Have Yourself A Depressing Little Christmas

Here it is, folks, the first of two CD-length mixes from me this holiday season. I had a hard time whittling this down to fit onto one CD, but the primary reason for making these two mixes in the first place was to give my friends CDs at our Christmas party. I hope this album doesn't bum you out too much -- if you're worried about it, don't listen to any of it till Tuesday, when I'll post the antidote, entitled "Have Yourself A Magical Little Christmas."

Tracklist:

01 - Judy Garland - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
02 - Tom Waits - Silent Night / Christmas Card From A Hooker in Minneapolis (live on Austin City Limits, 12-5-78)
03 - Merle Haggard - If We Make It Through December
04 - The Everly Brothers - Christmas Eve Can Kill You
05 - Mary Gauthier - Christmas In Paradise
06 - Red Star Belgrade - Christmas Day
07 - Alan Patrick Scheurman - Holiday Song #17
08 - Okkervil River - Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas
09 - Simon and Garfunkel - 7 O'Clock News / Silent Night
10 - Johnny and Jon - Christmas In Vietnam
11 - Marvin Gaye - I Want To Come Home For Christmas
12 - Casiotone For The Painfully Alone - Cold White Christmas
13 - The Long Winters - Sometimes You Have To Work On Christmas (Sometimes)
14 - The Long Blondes - Christmas Is Cancelled
15 - Aimee Mann - I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas
16 - Joni Mitchell - River
17 - Kansas City Kitty - Christmas Morning Blues
18 - Over The Rhine - All I Ever Get For Christmas Is Blue

Zipfile

Okkervil River - Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas

Last year around this time, the MP3 blogosphere was abuzz with news that Okkervil River had just released a new album-length collection of covers and live recordings for free, only on the band's website. I'm never one to sneer at things that are free, and so I downloaded it. And listened to it, over and over again.

I'm not a traditional music customer, as a quick perusal of this blog will certainly show, but this worked on me. (Don't believe me? Click on Okkervil River's tag at the bottom of this post.) Since that time, I've seen the band live and own copies of every single CD they've put out. The songs have crept into my soul, and this song I'm posting today has made my cry virtually every time I've heard it. (Hence its place in my Depressing Little Christmas mix, which I'm posting here on the 21st.)

This song is so tender, so explicitly rooted in personal existence and loss that the Otis Redding quote doesn't feel like a cheat at all. Rather, it feels like something that Otis Redding, were he still alive, would send a letter to the band thanking them for. The song gives us two or three details about home, about the relationship, and a quote from that song you listen to and cry and think about the breakup, and we fill in the rest of the story from our own lives.

This song is in two of my "playlists": It's in my Christmas playlist, and my Okkervil River playlist, which means in the last twelve months I've heard it probably two dozen times. Last week, I was listening to it, preparing to get misty, and ... I didn't anymore. This post is a thank-you to Will Sheff and the Okkervil River boys, yes, but more than that it's a thank-you to Tiki. Our relationship is still new and hobbling around on its little-deer legs: there's nothing formalized or set in stone about it, and the future holds nothing but surprises for us. But that doesn't matter: you've kept me from crying when I listen to this song, and that's the best Christmas present I'll get all year.

Okkervil River - Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas (live)

Qu'est-ce Que C'est? -- It Don't Look Like Anything.

So I'm currently rereading (this is my third time through) Patricia Highsmith's novel The Talented Mr. Ripley. It's a lot darker and more complex than the movie (which I don't particularly care for -- watch John Malkovich play Tom Ripley in Ripley's Game for a much closer portrayal). The novel is disturbing the freaking hell out of me.

And then, this week, I went to see Okkervil River live, and their song "Westfall" is a disturbingly danceable portrayal of insane murder. So you all get to hear this. (I've been holding onto some of these songs since I put together the Crazy? Probably mix, since I thought I might do something like this.) If you didn't already do so, remember to download yesterday's post too, since only the original version of "Psycho Killer" is in this mix, and there are five more covers there.

