Let's try something new, eh?

Here's an assignment:

1. Choose three songs you think everyone should know. These should probably be songs that most people here don't already know (you be the judge). They don't have to be your favorites, and they don't have to be the Best Songs Ever. They just need to be songs you think more people should know.
2. Find YouTube vids or MySpace links or something for the songs - so that other people can hear them too! (important!)
3. In as many or as few words as you want, tell us why you think we should know these songs.

I'll kick it off with my three.

Warning: I've had a lot of caffeine, and I'm home sick, so I might ramble a bit...

1. Elliot Smith - Waltz #2
   
   The tune is the most persistent earworm I've ever encountered. It can stick in my head for, literally, weeks while I repeat all those wonderful lines over and over. I think it's his best song, and I do think it's one of the Best Songs Ever, so I'm always amazed to learn that people don't know any Elliot Smith, let alone this perfect little gem.

   First verse:

   First the mic then a half cigarette
   Singing "Cathy's Clown"
   That's the man she's married to now
   That's the girl that he takes around town
   She appears composed, so she is, I suppose
   Who can really tell
   She shows no emotion at all
   Stares into space like a dead china doll

   I'm never gonna know you now
   but I'm gonna love you anyhow

   The Everly Brothers' "Cathy's Clown" is about a man whose girl is so untrue that people are talking about him, calling him "Cathy's Clown"; and he's sick of it. And here's Elliot Smith singing about singing that song in reference to what could be an old flame of his own (though it could be fictional, I don't know his biography). Indeed, he may even be a Cathy's Clown, singing about singing "Cathy's Clown". I love recursion.

   Second verse:

   Now she's done and they're calling someone
   Such a familiar name
   I'm so glad that my memory's remote
   'cause I'm doing just fine hour to hour, note to note
   Here it is the revenge to the tune
   You're no good
   You're no good, you're no good, you're no good
   Can't you tell that it's well understood

   "The revenge to the tune...". So sweet. And, the way he sings those "you're no good"s, I can't help but hear a reference to another classic song: "You're no good" (obviously).

   The bridge:

   I'm here today and expected to stay
   On and on and on
   I'm tired, I'm tired

   Now that my ears are tuned to references to other songs, that "on and on" feels to me like a shout out to another song about a man who's been jilted: Stephen Bishop's "On and On":

   Poor ol' Jimmy
   Sits alone in the moonlight
   Saw his woman kiss another man
   So he takes a ladder
   Steals the stars from the sky
   Puts on Sinatra and starts to cry

   On and on
   He just keeps on trying
   And he smiles when he feels like crying
   On and on, on and on, on and on

   Maybe, maybe not. But it works if it is.

   Smith finishes up with:

   Looking out on the substitute scene
   Still going strong
   XO, mom
   It's OK, it's alright, nothing's wrong
   Tell Mr. Man with impossible plans to just
   Leave me alone
   In the place where I make no mistakes
   In the place where I have what it takes

   Those last four lines are the mission statement for slackers and underachievers everywhere, and I've loved them since I first heard them. Yet as with so many of Smith's lyrics, they seem especially poignant in light of his suicide - it seems like a little more than simple fear of screwing up.

   What a fucking drag!

   And that was far longer than I wanted to go on this.

2. Let's switch gears and listen to the Scud Mountain Boys, "In A Ditch":
   
   (i had to make this video, since there's almost nothing from these guys on the net)

   Yeah, that was a drag, too, sorry. The Scud Mountain Boys are all broken up now, and they never really made much of an impact when they were together in the mid 90s. But they did put out this one album ("Massachusetts"), and "In A Ditch" is the first song on it. The rest of the songs (except one) keep the same slow, sad, country vibe, so any of them would've worked here since all I really want to say about it is that if you like Wilco or the Cowboy Junkies or Uncle Tupelo or Son Volt, these guys might be worth checking out too.

3. Ok, really changing gears this time.

   The Faces, "Ooh La La"
   
   I would have never heard this song if it wasn't for the Rushmore soundtrack (which is simply full of really great songs - as befits one of my favorite movies). It's a such a happy, catchy, sing-along song, I can't help but smile when I hear it. It sounds nothing like any of the other Faces songs I've heard, though, and that's a bit of a let down since I like this one so much better. Ron Wood sang this one, after Rod Stewart and Ronnie Lane both decided the song wasn't good enough for them. Thankfully he had a voice back then!

So, what do you got? What songs should we know, and why ?