Pictureless Sunday

Hello, end of weekenders.

No Picture Sunday, because I spent the weekend - well, yesterday I mowed the yard and sat around thinking about how much I hated mowing the yard, and today I spent a lot of time working on a new movie. And no, it's not done, it's barely even begun, but it's going to be one of those things I work on in fits and starts.

However, there is one unattended matter here in Betland. The 9th Great CD Mix Exchange.

The CDs went out last Monday, so I'd say everyone's had a chance to receive a CD from me. If not, spoilers lie ahead, so you may want to wait until you've listened to continue.

So let's get this show on the road.

1. The Shortest Song in Your Collection. "Song O The Insurance Man," Eric Idle and Neil Innes. Well. Not much debate on this category. Just go looking for time and your decision is made for you. This little snippet comes from an album from the late 70s by the above, a Monty Python member and the fellow who did a lot of their music. The whole album was set up like a radio broadcast, and this was, if I'm not mistaken, the closer on side one. "Way ho, and up your premium!"

2. Song That Contains a Color in the Title. "Band of Gold," Freda Payne. Ah, gold. It's a color, it's a precious metal. It's a great song. I could have actually used this for category 10, because it reminds me of a youthful summer spent in the sun at the local swimming pool.

3. Good Song From a Rotten Movie. "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," REM. Boy, did this category give me fits. Lots of bad songs from bad movies, lots of good songs from good movies. Good song/bad movie? Not so easy. I backed into this one by doing a search on imdb.com. It's from "Independence Day," which I paid to see in the theatre and dispised every single minute of it. And there were a lot of minutes.

4. A Song That Steals - Or Borrows, If You Prefer - From Another Song. "Licks Off of Records," Martin Mull. Another song from my youth that still makes me laugh. The "theft" comes from guitar riffs from famous rock songs. And I liked the idea of using a song that's actually about stealing licks off of records as my song that steals. I'm like that.

5. Song About a Character You Don't Like. "A Sunday in Salem," Gene Cotton. And yet another song from my youth! It's a little hokey, but this song about the McCarthy Era used to really get to me. You know, you're 18, you feel like you're listening to something meaningful. It pops up from time to time on my iPod on shuffle, and I thought it might be a nice way to go with the category.

6. Family Act - Song by Brothers, Sisters, Marrieds, Parents & Kids. "White Trash Wedding, " the Dixie Chicks. The Dixie Chicks contain a pair of sisters. I like some of their stuff, some I'll give a pass. But this rollicking number about, well, about a white trash wedding is just too much fun.

7. Song About Sex. "Honey Now," Gillian Welch. We've had this category before, and it was hard to find a song then, so this time around I was really searching. Stennie is right when she said that sex songs are either very hard to find, or if you think about it, every song is about sex. This one's a little more obvious.

8. Dept of Redundancy Dept - Song That Repeats Words in its Title. "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want," the Smiths. As Smiths songs go, this isn't one of my favorites, but it's the first one I thought of when I saw the category. I also feel like Morrissey sometimes when he sings, "For once in my life, let me get what I want, Lord knows it would be the first time."

9. Song About the Time of Day. "One For My Baby (And One For the Road)," Fred Astaire. I think of this as the quintessential time of day song. It's also a hell of a good song, and I like the version of Fred singing it because it's simple and sparse, and you can just see him leaning over a bar spilling his troubles.

10. A Song That "Takes You Back" to Another Time. "Wicked Game," Chris Isaak. I knew I wanted to pick a song that really put me in a specific place with this one, not just something that reminded me of school, or being young. My first trip to England, this song was very big and played on the radio a lot while we were driving around. And when I hear it now I'll always think of cold, cloudy London days, lots of traffic, gas furnaces, and the way the radio sounds in England.

11. Spoken Word - a Non-Song - a Film Clip, Comedy Bit, etc. "Buddy Blodgett," Bob and Ray. Yes, here it is, the sketch that made me a Bob and Ray fan, from high atop the Skyline Room of the historic old Frimmler Hotel, it's Lloyd Fletch and his All Male Orchestra. I still listen, I still laugh. "We'd like to invite your listeners to join us for music and dancing every weekday, but not on Saturday or Sunday, because those aren't weekdays."