01 - Talking Heads - Psycho Killer
02 - Johnny Cash - Delia's Gone
03 - Neko Case - Make Your Bed
04 - Violent Femmes - Country Death Song
05 - The Byrds - Pretty Polly
06 - Springtime Is Wartime - Psycho Killer
07 - C. W. McCall - Comin' Back for More
08 - Jason Isbell - Psycho Killer
09 - Okkervil River - Westfall
10 - Bishop Allen - Psycho Killer
11 - Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
12 - The Faint - Psycho Killer
13 - Lou Reed - The Gun
14 - The Beatles - Maxwell's Silver Hammer
15 - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Curse Of Millhaven
16 - Wyclef Jean - Delia's Gone

Zip file 1 -- Zip file 2

Okkervil River -- A Brief Introduction

This poster here is not for the show I saw last night, but it's pretty, and it represents a few things about the band -- their darkness and their mystery and their roughness.

I was all psyched to come here today and write an impassioned love note to Okkervil River for the show they put on, but I don't have to. It's already been done by others.

So let me say a few personal things instead. I'm a sucker for bands that have a trumpet in them. If you're a rock band, and you include a trumpet, I'll listen to any album you put out at least twice. Okkervil River has a trumpet, and it plays the trumpet figures that haunt my mind whenever I hear a sad song, any sad song at all, on the radio.

Will Sheff's vocals consistently affect me emotionally, no matter the lyrical content of the song. (Scroll down or click to listen to what he does, even with a silly song like "Simon Smith and The Amazing Dancing Bear.")

So here are my three favorite songs that the band played last night. "Plus Ones" is a good summation of everything Okkervil River can do, lyrically and musically. "John Allyn Smith Sails" turns into a surprise cover, which seems inevitable as soon as you hear the first strains. And "Westfall" is incredible -- a driving rock song that feels like the band's audition for the next volume of Murder Ballads. (The song was inspired by a real-life murder, kind of, and the way that Will Sheff's coworkers kept trying to see the evil in the banal murderer.)

(Okkervil River opened for The New Pornographers. Direct your browser this way tomorrow for a post on that half of the show.)

Okkervil River - Plus Ones
Okkervil River - John Allyn Smith Sails
Okkervil River - Westfall

Buy CDs from the record label -- The Stage Names, source of "Plus Ones" and "John Allyn Smith."
Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See, source of "Westfall."

Multiple Mondays - Do What You Gotta Do

Here's another song I heard first from Nina Simone. And it's also another Multiple Monday inspired by Okkervil River (this link right here has Will Sheff talking about "Do What You Gotta Do" AND "Simon Smith...", plus another version of "Do..."). Have I mentioned I'm seeing Okkervil River live next week? I am. (Expect more songs after the show.)

It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of Roberta Flack. And her version of this song doesn't do anything for me. (On the other hand, it doesn't grate on my nerves like Linda Ronstadt's version, which you'll note I have thoughtfully not included here.)

Which brings us to Ms. Meg Baird. This is a simple, stripped-down version, with just a voice and a guitar, expressing the sweetness and understanding of the lyrics. This is what I imagine Jimmy Webb (possibly the most underrated pop songwriter of the 70s -- "By The Time I Get To Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman," "The Worst That Could Happen") had in mind when he wrote this song -- one woman, one instrument, one audience member near tears.

Since there are only four versions of this song that I like, you get a special bonus today: Jimmy Webb talking about "Wichita Lineman", and singing it for "In Their Own Words" from 1994. (Sadly, he's never released a version of "Do What You Gotta Do.")

Zip file
Buy Jimmy Webb's performance from Amazon, Used for 2 cents

Multiple Mondays: Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear

On some Mondays, I'll post multiple versions of songs. This week, we hear from Mr. Randy Newman, and his ursine companion.

Randy Newman wrote this song back in 1965, and took it to his friends in Harpers Bizarre (best known for their cover of "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)"). They recorded it in 1967, followed closely by Alan Price, who'd just left The Animals to pursue his solo dreams. Harry Nilsson recorded it in 1969, and then Newman himself finally recorded it in 1972. The next major recording of the song was for the first episode of The Muppet Show in 1976.

But the reason I'm posting today is that Okkervil River released a version of the song last year on Golden Opportunities, their free cover album. That, plus "Big'un" claims to be a Randy Newman fan, but he's never heard even one version of the song. So here you go; here's seven.

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You'll have to find your own buy links today, sorry.