Music

The Tragically Hip - Blow at High Dough

Canada's flagship band rocks hard in this early single.

Guided by Voices - Storm Vibrations

I am a sucker for any song with an explosive crescendo.

Olivier Messiaen - Quartet for the End of Time (perf. Kyung Wha Chung)

I am new to Messiaen's work but there is something particularly haunting about his compositions. There is also a sense of modernity that I enjoy.

John Gorka - I'm From New Jersey

There are many songs about New Jersey, but this one perhaps sums up the experience better than most. I was born in New Jersey and lived there until I was 26. I have mixed, complicated feelings about it.

Tonton Macoute - Don't Make Me Cry

My tolerance for progressive rock is limited, but the surprising charm of this semi-obscure jazz composition cannot be denied.

Electric Company Closing Theme (Remix by Roboshuffle)

Even had I not grown up on this show, I would probably have dug this. The Electric Company was an educational PBS show which aired in the 1970s. Morgan Freeman and Rita Moreno each got their start here.

Mission of Burma - Academy Fight Song

Mission of Burma has a bunch of good songs, but I always particularly liked this single.

Sonic Youth - The Sprawl

The crashing, noisy electricity of Sonic Youth is not for everyone, but I have been a fan for a long time. This is a rather remarkable live performance of The Sprawl, my favorite song in the Sonic Youth catalog. If I had to explain or advocate Sonic Youth to anyone, this is the clip I'd use as I think it best demonstrates the band's virtues: dissonance, mood, disturbing lyrics - this one has got them all. You may want to turn up the volume a bit.

Beth Orton - Galaxy of Emptiness

The wonderful Beth Orton is from England, but I think her early stuff works really well here in the desert. The William Orbit-produced studio version of this song is worth checking out as well.

Fugazi - Waiting Room

Self explanatory, I think. Not too much distance between the band and its fans. When people talk about Fugazi, they tend to talk about the band's credibility more than anything else. Sometimes what gets lost in that discussion is just how great so much of their music is.

Yo La Tengo - Tom Courtenay

This is another band with too much press centered around their credibility. This wonderful record-store performance speaks for itself. Georgia Hubley is really outstanding here.

Spirit of the West - Political

Spirit of the West is the best Canadian band that, if you're not from Canada, you probably haven't heard. They have countless songs that are worth checking out, especially their drinking anthem, "Home for a Rest." This is the pop version of their song "Political" which showcases the band's knack for hummable melodies.

The Mercury Program - Sultans of El Sur

My favorite band of the post-rock genre, The Mercury Program primes the imagination. I find this music incredibly uplifting, and often play it when I have to undertake a mentally intensive task.

Stereolab - Flourescences

On a very good day, when I am at my most alert and productive, the inside of my brain sounds like Stereolab.

The Sundays - Here's Where the Story Ends

This dewy alt-rock classic takes me back to my senior year of high school and reminds me of driving around the Jersey Shore on a rainy day.

Dropkick Murphys - The Gauntlet

The Dropkick Murphys wind me up like no one else can.

Bobbie Gentry - Ode to Billy Joe

This is a 60s classic I've always particularly liked, with a famous mystery that persists to this day. In the movie, it's a doll. In the song, I'm not so sure.

Dar Williams - Iowa (Traveling III)

Dar Williams's Mortal City is definitely one of my desert island discs. I have been an enthusiastic fan since I saw her perform with Richard Shindell in a school auditorium in Hightstown, New Jersey, back in the 1990s. I always liked this song in particular.

Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues

As the years have passed, I have become greatly appreciative of the comfortable upbringing I had. My father's whole philosophy on life is to focus on what you do have, as opposed to what you don't. My parents provided me with a good middle class childhood. This song is about those who weren't so lucky. I feel like I should say something about Marvin Gaye here, but this song speaks for itself, and its virtues are obvious. This is as good as soul gets. If you don't get this, you don't get R&B.

Stan Rogers - Northwest Passage

I absolutely adore this song. I have always been fascinated by points north, but also by human journeys - especially ones which require perseverance, strength, and endurance. In particular, the stories of the explorers have always fascinated me, and those men tend to be first in my list of heroes.

I first heard this on a BBC World Service story about the ice melting in the Northwest Passage, and have since come to know it as a well-regarded folk song in Canada. It is songs like this which make me think that, were I not an American, I would most certainly choose to be a Canadian.

John Coltrane - Giant Steps

There were a few dozen Coltrane tracks I could include here, and there's just nothing left to say about Coltrane (not to mention the other musicians) that hasn't already been said a million times. I include this here because the video is, to me, quite compelling. I really feel kind of bad for people who don't dig on Coltrane; it's like missing one of your senses. Jazz is a soulful medium, but I find it enormously stimulating intellectually as well. See if it doesn't get you moving. I find it really hard to sit still, listening to this.

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - Jungleland

This is my favorite song of all time. Of all genres. Of all artists. The one they play as they set my funeral barge alight. The only word to describe my experience of hearing it the first time, is gnosis. It was the key to everything that came later for me, in terms of music.