12. An Alternate Version of a Song. Outtake, Live Version, Studio Demo, etc. Bonus Points if You Use the Alternate of a Song You've Used on a Previous Mix. "Alabama Shamrock," the Hackensaw Boys. Bonus points for me! The version on my CD is actually the original version of the song, from their very obscure first album. I didn't discover it until a year or two after the more popular, polished version that appears on their fourth album. I'll always love the polished version, but I don't know, I sort of have an affinity for this one because it's so raw.

13. SAT Vocab - Song That Contains a 2-Dollar Word. "Birds in Perspex," Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians. Such a lovely song, too. I've always loved the single line, "Calliopies and xylophones play backwards in a broken stream." Yep, I think that's a good description of love.

14. Epic! Song That Would Make a Great Movie. "Tennessee Stud," Doc and Merle Watson. This was, hands down, my favorite category this time around. I had several songs that I thought would make good movies, but I kept coming back to this tale of a man who travels the country on his beloved horse and everything that happens on the way. And I thought, "My, my, what a great old Disney Saturday afternoon matinee western this would have been."

15. Song that uses gibberish or nonsense. "Hoodoo Voodoo," Wilco. From the "Mermaid Avenue" album they did with Billy Bragg. There were a lot of novelty songs with nonsense lyrics, but I already had this one in my collection. "Hoodoo Voodoo, chucky chooky choo choo?" Yeah, that works.

16. A Song About First Love. "Girl Downtown," Hayes Carll. I just discovered this song lately, from my friend Seth's radio show, and thought it was so sweet, I had to use it as my first love song.

17. Kickass Cover Song. "Hey Joe," Jerry Douglas. Ahh, our old friend, the kickass cover. It's on every mix. I'm having more and more trouble coming up with kickass covers. And yet, I discovered this one completely by mistake. I've had this Jerry Douglas CD for years, and forgot all about the bitchin' cover of the old Hendrix song featuring Douglas on dobro, Sam Bush on mandolin, and Tim O'Brien on vocals. Disproving the notion that bluegrass instruments can only play bluegrass music.

18. Song You Wish You'd Have Sung Backup On. "You Belong to Me," the Bobbettes. On the other hand, this song I discovered from a cookie commercial. Doesn't make it any less fun, though, but, hey, cookies are fun too. I used this in my "Kitchen Dance" movie, and I'm still singing "zoom doddy baby," so I added it to the mix. And I must say, I've loved other people's choices for this category.

19. Amnesty Song - Song You Wanted To Use Above, But Didn't Get a Chance. "The Elements Song," Tom Lehrer. I didn't want to show off my knowledge of big SAT Vocab words above, but for amnesty song, I decided to let it all rip, and use this song that contains nothing but the elements from the periodic table, sung to a Gilbert & Sullivan melody. Too fun, and one day I'll learn the words.

20. The Greatest Song Ever Written, Period. "God's Comic," Elvis Costello. Boy, talk about playing with your mind. When I saw the category, this song is the first thing that popped into my head. Then I started thinking. "Wait, do you go with something like this, or some renowned classical piece? You know, 1812 Overture or Foggy Mountain Breakdown?" There were too many variables. The first thing I decided was that most of the classical classics (Dept of Redundancy Dept) were out because they didn't have lyrics. The greatest song ever written has to have lyrics. Then I decided it would be "God's Comic," then I thought, "Wait again! What about all those old standards from the 40s?" But I kept coming back to Elvis, because of the story he tells (about a man who dies and heads off to meet God), the way he tells it (the man meets a very weary God), and all the great one-off lines and references. Add the spooky vocals and jazzy music, and you've got the song I always try to force people to listen to as my explanation why Elvis Costello is a genius. So there.

And that's it. On to CD Mix 10, which will be the last one. And I say hurrah.