Baseball Songs

If April wasn’t such an outrageously busy month in my life at this point in it, it would easily be my favorite month. It holds the birthdays of some of the most important people in my life. Spring is such a positive time of year. The sun is out longer and more often. The Stanley Cup Playoffs begin, which is the best playoffs in sports. And baseball begins! As a Mariners fan, April is about the length of the typical Mariners season, before they are playing for next year. The way the last week has gone for them, you can tell April is about over.

One of the cool things about this April is that I have discovered two baseball themed songs from two of my favorite bands. I love stumbling across old music from bands I love. I am always amazed that can happen. I am a bit of a completest of my favorite bands. My favorite workday time waster website, Deadspin has been running a series of extreme slow motion replays overlaid by indie music. They dropped Cubs in Five by The Mountain Goats on this clip during the first week of the season. Here is the link to the whole song with a funny banana picture.

I’ve had the pleasure of being to Wrigley a several occasions. There is no way that you can go to Murphy’s before a game, sit in the bleachers with 50 new friends, hit the Cubby Bear after and not have a soft spot in your heart for the Cubs. When I’m root, root, rooting for the Cubbies at Wrigley, I don’t care if I never get back.

Cubs in Five isn't really about the Cubs at all. It is from the mid-90’s so the references to the Tampa Bay Bucs, who were the NFL’s version of the Cubs until about 2000, don’t make as much sense today. The Cubs winning, is basically saying “when pigs fly”. That is when our protagonist will love his former flame as much as he used to again. I cannot get the verse out of my head when I hear it. I think since John Darnielle is such a bad singer (but great song writer!), it encourages me to belt out the lyrics myself. At least when I’m alone. And my windows are rolled up.

One of my absolute favorite bands, The Hold Steady, have a new album out this spring. I suggest everyone give it a few spins, then save it to their favorites on their Spotify playlists. Originally from Minnesota, Craig Finn, The Hold Steady’s singer/songwriter, is a big Twins fans. He did a song called Don’t Call Them Twinkies that was hidden away on some baseball songs compilation. I bet this song would be even better if I was a lifelong Twins fan. I did have the pleasure of seeing a game in a sold out Metrodome and wave a Homer Hankey forever ago, but the experience didn’t make me a fan. My soft spot for the twins came 16 years ago in April.  I like the video to go along with the words. Makes it easier to follow for non-fans that are learning Twins history, not reliving it.

Now that I have found these songs, I am searching for more! What other of my favorite bands have baseball songs?? I know Eddie Vedder did a Cubs song . As a Pearl Jam fan, I would have preferred a Mariners song, but I’m glad it’s not this one. This is more of an Irish drinking song. Low marks.

Do The Black Keys have a Reds anthem? Does Queens of the Stone Age have a hidden track extolling the virtues of Dodger Stadium? Does Arcade Fire have an old Expos expose? Perhaps Foo Fighters’ My Hero was about Randy Johnson.

If you come across any, lemme know. 

Top Cool Out Songs of 2013

If I haven’t done my taxes, it’s still 2013, right?? I love great, upbeat songs to energize a lackluster workout, to promote car dancing on a long drive and to help celebrate good times. On the flippity flip, I love a good cool out song to help me chill out when I’m feeling stressed, to enjoy peaceful times around Le Maison Maves and to really connect with my inner sexy. Cool out songs are not just sappy ballads. In fact, many of my favorite Cool Out songs of all time will contain a hard rocking bit and some slamming guitars. Cool outs can either touch my heart OR my soul and this soul needs to be chill. I know a song is a contender for the Top Cool Out when I want to turn down the lights, throw some shades on and just deeply feel. This was a down year overall of music, but I was still easily able to find 10 excellent cool out songs for you to experience.

Cool out songs are typically better audio-only and through speakers that will block out the rest of the world. That isn’t the best way to share these with you here. I suggest you make yourself a Spotify playlist of these songs, throw on some imitation Beats headphones (because please don’t spend $200 on headphones!), close your eyes and enjoy the next 45 minutes.

      1.  Queens of the Stone Age –The Vampyre of Time and Memory

Here's a few versions of this song in addition to clicking the link in the title. 

