Life Changers, May Day Edition

Spring, and music are in the air.
Which means memories of glory days, and songs about love lost, misplaced, or unrequited.

Springtime always takes me back to high school (cue the Bryan Adams or Springsteen guitar sentimentality in the background here...). One of my all-time best Springs ever occurred during my Junior year of high school. My black sheep uncle had a gig as the beverage manager at a northwest suburban hotel. I won't name the hotel other than to say it's close to a racetrack. And we're not talking NASCAR here, more like the sport of kings. Anyway, the hotel hosted the Miss Teen Illinois pageant, which for a young kid with unsupervised access to liquor is pretty much like dying and going to heaven. The pageant had a glossy black and white brochure of the contestants, which the 30 year old Vietnamese barback and I treated like a mail order bride catalog. We spent the week prior to the pageant debating whether Miss Algonquin, a Barbara Mandrell lookalike, or Miss Round Lake Beach, a brunette beauty, was the hottest teen in the state. Long story short, in person, Algonquin took the cake, and without sounding like too much of a braggart, let's just say I made her acquaintance.

Anyway, the soundtrack of those days featured Bowie's DAY IN, DAY OUT album, Gene Loves Jezebel, New Order, plenty of Depeche, the the, and the Police, but the most-played album of the day was a little record from England called THE QUEEN IS DEAD. The whole thing is a classic, but two tracks stand out at this time of year...

THE SMITHS - I KNOW IT'S OVER and THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT
angst sounds so good with round, full bass and jangly guitars. Perfect springtime evening songs. Moping is so much more fun at high volume.

heard a great version of a summer classic the other day...
THE PARAGONS - THE TIDE IS HIGH
i never realized Debbie Harry didn't write this song. Bust out the limbo pole and a cold daiquiri.

ANNA NALICK - THE WRECK OF THE DAY and SATELLITE
chicks with guitars just slay me. I think I heard they used WRECK on Grey's Anatomy recently, which almost took it off my iPod, but it's a solid tune. Anna writes great lyrics like...
"love might be just like me / jaded, waiting, all alone / you never know never never"

or this little gem...

"cuz love doesn't hurt so I know I'm not falling in love. I'm just falling to pieces...Maybe I'm not up for being a victim of love / All my resistance will never be distance enough"

Love hurts. But the pain sounds great after a couple of glasses of good Bordeaux.

PRINCE -TE AMO CORAZON
gotta hand it to the little purple guy. The new album sounds like his best effort since SIGN O' THE TIMES. Good stuff, even though it makes me feel old to hear a barista say to another barista "you should check out his old stuff like Diamonds and Pearls". Grrr. The OLD stuff is I WANNA BE YOUR LOVER. But then again, that was back when the Beatles were still together, wasn't it?

speaking of SIGN O THE TIMES
PRINCE - THE BALLAD OF DOROTHY PARKER and FOREVER IN MY LIFE
fruit cocktail has never sounded so sexy. and the guitar at the end of the second track will make you long for more...listen to these songs with someone else. Someone sitting very, very close.