Songs of the Week #15- Editors Pick
“taking your clothes off and climbing into bed with you”
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STEPHEN:
"95 Til Infinity" -- Joey Bada$$
I have a feeling that if you were to go on a bombing run (graffiti not military) somewhere deep into 2:30 AM, this song would just manifest in your brain as soon as you rattled the can (a sound you can hear clearly on the beat). So I guess, it's like Joey Bada$$ just sprayed these words onto a wall that was immediately swallowed by the ground, in a quake of hulking mass vegetation, and yet the piece stayed in contact with his psyche so even as he's rhyming about Egypt it doesn't matter that he hasn't left NYC. Like he etched himself into the building and the building sunk itself into the Earth and now it can touch like all of history and time, til infinity right? But that would only happen late at night, y'know?
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JOHN:
“Self Destruction” -- Stop The Violence Movement
This was made as a stop black on black crime, but in light of the recent tragedy of the (in)justice system, this song feels as relevant as ever. Choose Love.
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ROY:
"I Can't Get Next To You" -- Al Green
One of the sexiest versions of a song about unrequited love ever put to wax. Al Green's breaking voice dancing over a fat, funky rhythm section. Gang vocals and tight horns swooning around it all. And then a goddamn double-guitar break splits the song up the middle, one guitar running wild in the background, the other grinding, dirty, and huge up front. Then more sweet horns! Then more Al Green soul! He's going all desperate and lovelorn, but the song is already taking your clothes off and climbing into bed with you before anyone has a chance to feel sad.
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REYNA:
"Cry Like a Baby" --The Box Tops
The Box Tops, a band that, most famously, did a song called "The Letter" in the late 1960s, features the vocal stylings of a very young and adorable Alex Chilton (Big Star). This footage is an example of one of the many television spots the band did in which they were forced to pretend-play their songs so that the commercially recorded version could be overdubbed when the episode aired, in order to avoid a less-than-flawless show. The band found this idea ridiculous, and there are at least a few videos out there in which they are clearly making fun of the situation. I love the weird sitar sound that shows up in this song, and the way Chilton dances to the line "... not a toy or a puppet on a string."
Check out the video of "The Letter" from around the same time. The keyboardist is comedy gold.
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SHENYAH:
“La Signora Cameriera” -- Piero Umiliani
If you listen to enough film scores of Umiliani, your reality could easily turn into a series of softcore porn-like parties filled with spies, some gun-slingers and a lounge with a whistling man found in the corner at all times (just in case). This composer is so fucking groovy I can’t stand it! I just can’t get enough!
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