobnail Glass. I’m specifically obsessed with finding the candy dishes my Grandma Chromey kept full of M&Ms on her coffee table when I was a kid. When my Cousin Cathy (as opposed to my Aunt Cathy on the other side of the family) was here last week she confirmed that the candy dish from my memory was the candy dish. Now I have to find it for a reasonable price (that last one on eBay went for $101). This is the key to winning the Sisterclub Game this year. That is if we get to have Christmas this year.
• Glass in general. I love glass things. I’m the Queen of Cans & Jars. I love vintage candy dishes and gravy boats. I love vases and oddly shaped bowls. My dining room light fixture is made up of a bunch of glass balls. I’m ridiculous.
• Navy Bean Soup. It’s still too warm to make a crock full of hammy delicious navy bean soup, but I really want to. When I’m not looking at glass junk I could buy (but don’t) I’m reading recipes for navy bean soup. Soon my love, soon.
• Bombas socks. Why are they so expensive? How great do your feet feel in socks that cost between $11-$16 a pair? A PAIR! Admittedly, my nether regions are clad in stupid expensive underpants that my ass loves with both its cheeks. But that region brings me a lot of pleasure and after four decades of cheap underpants it has earned some luxury My feet though? They are ugly and hobbitty and refuse to soften no matter how many potions or graters I apply to them. Will fancy socks soften those bastards? Will I walk better or stand straighter? What is the deal?
• This video of Steve from “Blues Clues”. It makes me bawl my face off because it reminds of Jaycie as a toddler who was obsessed with Blue. I watched a lot of “Blues Clues” when she was a little.
• A compliment the aforementioned Cousin Cathy gave me. Last week she came for dinner. It was her first time visiting Supergenius HQ. When we were talking about the candy dish she said, “I just love the way you’ve decorated.” She went on to talk about how she and our entire family were Home Interiors, matching furniture set from the store decorators and she was impressed that I was not. She looked around my place, nodding her head, “This is really cool.” That made me feel good.

What are you obsessed with, Darling Ones? I could always go for new things.
Jodi

 
*Wanna know what the worst part of aging is? The part nobody tells you about? That some day they will just stop making all the stuff you love. It sucks and when I fall in love with a snack or beverage or lotion I want to buy it all and hoard it like Scrooge McDuck because I know it’s like a hot minute before they stop making it (or even worse, change the recipe and make it grody). #RIPDietCokeWithLime #RIPPeanutButterCheerios #RIPThatOneOrangeDietCokeThatTastedLikeBabyAspirins

The post Current Obsessions: A List appeared first on I Will Dare.

For the Spring Member Drive, The Current has been counting down the Top 893 songs of the 2000s (as voted on by Current listeners). It is, of course, brilliant. I love when they do this kind of special programming. For me this particular countdown is equal parts a reminder of how much I love The Current and how it’s introduced me to so much music I love + ugh, this is why I have fallen out of sync with The Current (which I blame more on my falling out of sync with a lot of indie rock).

Just a few songs ago they played “Save it for a Rainy Day” by The Jayhawks.

As soon as I heard the opening chords I was picked up off the couch and instantly transplanted into my shitty apartment in Prior Lake, with the desk that housed my computer in the dining room filled with papers, pens, and cigarette butts. I was lonely, sad, and sad about another shitty, unworthy man who had toyed with my heart and filled me with lies. I can almost smell that apartment, and feel my fingers on the keyboard to that desktop computer.

A cursory search shows that I’ve used lyrics from this song for at least five posts in 2003 alone. The album, and this song in particular were huge for me.

Dang! I was expecting to time travel today, but it’s kinda nice to see how far I’ve come from that lonely woman (I was gonna call myself a lonely girl, but I was already 30 in 2003 and now I feel so old, so very, very old).

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I have been singing along to The Jayhawks’ “Blue” for going on 24 years now. I don’t know who introduced them to me, they just seem to have been always around.

It is only this week, when the only thing my ears want are all the songs on “Tomorrow the Green Grass,” that I realize I have no clue what this song is about.

Watching the video does not help matters in the least.

What is with the ladies and the big bucket of antifreeze? I don’t get it and it makes my head hurt if I scrutinize it too much.

Kind of like this beautiful song that I’ve been singing for nearly half my life and am really unsure what it even means. Why do you want someone who makes you blue to stay for awhile? What does showing the door have to do with the person coming back on their own?

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

Regardless, some of the words are lovely, especially the verse that starts with the line I pictured above. And at about 2:10 when they start singing like a round (I don’t know the proper terminology for this), I could just die from the beauty.

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