Year: 1967 The pinnacle of Jimi Hendrix’s rhythm+melody left hand playing, Little Wing has an unforgettable intro that combines his amazing guitar skills with whimsy and emotional power. At 2:24, it’s the appetizer that’s always so painful when it ends.
Year: 2002 The Decemberists has more than just a large base of fans and critics–it has what most artists crave first and foremost–throngs of people who actually appreciate and respect their songwriting. I am definitely one in that throng. This song is perhaps my favorite Decemberists song. It paints such a vivid picture in its chorus of “If only summer rain would fall/on the houses and the boulevards/and the sidewalk bagatelles it’s like a dream[…]” and with its pulsating first four lines that immediately transports the listener to the storyteller’s time, place, and mind. The wordplay is first-rate Decemberists wordsmithing. Who can deny the genius behind “Medicating in the sun/pinched doses of laudanum/longing for the old fecund-/-ity of my homeland”?
Songs of the Week are back! And there are very few songs that have as riveting an introduction as “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” I sit in my room sometime playing the intro part over and over on my electric guitar, and imagining the other parts coming in over my playing. Now that SOTWs are back again, they are really here to stay this time. The main reason why this time I’m so confident I won’t renege on my promise is that the updated web site you see is not just an aesthetic change; it has been completely rebuilt for easy adding and modification of content. I can add and edit almost any site content wherever I have internet access.
Year: 2003 After some introspection to this song, I’ve started up my songs of the week again. 🙂
Year: 1995 Just a few days ago, I went to the state fair with some friends, and, for the first time, I saw a concert at the Grandstand. I got the tickets just a day after they came out, and I’ve been extremely expectant for this. The morning of the concert, I noticed that the opening acts were Colbie Caillat and…LIFEHOUSE! So there I was, with a cheap ticket to the Goo Goo Dolls concert, that also included Lifehouse.
Year: 1996 This song is good, no diggity.
Origin/Composer: John Lennon Year: 2001 At the end of the great 6 weeks as camp counselor, we road-tripped home, and, on the way, attended a Rufus Wainwright concert in Denver, Colorado. The opening act was Sean Lennon, John Lennon’s son. During the show, Rufus Wainwright invited back Sean Lennon to sing this song with him, as it was John Lennon who originally wrote it. It was very happy and emotional and uplifting. Rufus Wainwright has an incredible voice that carries extremely well. He sang one song unplugged and the entire venue could still hear him very well.
Year: 1978 So, there’s this kid named Marco (pronounced MAHCO) at camp, and he has this amazing raspy Hong Kong accent. He’s a small kid in height, and is always a little excessively curiously active. So, when he suggested that he would lip-sync and dance to the song YMCA at the talent show, we tried to gently dissuade him, because most of time, such efforts fail. But then, he recruited me and Jessica and the two girls in the camp that were dancer/gymnasts. We ended up doing a rather fun dance to the song, and it was a success at the talent show.
Year: 2004 You know it’s not the loud power chords that’s making Foo Fighters’ songs sound good when you discover that their acoustic version is even better than the original.
Year: 2003 Some people ask why I like this song, as the lyrics are so crude and vulgar and against what I believe, to which I reply, how can you not laugh at the hilarious ridiculousnous of lyrics like “Cuz I know how to still/Fertilize another against my lover’s will/I lick the opposition cuz she don’t take no pill[…]I push my seed somewhere deep in her chest/I push it naked cuz I’ve takin my test.”