Freaky: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJK7BYTq8Ds 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G84CTk_9v0M

Interactive: http://vampyre.thecreatorsproject.vice.com/?source=tcpyt

Director's Cut - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEIVlYegHx8

Fave Lyric: So many to choose from! Here are 3…

                 The opener: “I want God to come and take me home, because I’m all alone in this crowd.”

                The chorus: “Does anyone get this right? I feel no love.”

                “I survived. I speak. I breathe. I’m alive. Hooray. “

I’ve already expounded my love for this song in the Big Sexy Top 20 of 2013 in its place of a most excellent quartet of songs on the Big Sexy Album of the 2013 (Spoiler Alert!), ...Like Clockwork.  I knew Elton John made an appearance on Like Clockwork. After hearing the piano introduction to this song which was preceded by a very Elton note-hum (from Sixty Years On from his Live in Australia album that I loved), I was sure this was it. It wasn't. After a while the piano is joined by a My Guitar Gently Weeps guitar. I love the lyrics. I love the anguish. He is so miserable. He has overcome a death defying experience, but he doesn't seem too happy to have made it because all of his demons have also survived. I’m not sure why I love the lyrics so much, because I don’t relate to it. I think it is because the music and the delivery of the lyrics has transported me to a place where I can feel his pain.

 

     2.   Drive-By Truckers – ZipCity  

Fave Lyric: Again, so many to choose just one...

“I don’t know why I put up with this shit. You won’t put out and Zip City’s so far away.”

“Keep your drawers on girl, it ain’t worth the fight. By the time you drop them I’ll be gone and you will be right where they fall the rest of your life. “

“You’re only 15 girl, you ain’t got no secretary, and ‘for granted’s’ a mighty big word for a country girl like you. I think that’s just your daddy talking.”

As with the top songs of the year, I may have already discussed them by now. DBT was my band of the summer, but this Cool Out song from over a decade ago still sticks with me as a proto-typical cool out song. It’s another song that tells a story. It is about a teenager coming to grips with growing away from his younger girlfriend. You can tell he is ready to move on and not just from her but from his teenaged behavior. He is tired of the long drive to see her, her daddy and the pressures he is feeling just to be with her not just actual but also implied.

      3.   Danger Mouse featuring JackWhite – Two Against One

Fave lyric: I’m already fighting me, so what’s another one?

I love Jack White. I can’t believe this 2011 song slipped by me until this year. I heard it first on the radio, of all places. (Who listens to the radio anymore??) I was shocked to hear he had a new album coming out. Nope. Just him singing on a Danger Mouse release. I only think of Danger Mouse as a super producer and the skinny half of Gnarls Barkley. Jack White actually features on three songs on this album, but this song is the keeper. I wish I could un-hear the others. Well, they are not that bad, but I’m not surprised I haven’t heard those. This has an excellent slow jam.

      4.   The National – I Need My Girl

The link is from a recent appearance on Saturday Night Live. Here is the link to the official video: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Tod1_tZdU 

Fave lyric: Davy says that I look taller. I keep feeling smaller and smaller.

I love emotional lyrics. If there is a singer today that speaks more to things in my mind, heart and soul, it very well might be Matt Berninger. I am very much looking forward to their doc, Mistaken for Strangers. Here is the awesome trailer. It gives me goose bumps. I love this band so much.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OeSAUNvpvY  It looks to be a lot more about a relationship between brothers that live in very different worlds and not just a concert film.

Back to this song… As with most The National albums, I need to hear them multiple times and even read the lyrics before I can really get into it and Trouble Will Find Me was no different. After hearing it dozens of times, I can say that I think it the album is phenomenal. I know they are just not accessible to people at first or second listen, but give them an extended chance and maybe they can reach you.

This is not a simple love song, as the title and video suggest and repeated chorus would make you think. The National cannot do videos because the songs mean too much. This song brings tears to my eyes when I relate it to my sweet, oldest son. This song is about a boy who has always struggled a bit to be successful but he is “good and grounded”. He has left home, presumably to college. As he is growing up he is feeling more and more overwhelmed by life. He is coming home to see his girlfriend that he left behind. He needs her because he doesn’t feel that he can be himself with his family or the friends he hangs with. He wants to recapture that safe and happy place in his life where his heart is at home. I hope this isn’t how he goes for my boy. Maybe it was how I felt and I’m projecting it on him. Maybe I need some help.

