3 Songs on Shuffle and more (Click here for Vivian Girls Video! Yay!)

I'm working on reinventing this blog. For no good reason other than I like music and writing and like writing about music probably more than any other type of writing. So I want to have regular features, rather than just random occasional rants. Maybe I'll keep doing the random occasional rants too, but I found myself ranting less and less, so time would go by and suddenly it's been nearly 4 months since I wrote an entry. So for today, I'm doing a "3 songs on shuffle" experiment. Fire up the 'ol iTunes library and let it shuffle to 3 songs and see what happens. I like seeing if songs link to each other in any peculiar way. I also just like the discovery process of listening to my library on shuffle. I have a whole lot on here that I've never heard or haven't heard much, so I wanted to mostly do a stream of consciousness approach to writing about it--attempt to capture the moment of listening to music. And then maybe go back and add on some further impressions. So here is todays "3 Songs on Shuffle". Sometime soon, I'll have a new feature as well. Would like to reprise the podcast very soon as well. If you are reading this, PLEASE, let me know and spread the word if you like what you read. I have an ego that needs to be inflated!!

You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As Your Told)--The White Stripes
The infectious hooks of the White Stripes open up this song which is in the vein of the classic type of "I'm gonna tell it like it is because I don't really care anymore" song. There's a few good ones in this vein. Dylan's "Positively 4th Street" possibly being the best. This one is pretty good, though. A couple of really good lines here, the title itself being one, the opening line being another (In some respects I suspect you've got a respectable side), and a line in the chorus as well (Just as a child of ten might act but you're far too old). I like a good "tell it like it is" song. And everyone knows the type of person who can't tell the difference between infatuation and love, who goes along with whatever the other person says, just because they say it and are supposedly in love with that person. Usually pretty unhealthy stuff happens here. One person dominates and manipulates, why the other is blindly pulled around in the name of "love". Good one Jack White! Love the typical Jack White high register guitar solo at the end of this White Stripes classic!

Don't Ya Tell Henry--Bob Dylan and the Band
Levon Helm of The Band takes vocals on this up tempo shuffle off of the classic, "The Basement Tapes". I definitely hear a little New Orleans influence on here. I could listen to The Band all the time. They had the unique ability to draw upon almost every type of American popular music of the last century and meld it into something fresh and alive. And to me, much of it sounds fresh and alive forty years plus after the fact. I'm not too familiar with the song, but there's nothing on "The Basement Tapes" I don't like. So big ups to this one as well. Why isn't music like this made anymore? Maybe it is and the landscape is just too crowded with crap to realize it. I don't really know. Oh and a connection to the previous song: Jack White was frequently playing with Dylan there for awhile, I think it was last summer, during Dylan concerts. There's a couple of weird dudes, but man, they both can play some music!

Where Do You Run To--Vivian Girls
I don't know a whole lot about Vivian Girls, which is one of the fun parts about listening to music on shuffle. I do know they are on Chicago's Bloodshot Records label, which is a plus for me already, as I love a lot of what Bloodshot puts out and also Bloodshot has some of the best SXSW parties. Back to the song. Pretty good. Kind of your basic straight ahead rock song. I don't know how to describe the beat other than kind of '60s pop rockisk (think "That Thing You Do!" and you've got it). The verses are hard to understand and but the chorus, which repeats the title of the song is clear and it's cool how they build upon it with harmonies. Vocals kind of seem Veruca Salt-ish (If you try to sing "Seether" with the opening strains of this song, it actually works pretty well...pretty sure it's in the same key) or Ravonettes-ish. Emotionless in a way, at least until the chorus, which it should be apparent, is my favorite part of this one. I think this might be a little bit of an accusatory song as well. "Where do you run to baby, why do you leave me all alone?" Maybe in a similar family to the White Stripes song. Not exactly siblings, but possibly cousins. They're both kind of angry, but this one actually asks for an answer rather than just ranting at someone. Although, I think maybe it's a rhetorical question. Either way, good dance-able pop rock. Would have fit right in on the "Pulp Fiction" soundtrack.

I included a link to a fun little Vivian Girls vid for ya too. Click on the title of the post. I'm not tech savvy so I didn't know how to embed it on here. But still...Enjoy!