Goodbye, Cruel Mix - CD Mix Exchange Track Listing

Well, hello, music lovers! Remember all those blogs I've done in the past with track listings for the Great CD Mix Exchanges I've participated in? We just completed CD Mix #10, and it's the final one. Stennie, Mix Mistress, decided to stop at 10. It's a nice round number. She's offered the hosting duties to anyone else who wants to take it over, but no one has taken her up on it. I don't blame them. Mix Mistress is a cruel job.

Anyway, CDs went out in the mail Monday, so if you're participating and you haven't received my CD yet, you may want to wait till you've listened to continue ahead. If you have received, or didn't participate and find the idea interesting, please, by all means, read on.

By the way, Mix #10 was a do-over, using all categories that have been used in previous mixes.

1. Song with the same title as #20. (This is two completely different songs with the same title.) "Cannonball," The Breeders. I had a couple of choices for this couplet of songs, but I narrowed it down quickly because I had a very special wish for the CD (you'll read about that later). I thought I was going to have to use a song I'd used before to make that dream come true. Then! I just did a search of song titles and found this one. "Hey! I remember that song - I liked that song! Holy crap - I have that song!" And so it was cemented. If I may say myself, it's a good way to open up a CD Mix, too.

2. Epic - song that could be a movie. "Bottomless Lake," John Prine. I had so much fun with this category last time I had all kinds of songs left over. But what to use? I had two John Prine songs in line, but for some reason I can just see this story in front of me, this story of a family traveling happily along on vacation when their car slides into a bottomless lake. It's not nearly as gruesome as it sounds. Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

3. Song you would use to tell someone you love them. "Diamond Edge," Faith Gibson. Oh, the story behind #3. I had a song I desperately wanted to use, and so I requested to Stennie to please add this category, and she kindly did. And so I put that song in this slot and was happy. Until I realized that song also fit another of her categories! Happy day, I got to move it (sorry, Stennie, I know you hate this category) and use this song here. Which actually is more fitting for me. It's a perfect warning to anyone who might be deciding to fall in love with me. But as I said on my CD sleeve, he'd understand perfectly, and we'd live semi-happily ever after.

4. Kickass cover song. "Creep," Richard Cheese. Ahhh, kickass cover. It's been on every single CD Mix. It's like our little brother going away to college. We'll miss it. I heard this song over the weekend in my friend Russell's car. It made me laugh, a loungey, Frank Sinatraesque take on the mopey Radiohead classic, then I pretty much forgot about it. Till the night before the Mix Mailout, then I realized I couldn't resist.

5. Title track - song that's the title track from an album. "Song Up in Her Head," Sarah Jarosz. I'm just discovering Sarah Jarosz, my friend Seth plays her occasionally on his radio program. She's an incredibly talented young lady, and I really wanted to use something by her on the Mix. Lo and behold, my favorite of hers just happens to be the title track! (And my second favorite was a cover, so I was pretty well OK in the Sarah Jarosz dept.)

6. Song with a parenthetical title. "I Like You (Because You Don't Make Me Nervous)," Alan Arkin. Yep, this is it. Lord have mercy, the story of this song. I've had this obscure single for some time, but at the time of the first Mix (which had that "tell someone you love them" category), I didn't have the capacity to turn vinyl into mp3. When I did, I could not seem to fit it into any category on the Mix. I kept saving it for the perfect moment, and that moment never seemed to come. So I asked Stennie (again, Stennie, terribly sorry) to include the "tell someone you love them" category again. Well, at least I got to use it. My fandom of Mr Arkin aside, I adore this song. It's just perfect. "You'll do - my blood pressure's normal." Hey, even Mr M loves this song. It's universal!

7. Instrumental song. "Fiddle Faddle," Trio de Clarone. Now, what better instrumental to include for the final Mix than one chockfull of clarinets? "Fiddle Faddle" is the old Leroy Anderson chestnut, but give it to a bunch of clarinet players accompanied by a cheesy organ, and you have a novelty tune for the ages.

8. A holiday song. "Union Maid," Old Crow Medicine Show. I only had one thing in mind for this category - not to use a Christmas song. I did that last time. Thing is, I was having trouble coming up with a non-Christmas holiday song. Then I heard this one in the car one night, and Labor Day had just passed, and I realized this is the Labor Day Anthem. It's a hopped-up version of the old Woody Guthrie worker's classic.

9. Song whose title has alliteration. "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap," AC/DC. Well, as I said on the CD sleeve, this is the most alliteration I own. The last time this category appeared on the Mix, I remembered the song about 8 hours after I'd mailed my CDs out. So when it appeared this time, there was no question. Interesting aside: The Sauerkraut Band gig I played last weekend, there was a cover band who did this. It was interesting for the crowd, I'm sure, watching the band rock out to this all while seeing the SKB at the side of the stage, in dirndls and lederhosen, singing along and rocking out too.

