March 4, 2008
“Same Girl” – Sad and Beautiful, Vol. One
Since I recently moved and only took about 30 cassette tapes with me, this project not only seems not-daunting, but sadly, with an-end-in-sight. But I’ll try to get more tapes sent to me or something. The first tape:
“Same Girl” – Sad and Beautiful, Vol. One.
This starts off not wanting to be sad and beautiful in any other way than in a Tom Waits way. I have not kept up on his records, but I think these songs are all form the same one. Flower’s Grave, Watch Her Disappear, I’m Still Here, and more. Then 3 Lucinda Williams songs, all sadder than ever, especially this one called Minneapolis. I wonder how many people who have had their heart broken in Minneapolis have this engrained in the sad part of their favorite song mind? I wonder how many people just THINK they have had their heart broken in Minneapolis BECAUSE of this song? I wonder what that waitress at Mickey’s Diner, c. 1988 is doing right now?
Someone with the most-likely-misspelled-on-the-cassette cover-name-of Eliza Gilkyson is singing a Bob Dylan song, that one that everyone knows, but if I played it all my life I still wouldn’t know the title. There’s no success like failure, but failure is no success at all. There’s no failure like success. There’s nothing I wouldn’t give to break 5 million session guitarist’s fingers. Next: Greg Brown, who used to play in Iowa City when I lived there, and I never went to see him and made fun of him, I don’t know why, maybe the floppy hat. Now I like him, some of his songs anyway, particularly the one called Oh You—it’s a pretty great song! And also, Ashamed of Our Love.
Side B: American Music Club doing Goodbye to Love, Sonic Youth doing Superstar, Sheryl Crow doing Solitaire—not as good as the Carpenters, but fun for them, I’m sure. Nina Gordon doing Hold On To Me—a little much, Too Slow to Ride is better. Next is my favorite Elliott Smith song, Ballad of Big Nothing. Then Happiness, my second favorite Elliott Smith song. When I hear these songs it makes me really sad that he died.
Next is a fairly slick Leona Naess song, and another (just trying to spell her name right makes me tired) just okay one. Then an excellent song called Wait by Laura Cantrell who might live around here or something. Does anyone know? Then a much better Leona Naess song, Promise to Try. One final song is Same Girl by Randy Newman, which is a really beautiful, sad song, and the song this tape was named after. Overall this is a lovely mix tape. What is lacks in variety it makes up for with some really good songs. Okay, it’s little uneven. But maybe that’s the nature of sad and beautiful.