  

5  5.  Toadies – Beside You

This is a bad audio recording of this song. Find it on Spotify.

Toadies are one of my long-time favorite bands, but no one knows much of them despite their enormous one-hit status in the early 90s. They take a long time between albums but rarely disappoint, even when Vaden Todd Lewis goes off and does stuff with other people and calls them Burden Brothers. Beside You is an excellent track that would find itself at home on any of their albums. Unfortunately, much in the way Pearl Jam and Kings of Leon put out good but not great albums this year, Toadies did the same. Sadly, the only video I can find gives you a bad audio recording of the song. Find it on Spotify and rock out with you sunglasses on.

   6. Arctic Monkeys – Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?

Can you believe my bank QOTSA covered this???

Fave lyric: It’s 3 in the morning, and I’m trying to change your mind. Left you multiple missed called and to my message you reply, “Why’d you only call me when you’re high?”

This has a great bass and drum line. And a very simple question being posed to our narrator. Cheeky! Our narrator would like to have a late night relationship with his paramour, but she doesn’t want to just be a booty call.  Simple and funny.

    7. Arcade Fire – Porno

Fave lyric: You can cry and I won’

t go. You can scream and I won’t go. Every man that you know would’ve run at the word go.

With an evocative title like Porno, you might think this would have some racy lyrics and 70’s style bass. It is quite the opposite. It does have a cool vibe to it. I think the song is about a man telling his love that he will stay with her through the bad times and any warts she may have now that really know each other. Whereas other immature men would have only treated her like a man would treat a woman in a porno until the woman is sick of it.

    8.  Modest Mouse – Bankrupt on Selling

Fave lyrics: 1. I’ll go to college and I’ll learn some big words and I’ll talk REAL LOUD. Goddamn right I’ll be heard.

2. I still love her. Loved her more when she used to be sober and I was kinder.

Another old song. I cannot believe that I keep finding old songs from one of my favorite bands. I’ve been into Modest Mouse for years now, but I wasn’t on to them until they achieved some popularity. They were already indie giants by then.

It is a pretty negative song that starts with apostles selling out Jesus for new sandals and moves to angels selling your soul for a set of new wings. Then in modern times, colleges selling education to people that they don’t need and finishes very personal with the narrator finally learning to come clean and be himself to his lover, but now she has been ruined by his previous “selling” of himself and being a jerk. Everything sucks!

9. Pearl Jam – Pendulum

Pearl Jam is aging well. Even though I wasn’t wild about this album, they can still rock and they can still hit on a great cool out song. On this album, the ballad Sirens has gotten some run, but I much prefer the slow drums and creeky winds on this song about live passing you by.

   10 (TIE).  Queens of the Stone Age – I Appear Missing

Since I don’t like to re-use artists, I am going to split # 10 among two of my favorite albums of the year that already hit this list. Wonderful song about waking from a comma but being changed. The whole first verse is my favorite lyric – “Calling all Comas: Prisoner on the loose. Description: A spitting image of me with heart-shaped hole where the hope runs out.” This song builds into a bit of a rocking crescendo, which I love in my cool out songs.

   10 (TIE)  The National – This is the Last Time

Fave lyric – Don’t tell anyone I’m here. I brought Tylenol and Beer

This song about friends with benefits is as typical from The National, sorrowful. His lover is so awesome when they are together but she is toxic. They can’t have a real relationship. He is surprised she keeps asking him over and thinks she should have someone closer to her to help her through her problems. He’s just a quick fix “Tylenol and Beer”. He swears that “This is the Last Time” he is coming over. You get the feeling he is trying to convince himself and he will be back over next time she’s high at 3 in the morning. I love the ending. It is crashing and passionate when he is swearing that he won’t be vacant anymore.  Then there is a little almost pillow talk where he confesses he is in trouble. 