Link Wray - Jack the Ripper

A lot of early rock and roll doesn't age well. You can understand historically why it was revolutionary for its time, but it might not be something you would want to put on today unless you were there and feeling nostalgic for that era. This is not true, however, of guys like Dick Dale and Link Wray. To my ears, Jack the Ripper just sounds dangerous and nocturnal. And what's better than dangerous and nocturnal? Before there was, for example, Mike Ness, there was Link Wray...

Social Distortion - Don't Take Me for Granted

And speaking of Mike Ness...I wanted to include something by Social Distortion. Social Distortion has had a special function for me. When I've felt a little down, a little beaten, and maybe a little weak, Social Distortion is what I'd put on to reconstitute myself and get my dander up. It's like a drill sergeant's voice berating me and telling me to get back into fighting mode. This song in particular speaks about that spark on the inside which occasionally burns down to an ember but never quite goes out. Sometimes you just need to give it some oxygen to kick it back up -- or some rock and roll. Social Distortion is a band I picked up in high school and have carried with me through the years as my interests in other bands and genres strayed or waned. They have aged well.

Joy Division - Transmission

It is difficult to believe that this song is nearly 30 years old. Not because it doesn't feel like that much time has passed, but because the songs sounds so fresh and crackling with energy even now. Will Joy Division ever sound old? I don't think so. They seem to exist in this weird fold of spacetime which, no matter when you listen to Joy Division, is always 15 minutes in the future.

Elvis Costello - Radio Radio

You do remember this? Don't you? ;)

Ian Hunter - When the Daylight Comes

This song always puts me in a good mood. It makes me do the Snoopy dance. And it makes me wish I was 1/10th as cool as Ian Hunter.

Can - Halleluhwah

OK, OK, so I do like some progressive rock after all. In theory the repetition and the inscrutable Damo Suzuki vocals should tick me off, but I know a monster jam when I hear it. The album cut goes on for over 18 minutes, which some fans of this band would probably say, is regrettably short.

Slapp Happy - Casablanca Moon

This guy Dave I know (who listens to a lot of weird music) quoted lyrics from this song in his e-mail signature a few years back. The very cool lyrics and Dagmar Krause's cabaret-style vocals (and accent) are strangely compelling. Dave is also responsible for Can, above, so if Halleluhwah infuriates you, blame Dave. That's just how he rolls.

Peter Murphy - I'll Fall With Your Knife

I'm not really a Bauhaus fan (though I like a few songs here and there), but this song is just beautiful. I like it because I don't know that I'd buy the lyrics if sung or written by another artist (they'd be a little "much" for me.) Coming from him though, it sounds authentic, heartfelt, and romantic. I love this song.

The Velvet Underground - Rock and Roll

Rock and Roll doesn't really represent the true aesthetic of The Velvet Underground - maybe it's a little poppy for the purists - but it gets me out of my chair and I can groove to it like no one's business. So I include it here for this reason, and because maybe the only reason I made it through the 1980s was New York radio. I send this one out to Vin Scelsa and Allison Steele and all the DJs everywhere who made it all feel better...

But one fine morning she hears a New York station
She doesn't believe what she heard at all - hey not at all
She started dancing to that fine fine music
You know her life was saved by rock and roll (yes, rock and roll!)
Ooh! Despite all the computation
You could just dance to a rock 'n' roll station...
And it was alright...

Warren Zevon - Lawyers, Guns, and Money

Underrated in life and underrated in death, as any Warren Zevon fan knows, there are times and situations in life when nothing else but Warren Zevon is appropriate. I wanted to put my favorite Zevon song, Desperadoes Under the Eaves, here. However, there are no videos of it on YouTube. As for Lawyers, Guns, and Money, Zevon's second most well-known song, all I have to say is the song goes through my head any time I find myself driving in another country. The funniest word in this song is "Dad, get me out of this" And it's funny because I know that if I was hiding in Honduras and I was cold and the wolves are after me, it wouldn't occur to me to call the US Consulate. I'd probably just call my father. And cry.

John Hammond - Get Behind the Mule

I first heard this cover of a Tom Waits song in a made-for-HBO film called The Last Castle. The lyrics are, of course, spectacular. This song sounds the way bourbon tastes.

Tom Waits - Tom Traubert's Blues

And speaking of Tom Waits...sometimes I think the world doesn't deserve songs like this. Do you ever feel like that about a song?

The Waterboys - This is the Sea

The Waterboys just sounded great. I love the lyrics of this and many other Waterboys songs. Here, in particular, the music serves the lyrics.

Bob Dylan - It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding

If ever Bob Dylan could be described as "dropping science," this is it. Probably Dylan's most quotable song, this is the song that made me a fan. It is a song I wish I had written.

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit, to satisfy
Ensure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.

Billie Holliday - Yesterdays

This is just about as good as music gets. Nostalgia and sentiment in double helpings.