#3 is my wife’s song, the other nine are mine. #1 goes back to my childhood, growing up listening to my mother’s extensive folk music collection. And how many of my readers know about Stiff Little Fingers, one of the great Irish punk bands from the same era as the very early U2?
1. "Rock Island Line", The Weavers
2. "Alternative Ulster", Stiff Little Fingers
3. "Carefree Highway", Gordon Lightfoot
4. "Let Me Go", Cake
5. "Heaven Tonight", Hole
6. "I Shall Be Released", The Band
7. "Jailbreak", Thin Lizzy
8. "Billy Morgan", Men They Couldn’t Hang
9. "Jerusalem", Steve Earle
10. "In My Hour of Darkness", Gram Parsons
Bonus Track: "Soleil en fleur", Soeur Sourire (that one’s for Douglas)
I listened to them a lot in high school and saw them live during one of their periodic reunions in the early ’90s. (It was a really surreal experience. There were tons of jerks in the audience wearing pro-IRA t-shirts, which seemed to me to be missing the point on a grand scale.) I think their appeal in the U.S. was pretty regional. They weren’t all that obscure among punk kids where I grew up, but I know people who came out of other scenes and had never heard of them.
I listened to SLF too. I grew up in So. California, but it was my British penpal who sent me loads of SLF cassette tapes in the mid-80’s. I was just remembering them the other night and listening to samples on itunes. Hmmm…maybe I’ll download some.
Well, you’ve got Cake followed by Hole = Cakehole. That has to count for something.
I first saw Stiff Little Fingers on video, either on very early MTV or one of its rivals, about 1981-82.
Jeff, I hadn’t thought of that. Cakehole does count for something.
Stiff Little Fingers is a new one for me - thanks for the heads-up!
Ah yes, “Italian Lobster”. Or that’s what we thought it sounded like at the time!