10. Spell it out - song that spells. "I Stand Accused," Elvis Costello. I'm not sure anything will beat Mike's "Q-U-A-R-A-N-T-I-N-E" from last time, so I was starting with a handicap. Last time I used "Ragg Mopp," and I flirted with using its parody song by Allen Sherman, "Ratt Fink," but I've been listening to "Get Happy" a bit lately and used this one with its short blast of spelling at the end. Speaking of short blasts, I love this song. Two minutes of soul stomping, with Elvis throwing in every corny legal phrase he can.

11. Song with the same title as a famous book or movie. "Billy Budd," Morrissey. Ahhh, Morrissey. Mr Mope. I am an unabashed, unapologetic Smiths fan, and I like a lot less of his solo stuff, but I'm fond of this one because the guitar reminds me of the old Johnny Marr Smiths days. Nice to know Morrissey would happily lose both his legs in this one. Some years before he would be happy to have a double decker bus crash into he and his significant other.

12. Song about food. "Carve That Possum," Southern Culture on the Skids. I'm sure there are many food songs out there, I mean, everyone else has one on their CDs, but I had to once again turn to SCOTS for mine. Let's see, "Banana Puddin'," "Eight Piece Box," "Fried Chicken and Gasoline," "Too Much Pork For Just One Fork," and the ode to Captain's Wafers and Little Debbie cakes, "Camel Walk." This one was just weird enough, though, to be my pick. I actually shortened it a bit, this song goes on for-fucking-ever. They love them some possum.

13. Fashion police - song about an article of clothing. "The Dressing Song," Michael Feinstein. This is a song I've used before, but I figured on the last Mix, let's go all out. No clothing song beats this little ditty from the movie "The 5000 Fingers of Dr T" that's practically obscene in its love for clothes. In fact, I think when I used it before, it was for "deadly sins," and I picked it as "lust." Every other song I had in mind I found myself saying, "No, this isn't anywhere near as good as 'The Dressing Song.'" Anyway, there might have been some Mixers who missed it the first time around.

14. Spoken word recording. "Tormenting Alan Arkin," Kevin Pollack. Actor/comedian Kevin Pollack does a great impression of Mr Arkin. After listening to this, I hope he never learns to do one of me.

15. Song with a one-word title. "Pepper," The Butthole Surfers. The first time I ever heard these guys I was in a car with my sister listening to college radio. "Lady Sniff" came on the air and we almost ran off the road from laughing. ("Woman! Bring me my bacon!") I had forgotten all about this song until the last Mix, when I toyed with using it as my "song that would make a good movie." I toyed with it again, and realized it was a one-word title. And so here it is.

16. Human anatomy 101 - song about a body part. "Genitalia of a Fool," Glenn Tilbrook. Well, my last anatomy song was "Boobs a Lot," so why not keep with a theme? This poor guy, who thought he would find love by getting naked, but found something altogether different.

17. Song about a family member. "My Old Man," the Bad Livers. I pretty much had another song cemented here from the beginning, but then I started to think. You know, I think a lot. It's not necessarily a good thing. What I started to think is that as much as I wanted to use it, it's not necessarily about a family member. It's about being related. So I looked some more and remembered this song. I like it - he loves his dad, but doesn't use flowery odes to tell us that.

18. Song you like by an artist you can't stand. "Forever," Chris Brown. Last time this category appeared, it was a piece of cake. I used the only Doors song I like. That used, I had nothing else to work with. Until I thought about this song, which is used in the You Tube video everyone's now seen. (In case you haven't, please go here and prepare to be filled with happiness.) I don't really know anything else by Chris Brown, but the category is simply "can't stand," and I figure anyone who'll beat up his girlfriend, act all sorry about it, then go out on the town surrounded by scantily clad women would probably be someone I can't stand. So there.

19. Amnesty song - something you wanted to use but couldn't fit it in. "She Left Me For Jesus," Hayes Carll. I really wanted to stick this song somewhere before the Mix ended, because it cracks me up and I wanted everyone else to hear it. It didn't fit anywhere this time or last, but I figure this is a "song I wouldn't want to listen to in front of Mom" and a "song whose character I don't like." Was there a category for "really pretty offensive song?" It would fit that too.

20. Song with the same title as #1. "Cannonball," The Hackensaw Boys. Yes, it was my fondest wish for the Mix, to end it all with those merry pranksters of jet-fueled bluegrass, that traveling minstrel show, my favorite band. I'm not sure why I chose the live version of this, maybe because some of you had already heard the album version. A train as the metaphor for world destruction, and the way things are going right now, not a bad song to end on.

The Mix was always fun, always maddening, always caused serious hinkiness for me at some point or other. And I was telling Patrick last night, the great thing about it is you'll get one person's CD and it will be full of familiar songs that make you smile and say, "Oh, yeah!" and another's will be full of songs you've never heard before and you start writing down track numbers to go back and listen again and learn them and make them your own.

Goodbye, cruel Mix!

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Well, my little Milo enjoyed his last night of official manhood last night. He got the snip-snip today. While they were at it they removed two puppy teeth that had doggie teeth growing over top of them, so my free neutering cost $52. Oh, how I love that doggie.