I’ve been thinking about posting something in response to the recent New York Times survey regarding the best work of American fiction in the last 25 years, but now I don’t have to. Instead I can sum it up simply:
- Very predictable top five… except Cormac McCarthy
- Beloved doesn’t belong there at all
- What she said
“She” is Meghan O’Rourke and in one of those strange confluences of ideas, authors, and reading she seems to be everywhere I look. Minutes ago she was on Charlie Rose discussing the NYT survey. I’ve been reading the ‘restored’ edition of Ariel and Meghan has written about Plath and her most famous work in general and the restored edition in particular. She’s argued in favor of difficult books (which I love) and maintained the importance of “small” works (see below)– she knows there’s no contradictions in literary love. And besides being poetry editor at The Paris Review, O’Rourke’s a fine poet in her own right.
Most relevant here, Meghan’s Slate piece on the NYT list and the question of “small” works revived my interest in what is otherwise yet another piece of arbitrary list making. The irony for me is that– were I to choose the best fiction of the last 25 years– I might well select David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, which is the epitome of large, sprawling, allusive, meandering, ambitious, etc. But the closest competition would all be “small” works– multiple volumes of Carver’s short fiction, Denis Johnson, Tim O’Brien, maybe Sherman Alexie. I adore parts of what Gaddis, Pynchon, DeLillo, and their ilk do, and I admire their ambition. But I love every word of Carver and O’Brien…
Speaking of lists, I saw that you had Ben Folds on your music one. A while ago you recommended a song by Ben Folds which I would definitely have to rank on my list of the best songs of all time, his cover of “Bitches ain’t Shit”, and I wanted thank you for the recommendation.
This is a cover that could almost bring one to tears: the way he brings out the sadness and nostalgia in the song. It seems to me that the subtext of the cover, and much of Ben Folds career, is how he is a white boy trying to get in touch with/recover that, that is real, and thus freedom. In the cover he equates the “the real” with black rappers and all that is associated with that, “the streets”, virility, the free, unconscious use of foul language etc. and the pathos/tension of the song is the irony of a “suburban” white man attempting to emulate these qualities but only being able to sing them(although quite nicely)not, like in the original song, rap them.
So in honor of lists, and perhaps another blog post, what is your list of the top 10 songs?
It’s cool to know that someone else hears the deep melancholy in that song. I’m of mixed mind about it because while I agree with what you are saying (Ben skewers white people in quite a few places, mocking that which he has to be) I also think that in remaking Bitches he recognizes another irony– that as “real” as the rappers might be, they are almost trapped within their often limited means of expression.
What’s the difference between the speaker in Bitches who comes home after just getting out of jail to discover he’s been betrayed, in multiple ways, by his friends and his girlfriend? “I’m heartbroke,” indeed!
I’ll have to make a blog post about top 10 songs. I won’t even attempt to do the top 10 of all time (thee are just too many!), but the top 10 in my current consciousness or something equally evasive
I should clarify that by “limited” I mean in terms of how many people will understand them, not that what they say is actually as simple as it might seem. Take the next phrase in the song: “I’m heartbroke, but I’m still loc’d” — that last word is dizzying in its street etymology: gangster, local, loco-crazy… what other term packs that in?
Actually, what I’m looking for is stuff to download now that I have a viable internet connection for a short while. Since I like your taste in music I figured you would have a few more songs that would blow me away like “Bitches ain’t Shit” did.
Now, if one is going to make a list of singles, one would have to stay away from songs which have already recieved enough social validition, like, say, “Born to Run” or “Satisfaction.” Great songs, but they are overplayed and everyone already knows about them. If you are going to list a U2 song, list something off of the Passengers album like “Your Blue Room” not “One” or “Where the Streets Have No Name.”
