Anna Begins – Counting Crows (make-up post for 5/23)

Song: Anna Begins
Album: August and Everything After
Performer: Counting Crows
Writer: David Bryson / Adam Duritz / Toby Hawkins / Lydia Holly / Marty Jones
Year: 1993

I was a freshman in high school and that year my family spent Christmas in Alaska visiting my grandparents and aunt and uncle on my mom’s side who were living up there at the time. It was always strange going to Alaska to visit family. None of them were native to Alaska, they had just sorta migrated up there after my grandparents moved up there. So we visited a few times. It was a great excuse to go to Alaska, for sure, but it was weird to just be doing normal family things in a place where I felt like we should be tourists.

Anyway, one of the normal things that we did there was go to a thrift shop in Anchorage. I would always look at the CDs at thrift shops and on that day I found Counting Crows’ August and Everything After. So many of these songs became the soundtrack to my brooding. I would stay up late in my room and listen to songs that heightened my angsty, passive-aggresive emotions.

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Porch Light – Aoife O’Donovan

Song: Porch Light
Album: In the Magic Hour
Performer: Aoife O’Donovan
Writer: Aoife O’Donovan
Year: 2016

My first time hearing Aoife O’Donovan sing was back in 2011 on The Goat Rodeo Sessions. I was re-introduced to her music within the last couple years when a friend recommended to me her band Crooked Still. I absolutely fell in love with her voice. It is soft but powerful in her delivery of lyric.

Her second solo album, In the Magic Hour, was released on January 22nd of this year. The day is important to me. On this day, Nashville had a snow storm and classes and work were cancelled. I woke up at about 4am that morning and I felt like I was a child back in Missouri waiting for the good news about a snow day. I was so surprised to see that this album had been released and listened to the whole thing. This was the first song I listened to and it will forever transport me to that magic morning when mine were the first footsteps across the perfect, untouched snow.

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Operator (That’s Not the Way it Feels) – Jim…

Song: Operator (That’s Not the Way it Feels)
Album: You Don’t Mess Around With Jim
Performer: Jim Croce
Writer: Jim Croce
Year: 1972

I’m a sucker for a song with a story. This story is told by one side of a phone conversation. The narrator is calling the telephone operator (it’s the 70’s… much has changed since then) to get ahold of his ex-girlfriend. She’s moved to LA with his ex-best friend and he wants to call her to rub it in her face that he’s getting along just fine without her. As he is telling the operator all of this, he confesses that that isn’t how he feels at all.

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Moment of Forgiveness – Indigo Girls

Song: Moment of Forgiveness
Album: Become You
Performer: Indigo Girls
Writer: Amy Ray
Year: 2002

I fell in love with the Indigo Girls a few years ago. It wasn’t because of this song, but this was the first album of theirs that I purchased. For a long time I didn’t have the money to buy CDs and I still don’t really now, but thank God for McKay’s here in Nashville. They’ve got a great selection of used CDs and books that I can afford once in awhile. Around Christmas last year I was gearing up for the car ride home and bought a couple CDs there. I picked this one up because I was itching for some more Indigo Girls.

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Beautiful Child – Fleetwood Mac (make-up post for 5/19)

Song: Beautiful Child
Album: Tusk
Performer: Fleetwood Mac
Writer: Stevie Nicks
Year: 1979

I’m not entirely sure why the one Fleetwood Mac album I ever owned was Tusk, but it was the one. And I loved it. Many of the songs were favorites of me as a 14 year-old, but this one was particularly important to me. It brings back some especially uncomfortable memories from middle school.

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14th Street – Rufus Wainwright

Song: 14th Street
Album: Want One
Performer: Rufus Wainwright
Writer: Rufus Wainwright
Year: 2003

I honestly can’t remember how I stumbled upon Rufus Wainwright but I believe that it was the summer after graduating high school. I do vividly remember a late night in a hotel room buying a couple songs off of his album Out of the Game that had come out that summer. This song isn’t from that album, but it’s one of the first songs I remember hearing of his.

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Here You Come Again – Dolly Parton

Song: Here You Come Again
Album: Here You Come Again
Performer: Dolly Parton
Writer: Barry Mann & Cynthia Well
Year: 1977

I was at my grandma’s house earlier today and she had a bunch of old cassette tapes on the floor in the living room. I decided to rifle through them. She had a lot of classic country with Conway Twitty, Tammy Wynette, Bill Anderson… and then a TON of Dolly. Dolly Parton is probably second only to Elvis when it comes to my grandma’s musical taste.

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Nothing I Can Do – Ben Taylor (make-up post…

Song: Nothing I Can Do
Album: Deeper Than Gravity
Performer: Ben Taylor
Writer: Ben Taylor
Year: 2006

If James Taylor and Carly Simon had a baby it would be Ben Taylor. They did have a baby and it is Ben Taylor. I came across this song when I was checking out the “Discover Weekly” playlist on Spotify. On my first listen I just figured it was a great James Taylor song and was surprised to see that it wasn’t. Upon further research I learned that it was the offspring of two of the greatest songwriters to grace this earth.

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My Next Thirty Years – Phil Vassar

Song: My Next Thirty Years
Album: Greatest Hits Vol. 1
Performer: Phil Vassar
Writer: Phil Vassar
Year: 2006

It was very difficult for me to decide which song off this album that I wanted to write about. I have special memories attached to this album as a whole. Listening to any song off this album takes me back to my first date with my now boyfriend of three years. The date lasted much longer than I anticipated. At my prompting we went to an exhibit of some Danish paintings (or something like that… honestly I just remember one painting of a windmill). From there we got dinner, ended up on an adventure to try to find giant Reese’s cups, watched the exclusive full version of Threat Level Midnight from The Office that I had on my laptop, and ended up at McDonald’s playing Bananagrams because dorm visiting hours were over. We held hands and I didn’t want to leave his side. I assume he felt something similar because he didn’t take me back to my dorm until around 1 or 2 in the morning. I felt like I had found a great friend and I remember being so unbelievably happy. Jim had this CD playing in his car that night and it became the soundtrack for the first 3 months or so of our relationship.

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I Can’t Believe You’re in Love With Me –…

Song: I Can’t Believe You’re in Love With Me
Album: The Best of the Hot Club of Cowtown
Performer: The Hot Club of Cowtown
Writer: Jimmy McHugh & Clarence Gaskill
Year: 2008

I was introduced to western swing and bluegrass music by a bass teacher I had around my junior year of high school. Up until that point I didn’t realize the breadth of musical styles that you can play as a double bassist. I was only familiar with classical and jazz music. One of the bands that teacher introduced me to was The Hot Club of Cowtown. I hadn’t heard much western swing music and I fell in love with the style. To me, western swing is the perfect point of convergence between jazz and country music. There are many Tin Pan Alley era songs like the one I’m writing about today that you can hear sung by Billie Holliday or Louis Armstrong and then turn around and hear it played by groups like The Hot Club of Cowtown or Asleep at the Wheel.

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