Big Sexy Top 20 Songs of 2013

I am a glass half full type of guy. At least I like to see myself that way. My knee has been killing me for a long time, but I can see the day in which I can round third base, pain-free, legs pumping as fast as they can, and be thrown out by 30 feet at the plate. I look forward to running down the sideline of my son’s football game as part of the chain gang after their defense has given up another long play.

When I look back at 2013 musically, I think of the new bands I was turned onto, the bands I just now have started to appreciate to their fullest and some of the good times music has given me. This was the year that Spotify has changed the way I listen to/own music. It was the year Key & Peele taught me what “dub-step” actually sounds like. (Key & Peele was a wonderful addition to my life in 2013! If you are not watching it yet, please do.)

I haven’t figured out the theme of the Top 20 of 2013 yet. 2011 was the year is foul language. 2012 was the year of horns. Maybe by the end of this post, I will figure it out. Without further ado, I present the Big Sexy Top 20 songs of 2013. Wait, here’s a little more ado: New rule for this year on top of the “it doesn’t really have to be from 2013, just new to ME” in 2013 is that I didn’t want to repeat any bands in the Top 20. Also, this Top 20 is more of the “Upbeat Top 20” as the Top Cool Out Songs will be released soon and many of those are some of my absolute favorite songs of the year. Is that enough ado? Make sure to click on the highlighted text for video accompaniment. 

1. Daft Punk – Get Lucky

Fave Lyric: She’s up all night till the sun. I’m up all night to get some. She’s up all night for good fun. I’m up all night to get lucky.

Yes, it’s disco. Yes, the lyrics are a little repetitive. But, this was easily the song of summer, despite some people that were influenced by the other Pharrell Williams collaborated song with the naked girls and son of the 80’s sitcom dad. There is just a great groove to this song. Even though I have heard it hundreds of times by now, it still makes my hips wiggle and my soul smile. Does that Fave Lyric above not spell out the conflicting attitudes of guys in the club?

The video in the link is the official video of the song. Kinda boring, but it does remind you that these French wierdos always were helmets. Vive le robots! Another favorite TV/Music crossover is this video from “Stephest Colbchella‘013” showing that this song makes everyone want to dance. Ima steal his spinning dance move with the arms up halfway. Watch out, Mrs. Sexy!

2. Queens of the Stone Age – I Sat by the Ocean

Fave Lyric: I sat by the ocean. And drank a potion, baby, to erase you. Face down in the boulevard, yeah, I couldn’t face you.

I am always a little worried when a band I really, really love comes out with a new album. QOTSA has been one of my favorite bands for nearly a decade, but due to Josh Homme’s health issues and the fact that he apparently cannot work with the same people in his band for very long, they have not released a new album in four years.

I don’t love the first song on the album. In fact in might be my least favorite song in the whole playlist. I was very nervous. But then the second song, I Sat by the Ocean kicks off as good of a quartet of songs as I can remember. In fact it’s those four songs, as a group, which belong in this slot. It starts with a kinda whiny, slide guitar lick and is joined by the Fave Lyric about 30 seconds in. It just sets the tone for some sour news ahead for clearly a troubled man. This song shows the angst of someone who clearly is nearing bottom. The chorus is “you, me and your lies”. I don’t think these kids are going to work out. It has all of cool swagger I love from the Queens. He is clearly rocking by the end of the song. 

The album then segue ways beautifully into one of the Top Cool Outs, The Vampyre of Time and Memory . Climbs out slowly into If I Had a Tail  and wraps up with the blistering My God is the Sun. Epic!

3. Rizzle Kicks – Skip to the Good Bit

Fave Lyric: Wanna be fit but I don’t like runnin, then I see you I wish I done sumthin.

Had a hard time picking one song off of one of my favorite albums of the year. Down with the Trumpets was the Big Sexy song of 2012. RIzzle Kicks came right back out in 2013 with an even stronger album even if they were unable to crack the top song of the year. This is still a fun song sampling one of my favorite One Hit Wonder songs of all time, EMF’s Unbelievable. I love this cheeky British band’s happy hip hop. They love horns and just having fun. It is infectious. They want everyone to have fun with them. I bet their concerts are just one big party. I’m not surprised the video is fun as well. This band doesn’t quell my desire to move to London.

4. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – Can’t Hold Us

Fave Lyric: Put our hands UP like the ceiling can’t hold us.

I know this list is kinda mainstream so far considering my typical musical influences, but Macklemore cannot be denied this year. There are a ton of versions of this song out there: pretty white girl acoustic, Gaelic, Ohio State Marching Band, and my favorite, over highlights of the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl.   I know it is white guy wrap, but the drop into the Ray Dalton verses and the female background singers and the horns really make this song. In fact, there might be too much Macklemore. It’s a high energy song that makes me bob my head when I hear it. I can’t even considerate it rap (and neither can rap fans who put their own hands up when the Grammy was announced).

5. Haim – The Wire

Fave Lyric: I know I know I know you’re gonna be ok anyway.

This can’t-break-up song really started hitting big after the sisters appears on SNL a few months back. It’s got a catchy, hand-clap feel and is just a good song. Pretty funny video of the poor broken hearted dumpees.

6. The Coup – The Guillotine

Fave Lyric: We got hella people. They got helicopters.

Love this Wiz inspired video. The Coup is a funk rock protest band from Oaktown. Preach! This album hit me at the end of 2012, but this song didn’t hit heavy rotation for me until 2013. Many choice cuts off their album Sorry to Bother You. Give it a spin and fight the power.

7. Kanye West – Black Skinhead

Fave Lyric: [heavy Breathing with the Drums]

Kanye West is crazy. The question is, is he crazy like a fox or just crazy like a nut job? There has never been a more narcissistic public performer. No one loves Yezzus like Yezzus. As much as I want to dislike this guy, it is impossible to not love this drum intro. This beat is one that stays with you. Big ups to the guy who made this video so I don’t have to look at Kanye while I watch. I haven’t seen The Wolf of Wall Street but this song’s inclusion in the trailer only makes me want to see it more. Plus, I love this gif of a dancing Leonardo.

8. Kings of Leon – Don’t Matter

Fave Lyric: I can fuhk or I can fight, it don’t matter to me.

KOL get their rock back on in this hard rock burner. This song is short and sweet. It doesn’t quite take me to where I think they used to be. It’s new. It is like a combination of old KOL and QOTSA. This song is a standout on their mostly ok album released this year. It is a good album in a down year for albums. This song would be choice in any year. The album will not be considered one of my favorite albums by this band.

9. Pearl Jam – Mind Your Manners

Fave Lyric: None

I love the animated video! I feel very much the same about this song and album as I just mentioned in the Kings of Leon comment. Good album in a down year for albums. This song is a clear standout. Not one of my favorite Pearl Jam albums of all time. This song sounds a lot like Spin the Black Circle from a classic PJ album from 20 years ago. 

10. The Lonely Island – YOLO

This is an album that I loved. I know it is a comedy album, but they really do have some serious chops. This is the probably the cleanest song on the album. There are several fun yet catchy songs on the album. This song has an Adam Levine chorus and a Kenrdrick Lamar verse and has a good beat. It is a clever take on the already played out YOLO tag line that all the kids liked to throw around for about 6 months. Man, the expiration date on cool things gets shorter and shorter. As an old guy, I can certainly see the lesson of YOLO is to be extra careful not extra dangerous.

11. Murder By Death – Brother

Fave Lyric: I know there’s better brothers, but you’re the only one that’s mine.

This a discovery band. This song is from 2006, but I love the unique sound these guys are putting out. A deeper baritone than The National. This song has kind of a punk-rockabilly hybrid. Is that a violin in this song? I was sure this band was from Texas, especially after hearing Spring Break-1899 (that will be on the Cool Out list), but I was surprised to hear they are from the Midwest. This is a great song about a guy still being loyal and loving to his loser brother despite all the years of misdeeds. I love that it tells a story all the way through.

12. Arctic Monkeys – Do I Wanna Know?

Fave Lyric: Simmer down and pucker up. OR Ever thought of calling when you’ve had a few? Cause I always do.

