June's Top Songs of 2008, pt. II

Songs released in previous years, that influenced me or that I loved this year, in no order:

Jens Lekman - F-Word.m4a
buy Oh You're So Silent Jens
This song is half the reason I've been so lazy this year. An entire month of procrasturbating to this song should be more than enough.

Beck - Debra.mp3
buy Midnite Vultures
I didn't beleive this song was Beck at first either. This one is a rediscovery. I loved it when I first got it on a mixtape when it came out, and recently dug it up. Best line: "Lady, step inside my Hyundai!"

Howard Jones - No One Is To Blame.mp3
buy Dream into Action
Something I related to a little too well.

The Starlight Mints - Goldstar.m4a
buy Built on Squares
This song is "kooky like some girl from Mars" with spooky strings and creative percussion, but don't be put off by the voice that sounds like a dude doing a bad impersonation of a woman's voice--it's actually the guitarist's girl.

Sufjan Stevens - To Be Alone With You.m4a
buy Seven Swans
A classic that for me will never die. Perfection in simplicity, a highlight from one of my "top 10 desert island" albums.

The Opposites - Pillar of Salt.mp3
You can't buy anything by them, sorry: This is a friend's now-defunkt band from NJ circa 2003. Drunken spoken intros contrasting with a playful ending FTW!

DiskothiQ - Tulsa Imperative.mp3
buy The Wandering Jew
This was written by John Darnielle, but initially discarded. Peter Hughes picked it up for his solo project at the time, and since then, the Mountain Goats have occasionally performed it live.

Sia - Death by Chocolate.m4a
buy Some People Have Real Problems
Deeply soulful in two parts, with heavy hand of gospel as by an Australian (and produced by Beck)!

Depeche Mode - Blasphemous Rumours.mp3
buy Some Great Reward
A special song for the holiday season, for those of us who are still bitterly recovering from oppressively religious upbringings (though, ex-Mormon is the new ex-Catholic).

Rodrigo y Gabriela - Tamacun.mp3
buy Rodrigo y Gabriela
Spanish guitar flair. I'd love to see Gabriela and Kaki King battle it out, acoustic guitar style!!

the Mountain Goats - Mole.m4a
buy We Shall All Be Healed
For all those who came to see me up there in intensive care, with tubes coming into me and coming out of me, and for all those I visited, handcuffed to their beds.

Psychopharmacology & Rock n Roll

A hedonistic lifestyle practically prescribes sex and drugs, with rock n roll bringing up the rear. It seems these three activities combine well: Case in point, I Googled "psychopharmacology" and this image came up on the first page. Songs about sex seem almost as popular with rockers as having sex on drugs... while listening to rock. Anyway you slice it, the sinful trifecta of pleasure had been done.

But what of songs about drugs? Not nearly as many as about sex, and they have always tended to be more cloaked in mystery than in outright bragging joy. Out of curiosity I compiled a mix of songs when I noticed that so many particular drugs were mentioned by name--which seems to be a relatively recent development, far as song writing goes.

These are listed in chronological order. In general, there's clouded discussion starting in the late 1960's and 1970's to the well-known illicit substances at the time. With poetic metaphor, description and nicknames for the drugs of the era, acid (LSD), cocaine, marijuana and heroin were sung of in terms of various degrees of love/hate relationships. Should the topic of a song be called into question, it could all too easily be passed off as a cryptic tune about a lover.

As we progress into the 1980's, we see the appearance of those old standbys come out as more boldly spoken about, especially in the context of getting rehabilitated for addiction. "Angel dust" (PCP) peaked in popularity in the early 1980's so it should be no surprise that this song was written then (imminent to the group's disbandment).

In the 1990's, however, the drugs get more complex, as do the songs about them. Newer, "designer" drugs (Ketamine, Ecstasy) and commonly abused name-brand prescription drugs, most commonly painkillers, (Thorazine, Dilaudid) make their rise in music. The question is, is this a reflection of a rise in the use of said substances, or just a commentary on a culture that more openly tolerates discussions about it? (Perhaps, if you can answer this question, you deserve the Master's degree and not me.)

Finally, in most recent years we see a longing to return to the days when drugs were just the medicine in great-grandpappy's medicine kit. Morphine? Codeine? I'm waiting for a song about whiskey being used as a toothache cure before the year is out.

The Beatles - Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.mp3

The Velvet Underground - Heroin.mp3

Black Sabbath - Sweet Leaf.m4a

Peter Laughner - Amphetamines.mp3

The Ramones - Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue.mp3

Odyssey - Angel Dust.mp3

Nirvana - Lithium.mp3

Eels - Novocain for the Soul.mp3

Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire - Tea & Thorazine.m4a

The Magnetic Fields - Take Ecstasy With Me.mp3

Jolie Holland - Old Fashioned Morphine.mp3

Placebo - Special K (Timo Maas Remix).mp3

the Mountain Goats - Dilaudid.mp3

John Vanderslice - Tablespoon Of Codeine.mp3

Sia - The Girl You Lost To Cocaine.mp3

Finally, one for the namesake of this post:
Firewater - Psychopharmacology.mp3

You've got to Sia this

Add this to my "late to the party" file of artists I don't get on the bandwagon with until everyone else has already loved them. I recently discovered a bunch of songs by Australian songstress Sia off her 2007 album Some People Have Real Problems. I dug them hard, so I bought the album, and whoa! Vocal pyrotechnics aside, the tunes are sincere yet whimsical, earnest and engaging, all without being overdone on this piano-based pop powerhouse.

Sia - Academia.mp3
Sia - Death by Chocolate.mp3