The 7th Great CD Mix Exchange Track List

Hello, loves.

Things seem to be amazingly normal at the Poderosa. My mom, aka Granny, is out of the hospital, but having to do outpatient IV treatments of her antibiotic. The Great Water Debacle of 08 seems to have ended, with my old friend Barbara at the water office telling me my meter doesn't seem to be running when I'm not home, and my water usage is way down since the plumbers came.

So now I'm back to busying myself with laundry catch-up, cleaning, practicing the clarinet, and worrying about my next recipe du jour and if I can come up with an idea for another Comfy Chair movie. And putting CDs into envelopes and mailing them 'round the country.

Because it's Mix Exchange Time!

Yep, that thing we do, we Mix Exchange Fanatics. For those unfamiliar, Mix Mistress Stennie announces an exchange every several months. She comes up with a list of song categories, and those who want to participate sign up, make up their own CDs using their particular songs matching those categories, and send them to the other participants. If 10 people sign up, you make 10 CDs, keep one for yourself, send nine out, and everyone else does the same, and in no time nine CDs will be in your mailbox containing some very interesting music, much of which you'll have never heard before. It's a great way to hear new music, and to get an insight into how the other mixers think.

Some people include the titles to their songs along with the CD; others don't. Those who don't wait until the CDs have had a chance to wing their ways across America, then print the titles in their blogs. And I'm in that camp, so it's time for the official song list to "007: Licensed To Mix," the Mix Exchange title that I apparently came up with some months ago, but I swear I don't remember doing it.

007: Licensed To Mix

1. Kickass cover song - with a twist. It must be a cover of a song someone else used in one of the six previous CD Mix Exchanges. "Not Like Everybody Else," Camper Van Beethoven. Probably my favorite song from anyone on the last exchange was Mike's "B-Side" entry, by the Kinks. I went searching on iTunes to see if it had been covered, and was quite surprised at the number of times it had. You can't go wrong with Camper Van Beethoven, although nothing will beat the original.

2. A song that gives you goose bumps. "Mercy Seat," Nick Cave. I had a couple of entries sketched out for this, songs so beautiful or that had such strange chords that the little bumps made an appearance on my skin. In the end, I went a different way. This produces goose bumps of the creepy kind. "Mercy Seat" is a song, sung in the first person, about a man getting ready to go to the electric chair. The droning guitar and endless repeating of the chorus, along with the lyrics, which contain a hefty amount of Jesus on the cross imagery - well, I don't suggest you listen to it alone in the dark at 4 am. Which is, oddly enough, exactly how I heard it the first time.

3. Song about the state where you live. "Carrie Brown," Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band. Living where I do, about 90 minutes east of Bristol, VA, I think this song has one of the brilliant lyrics of all time. It's a sad tale of lost love - and murder, I mean, it's a bluegrass song, after all - about a mountain boy, on his first trip to town, who falls in love with Carrie Brown. She's in Bristol town. See, Bristol is a border town. There's Bristol, VA and Bristol, TN, and the state line between the two runs right down the middle of the main street in town, State Street. When I was in high school band, we marched a parade on State Street every year. If one was lucky enough to be in the middle of a row (I never was), one could actually march the parade with one foot in Virginia and one foot in Tennessee. So the kicker line to the song, when our narrator can take it no more after seeing Carrie Brown walking on the arm of her boyfriend Billy Wise, is, "I shot him in Virginia and he died in Tennessee." Apparently poor Billy Wise fell backwards.

4. Parentheses! Song with a parenthetical title. "(C'est La Vie) You Never Can Tell," Emmylou Harris. When I decided on this one for my final mix, I realized it's rockin', but it's country rockin'. Since it came right after a bluegrass song, I went to my CD collection and found the original by Chuck Berry. It's simply called "You Never Can Tell," with no parentheses. So I went back to Emmylou's version, and I hope I didn't cheat.

5. Therefore I am: A song about thinking. "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby," Marvin Gaye. There's really not too much to say about this other than what I said on the CD insert. For my money, one of the greatest records of all time. I've loved it since I was a kid, and Marvin Gaye has a voice like warm cream, silk, sunshine, and chocolate, all wrapped together and tied with a bow.

6. Alliteration! Song with alliteration in the title. "Flip, Flop, and Fly," Jools Holland. I looked all over the place for an alliteration song with more than two words in it. There are two-word alliteration songs galore, but I wanted more! I wanted at least three! After finding "The Poor People of Paris" (instrumental), "Flat Foot Floogee" (not a good version), and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" (which I'm sure has been used before), I found this one in my album collection. I used it, and only this very day was wandering through my iTunes - where I happened upon AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap." Proving that I am not perfect.

7. Favorite song from the year you were born. "Shimmy Shimmy Ko Ko Bop," Little Anthony and the Imperials. Hey, I was born a long time ago. I didn't have long, flowing lists of great rock songs from my year. There were a few, most of which I'd unknowingly used in previous mixes. When I saw this on a "Playlists of 1960" website, I picked it immediately, because it always reminds me of that little scene in "Big" where the two kids are walking home singing, and the line "Shimmy Shimmy Ko Ko Bop" makes an appearance. Oddly enough, know what else is a song from 1960? "The Hucklebuck!" But podcast listeners have heard that one way too much already.