(Watch the video full screen on as big of a screen as possible!) Arctic Monkeys came back with a strong album this year, helped out by the one and only, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age. It is easy to hear his influence throughout the record, but specifically on this song. With a different voice, I would think this WAS the Queens of the Stone Age. However, I do love his accent. This song has the same cool rock swagger that I love from QOTSA. This song is about a guy who is infatuated with a girl but is afraid to find out if his feelings are requited.

13. TV On The Radio – Mercy

Fave lyric: I know my life can be my life

Nice driving beat. The song seems like a throwback to something for me, but I can’t put my hand on it. This song ended up growing on me. I don’t think I ever thought it would end up on the Top 20 when I first heard it.

14. San Cisco – Awkward

Fave Lyric: do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do

I know this is poppy and/or hipster, but it just sticks with me and I love it. This might not be a band or song that I love if I heard it too much, but in 2013 I heard it just the right amount. This band actually has another very listenable pop song called Fred Astaire which sounds like a poppy Strokes. 

15. Arcade Fire – Normal Person

Fave lyric : If that’s what’s normal now, I don’t wanna know.

I really ended up loving Arcade Fire’s last album, The Suburbs, after I was a bit incredulous as to why they had such a positive independent reputation. I didn’t get it. I eventually did get it and don’t know why I was missing it for so long. I have listened to their long awaited follow up for quite a bit now and it does not approach The Suburbs or their wonderful 2004 album, Funeral, that I only discovered after falling for the band. I keep giving it chances because I expect it to click with me eventually. But maybe Arcade Fire will fall in line with Pearl Jam and Kings of Leon of being a band I love that put out a record that I don’t necessarily love. This song has a harder edge that Arcade Fire can put together every once in a while. It has a jangly piano and kind of a Pixies sound to it. So far, at least, this song is a stand out on another “not top” album of a band I like.

16. The Neighbourhood – Afraid

Fave lyric: You’re too mean, I don’t like you. Fuck you anyway.

I love the dreamy sound of the band, The XX. The XX are very sparse, with a kind of atmospheric mellow pop sensibility. The Neighborhood sounds a lot like The XX to me in a good way. They are a little harder and don’t have the female give and take. They had a big hit in another good song, SweaterWeather. That song is a little overplayed and not quite as good as Afraid.

17. Cloud Nothings – Fall In

Fave lyric – Fall in, fall in, fall in.

Cloud Nothings were a new band for me last year and made the Top 20 with Stay Useless from the same album, Attack on Memory. Fall In is a quick blast of energy. The singer has a rawness to his voice and you can’t really understand what he is saying when he really gets going, but the tone chorus of “Fall In” seems like that is what is going on – there is some frantic mess that you can’t understand, then you “Fall in, fall in, fall in”.

18. Fitz and the Tantrums – Out of my League

Fave lyric – o o o o o o o oo o, o o o o o oo o

Welcome back to the ‘80s! I am a sucker for repetitive nonsense words in an upbeat song. I had no chance against this song.

19. The Mowgli’s – San Francisco

This song kinda fits with Fitz above for me. This is such a happy song and the video is so positive. I think I am going to burst from happy feelings watching it! Watch for my cameo at the 1:48 mark of this video. At least that how I saw myself when I was kicking around town with a walker.

20. Icona Pop – I Love It

Fave lyric - You’re from the 70’s but I’m a 90’s bitch.

This song is bordering on overplay and it has suffered from it. I’m going to sneak it on the list as I thought it was a very cool song when it came out. These Swedes give zero fucks. The song hit big when it was used as the musical score Lena Dunham’s cocaine blow out on Girls. It has now transitioned to being the music for the latest Bratz movie. That is a very large drop in coolness. Not being a fan of either cocaine nor Bratz, my enjoyment of the song happened in the middle of its coolness.

********************************************************************

There it is. The Big Sexy Top 20 Songs of 2013. A little tardy. I’m sure these are all in the rearview mirror now, but hopefully there is a new nugget or two that you can take out of it and enjoy in 2014. I suppose the theme is non-sense poppy songs and disappointing albums from superstars of rock. That isn’t a great theme. I’ll keep noodling…