f4f3 | Music Meme

Tagged by

amelia_eve

:

[Unknown site tag]
1. List your top five favorite musical artists.
2. List your top five favorite songs from each artist.
3. Tag five people to do the same.

Elvis Costello
Tom Waits
Steve Earle
Lloyd Cole
Warren Zevon

Mr Costello has been with me since, um, about 78. That's 1978, pop pickers.

"Watching the Detectives" was like nothing I'd ever heard - bitter, lyrical, a Chandler short story set to music.
"Mystery Dance" is a 2 minute "b" side (ask yer dads) about sexual frustration brought on my exposure to pornography.
"Pills and Soap" was a protest song that didn't stop us getting another fucking Tory government.
"Shipbuilding" was a protest song that didn't stop us getting another fucking Tory government.
"Tramp the Dirt Down" was a protest song that didn't stop us getting another fucking Tory government. And also the most brilliant and bitter dissection of That Bloody Woman I've ever heard. I still agree with the sentiment.

Tom Waits

"Jockey full of Bourbon" was the first Waits track I heard, over the titles of "Down By Law"
"Blue Valentine" frankly pisses all over my second favourite Valentine's track, which is the Elvis Costello cover of "My Funny Valentine"
"Hold On" is possibly the finest love song I've ever heard.
"I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You" is possibly the finest love song I've ever heard
"Take It With Me When I Go" is what they can play at my funeral.
("Blind Love", "Shore Leave". "The Ghosts of Saturday Night" and another dozen tracks should be here too).

Steve Earle

Been with me from, oh, 88 or so. The "Hard Way" tour.
"Copperhead Road" introduced me to him
"The Other Kind" - "There are those that break and those that bend, I'm the other kind". 'Nuff said
"Sparkles and Shines" just plain lovely
"Fort Worth Blues" an elegy for a friend, one of the few I've heard from one man to another
"NYC" a passing of the torch song, and you don't get many of them in popular music, either.

Lloyd Cole

Was around Glasgow Uni in the early eighties, when I was there.
"Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken" a constant challenge and reminder
"Rattlesnakes" from when we were all too clever by half
"What He Doesn't Know" yeah, right.
"Everysong" - "Can't cry every song", always worth remembering
"Old Enough To Know Better", maybe I will be, one day

Warren Zevon

Uncle Warren. Flawed, hurting, proud. And funny as hell.
"Bill Lee" - "I always play to win, when it comes to skin and bone" words to live by.
"Poor, Poor Pitiful Me" - "I lay my head on the railroad tracks, waiting for the double-d. Railroad don't run no more, poor, poor pitiful me."
"Mr Bad Example" - never apologise, never explain.
"Back in the High Life Again" - my favourite cover, ever, and a warning I heed most days.
"I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" - because sometimes you need a rallying cry.

And I tag, hmm, unblinkered , psychochicken , pshtaku, littlescot1 (assuming he's reading) and deililly.