Bob Dylan is probably the drawing line between cult and mass. It is notable that many of his most well-known songs first reached public conciousness through prettified remakes from such groups as The Byrds or Peter, Paul and Mary. So, Dylan songs are a starting point when drawing out a list:
Not Dark Yet, Changing of the Guards, Senor, Joey, Tryin’ to Get to Heaven, My Back Pages(many great covers by the Traveling Wilburys and others), Brownsville Girl, He Was a Friend of Mine, Idiot Wind, Like a Rolling Stone(I would note here not just the original song which everyone knows but the excellent remakes by the Rolling Stones and The Drive-By-Truckers)
Other songs(and short instrumentals) off the singles folder on my hard drive:
Leonard Cohen- The Future, Anthem, Everybody Knows, I’m Your Man
Calexico- Quattro(World Drifts In)
Nick Cave- God is in the House, Stagger Lee
Daniel Lanois- The Maker, Sonho Dourado, An Ending(Ascent)
Chumbawumba- Timebomb, Give the Anarchist a Cigarette
Michael Gordon- Tinge
Serge Gainsbourg- Bonnie and Clyde
Warren Zevon- Porcelain Monkey
Smashing Pumpkins- Crestfallen, Apples & Oranges
Lights of Euphoria- Nothing at All
Steely Dan/Donald Fagen- Morph the Cat, Cousin Dupree, The Nightfly, Gaucho, On the Dunes
Eyes Wide Shut soundtrack- Masked Ball, Strangers in the Night(Peter Hughes Orchestra)
Nine Inch Nails- Leaving Hope, Right Where It Belongs, Just Like You Imagined
Dead Prez- They Schools
Deltron 3030- Virus
Bruce Springsteen- I Wish I Were Blind, Man’s Job, With Every Wish, Factory
Kris Kristofferson- Beat the Devil
Sigur Ros- Song #4 off of () Album
Mark Knopfler- Sailing to Philadelphia, Devil Baby, 5:15 am, Boom Like That
The Shining soundtrack- Main Titles
Zamfir- The Lonely Shepherd
Bob Schneider- Come With Me Tonight
Miles Davis- Paraphernalia, Time after Time
Jackson Browne- Late for the Sky, Information Wars, For a Dancer, Before the Deluge
Los Straitjackets- My Heart Will Go On
Grandaddy- Now It’s On
They Might Be Giants- Mammal
Thomas Newman-Angels in America(Main Title)
John Lennon- Working Class Hero
George Jones- Choices
James McMurtry- We Can’t Make it Here
David Byrne- Empire
Don Henley- Everything is Different Now
Sting- Fill Her Up, Ghost Story, Hung My Head
Jonathan Rundman- Smart Girls
Bobby Conn- We Come in Peace
Tom Waits- Day After Tomorrow, Hold On
Todd Rundgren- The Afterlife
James- Laid
Devo- Satisfaction
Willy Nelson/Merle Haggard- Poncho and Lefty
Earlimart- First Instant/Last Report
The Coup- My Favorite Mutiny, Everythang, Five Million Ways to Kill a CEO
Ken Vandermark-Alice in My Fantasies, Trash a Go Go, Red Hot Mama
REM- First We Take Manhattan
Neil Young- Guitar Solo #5, Sample and Hold
Brendan Benson- Alternative to Love
Katie Lee- Will to Fail
Rosie Thomas- Pretty Dress
Lou Reed- Magic and Loss, Sword of Damocles
Jennifer Warnes- A Singer Must Die
Built to Spill- Cortez the Killer(Live)
Magnetic Fields- All I Want to Know
Annie Lennox- Pavement Cracks, No More I Love You’s
Rodney Crowell- Shelter from the Storm
Mary Gauthier- I Drink
What I’m looking for here mainly are songs that may not be well known to everyone and that combine excellent melodies and lyrics in a uniform whole. Often, when I recommend films to people I tell them I try to give them films with the surface value of Pulp Fiction. Deacon Blues… Bitches ain’t Shit… Same thing with songs.
Can you add anything to my hard drive?
Novels…
I guess I agree with whats said but often wonder how some come to this conclusion…….
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