8. Song about an animal. "Quinto," Alan Arkin. Psych! I know everyone who participated in this mix was expecting Mr Alan Arkin to show up in the next category. I had other plans there, so I needed to fit Mr A into another slot. This is a very sweet song about a boy and his pony. I had a bunch of other animal songs, but most of them just had animals in the title. The category was about an animal. Only two songs were specifically about animals, and Mr Arkin won.

9. Song performed by a non-traditional musician. "Highly Illogical," Leonard Nimoy. When I first read this category in the exchange, I knew I wanted to try and find this song. When we were kids, my cousin Jacob had the album "The Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy." Apparently one side was Spock singing and one side was Leonard singing. We used to think this song was the funniest thing in the world. It's amazing how easy it was to find. It's not nearly so funny now, but still kind of a giggle, mainly because it's so dated.

10. Grammatically Incorrect - song with bad grammar in its title. "Ain't Got No Home," the Band. Many years ago, in my "Vinyl Fetish" blog, I told of how when I was young, Moore's potato chips used to include a 45 single as a prize with every double bag. Normally they were pretty lame, bargain basement fare, stuff you'd never heard of or wished you never had, but one fine day, the prize in my potato chips was this single. I loved it, and still do. I like it way better than the original.

11. Song with your favorite guitar or instrumental solo. "I Fought The Law," the Clash. I'm not much on guitar solos, but I love this one. The way the two guitars swirl around each other is fun. I'd gotten the song list for this exchange set and later, driving home from the grocery, I had a panicked thought - "I've used this before!" I went back and checked all my previous CD lists, and it wasn't there, but I swear I thought I remembered writing this line about this song - "When the Clash sings this song, you have a feeling they mean it." So I'll write it now. In fact, I just did.

12. War - ugh! - what is it good for? Song about war. (Good God, yall.) "Polly on the Shore," Robyn Hitchcock. Not much to say here. I like it because it's simple, it's beautiful, and it shows how the anti-war song has been around during just about every war there was.

13. Song about sex. "Men Who Love Women Who Love Men," Steve Goodman. I knew I couldn't put some overtly sexual ditty on my mix without a red face, so I went milder. Well, the language is milder, but I think there are very few orientations left out of this one. Boy, I miss Steve Goodman. Man was a golden nugget songwriting machine.

14. Song about drugs. "Candyman," Donovan. Well, here it is. I've blogged about this song twice that I know of. It's the song I fell in love with when I was about six years old when my dad brought home Donovan's "Fairytale" album. I thought it was about a man who sold candy! Boy, did I want to meet the candyman. It also features my first mis-heard lyric. "The candyman, he's Morocco-bound." I thought it was "he's my rock o' bound." You know, like my Rock o' Gibraltar. Hey, I was six. And how can you not like a song with the old refrain, "Run fetch a pitcher get the baby some beer?"

15. Song about rock and roll. "I Knew The Bride When She Used to Rock and Roll," Nick Lowe. And to be honest, there are parentheses somewhere in that title, but I'm not sure where they go. I picked this one because it's the same song as "You Never Can Tell." I mean, I think it's supposed to be, but you can almost sing one on top of the other. And for some reason, I really, really like that.

16. Why so sad? Song about the blues, a broken heart, crying, etc. "Sales Tax Blues," the Mississippi Sheiks. I must admit, I first heard this song by the Hackensaw Boys. It used to be a staple, when, at the end of their concerts, they go out into the audience and sing songs without microphones or lights, but with a lot of happy dancing people circled around them. Sadly, they haven't done it the last few times I've seen them. I went one night looking for the original, and found it. Complete with narration. And people? These guys are sad.

17. Bonus or hidden track from a CD. "Jump Up," Elvis Costello. This was a bonus track from "My Aim is True" on the Rykodisc box set. I knew I would use Elvis for this track, because the man has so many bonus songs strewn around CDs it's hard to keep up with them all. I hadn't heard this one in years, and when listening last week, had a newfound appreciation for it.

18. Perchance to dream: song about dreaming. "Dream," Forest for the Trees. Yes, it's a guilty pleasure. And I like it for the reasons most other people think it's a cheesy piece of tripe. Let's see, inventory: rain? check. bagpipes? check. baby? check. electronic cow? check. running stream? check. sitar? check. alarm clock? check. Somewhere in there, I'm sure someone's playing a kitchen sink.

19. Song with the same title as a famous book or movie. "Lust for Life," Iggy Pop. If this is based on the epic film about Van Gogh, I've certainly missed something. I had a hard time coming up with one for this category, only had two choices. I picked this one because, dammit, I don't care if it was used in a cruise line commercial or not, I like it!

20. Amnesty song - song you wanted to use for one of the above categories but didn't have room. "Poor Thing," the Hackensaw Boys. Boy, just under the wire. For a time, I thought I was going to have a Hackensaw-less mix. I knew I wouldn't let that happen, and realized that this song, the one Hackensaw Boys song guaranteed to make Mr M smile, was an alternate for the "why so sad?" track.

And another CD Mix Exchange is in the can. When the next comes up, I'll bitch and moan, but I'll be the first to sign up. Of course.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Sorry, after that, I'm just typed out.