Hugo Schwyzer

My wife and I share a great love for Mahalia, though #3 is the only song I have on my Itunes (it’s my favorite.) In the 1990s, I listened to Liz Phair constantly, and now don’t seem to do so as much, but my fondness isn’t entirely gone. #4 was on the radio a lot when I first came back to Christ and gave up a host of destructive behaviors, and it was a signature song for that first year of recovery. #1 and #9 are, as I’ve mentioned before, favorite theme songs from an earlier time, when the behaviors I gave up in the late ’90s were what sustained me. And of course, if you’ve never heard of the Wailin’ Jennys or the Weepies or my newest discovery, Sarah Buxton, check them out.

1. “Don’t Follow”, Alice in Chains
2. “World Spins Madly On”, The Weepies
3. “Thy Will Be Done”, Mahalia Jackson
4. “Your Life is Now”, John Mellencamp
5. “Leap of Innocence”, Liz Phair
6. “Darling Nikki”, Prince
7. “My Antonia”, Emmylou Harris and Dave Matthews
8. “The Mighty Quinn”, Ian and Sylvia
9. “I’ve Loved These Days”, Billy Joel
10. “Firecracker”, Wailin’ Jennys

Bonus Track: “Stupid Boy”, Sarah Buxton

I’ve got the longest run of the season coming up on Sunday, and can begin a gradual taper next week. These old bones need the rest.

Don’t read too much into my great fondness for #1. #5 is my favorite Eagles track, #3 is from one of those folk groups whose records my mother played for me when I was small, and they’re thus permanently part of my consciousness. #7 includes a line I thought immensely profound when I was nineteen: “we’re too young to reason, too grown up to dream.” (Now, it seems silly, but that’s what a couple of decades will do for ya.) #8 is from a local Pasadena artist whose work I’ve long admired. The Paul Colman Trio are a fairly obscure Christian band from Australia; I caught them opening for Third Day a few years back and they stole the show.

1. “Damn, I Wish I was Your Lover”, Sophie B. Hawkins
2. “Uncle John’s Band”, Indigo Girls
3. “Keep On the Sunny Side”, Ian and Sylvia
4. “Echo Park”, Joseph Arthur
5. “The Last Resort”, the Eagles
6. “Jealousy”, Natalie Merchant
7. “Slave to Love”, Bryan Ferry
8. “Fire and Rain”, Michelle Bloom
9. “Run”, Paul Colman Trio
10. “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down”, Uncle Tupelo

Bonus Track: “The One Who Knows”, Alison Krauss and Dar Williams

A lot of “retreads” on this FRT. My fondness for punk is not what it was a generation ago, but #5 and #10 are both fine examples of the genre. #3 and #6 both take me back to high school — reminding me of very different aspects of my adolescence, of course. I’ve mentioned before that Nebraska is my favorite Springsteen album, and this is my second-favorite track off that marvelous acoustic recording. And I like #4 as a cover of the James Taylor classic, but I know some other people find it appalling.

1. “Heavenly Day”, Patty Griffin
2. “Awful”, Hole
3. “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love”, Van Halen
4. “Fire and Rain”, Sammy Kershaw
5. “Mr. Integrity”, L7
6. “To Turn You On”, Roxy Music
7. “Lonesome Valley”, Joan Baez
8. “Atlantic City”, Bruce Springsteen
9. “Love Song for a Savior”, Jars of Clay
10. “Take ‘em All”, Ultima Thule

Bonus Track Two: “The Beautiful Ones”, Prince
Bonus Track Two: “Romeo and Juliet”, Indigo Girls

Oh, I do like this FRT. Joan Armatrading is still another of those wonderful, underappreciated ’70s singer/songwriters, and #3 is one of my favorite of hers. I don’t think she’s come up on an FRT before. With #2, I’ve got one of my favorite CSNY songs, and though I’m hardly a huge fan of the Dead, one couldn’t go to Berkeley twenty years ago and not get around to hearing them. #5 is one of their most popular tracks. I went through a Concrete Blonde phase in the early 1990s, but rarely listen to them anymore — #7 is a nice exception. I can never decide if I like Welch’s version of #9 as much as I like Emmylou’s, so I listen to them both.

1. “Massachusetts”, Bee Gees
2. “Helpless”, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
3. “Willow”, Joan Armatrading
4. “Josephine”, Brandi Carlile
5. “Ripple”, Grateful Dead
6. “In Spite of all the Damage”, Be Good Tanyas
7. “Tomorrow, Wendy”, Concrete Blonde
8. “The Hardest Part”, Allison Moorer
9. “Orphan Girl”, Gillian Welch
10. “In God’s Country”, U2

Bonus Track: “Alleluia”, Dar Williams

#1 is the title track off the album I’ve been obsessed with for months. Other big favorites are 6,7,9; the last of these was originally burned for me by a student who said she thought it described me. And the bonus is from one of my favorite punk bands of my childhood; it didn’t come up on my party shuffle, but I’m dedicating it to the remarkable breakthroughs we have seen in Northern Ireland this week.

1. “Firecracker”, Wailin’ Jennys
2. “In my Hour of Darkness”, Gram Parsons
3. “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down”, Uncle Tupelo
4. “Country Song”, The Men they Couldn’t Hang
5. “Alone and Forsaken”, Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler
6. “The Pearl”, Emmylou Harris
7. “Summer, Highland Falls”, Billy Joel
8. “The Story”, Brandi Carlile
9. “Lucky One”, Alison Krauss
10. “Walk Down this Mountain”, Bebo Norman

Bonus Track: “Alternative Ulster”, Stiff Little Fingers

It’s a busy day of grading, book proposals, meetings, and exercise. No time for blogging. I’ll be back on Monday…

Several songs on today’s FRT are oldies recorded before I graduated college. #1 is from my hair band days; #2 just showed up a short time ago on an FRT, my favorite song from my favorite new group; #3 a classic from an old junior year favorite; #4 is Emmylou doing bluegrass at its most transcendent; #8 is Patty Griffin’s song, and she and Burke both turn this tribute to MLK’s final speech into a three-hankie number; #9 is one I played a lot when I was single again, thinking my last chance had passed me by; #10 is a song of which I have at least three downloaded versions, and with Kottke and DeMent, you can’t go wrong. For all of his periodically faux sentimentality, I have a soft spot for Randy Travis, and the bonus track today is off my favorite of his albums.

1. “Breaking the Chains”, Dokken
2. “Things that You Know”, Wailin’ Jennys
3. “Mandela Day”, Simple Minds
4. “Darkest Hour is Just Before Dawn”, Emmylou Harris and Ricky Skaggs
5. “When You Awake”, The Band
6. “Windfall”, Son Volt
7. “Your Embrace”, Shakira
8. “Up to the Mountain”, Solomon Burke
9. “Table for Two”, Caedmon’s Call
10. “Banks of Marble”, Leo Kottke and Iris Dement

Bonus Track: “What’ll You Do About Me?”, Randy Travis

I said I wouldn’t blog again until Monday. I promise good blogging next week, mind you, but am briefly near a computer, in between trips to South Florida and Northern California and the parking lot on campus. Lots of good things percolatin’ in my head, and on this Maundy Thursday (I’m home with the chinnies, missing out on foot-washing at church), I offer this FRT.

As usual, I’m heavy on female singers. #2 is from an artist who’s the rage-du-jour; I’ve heard a lot of her stuff the past ten days, and she’s the real deal. #6 is one of those folk standards from my childhood that remind me why I became a card-carrying socialist in junior high school. #4 is as good a feminist country anthem from the early ’90s as you could want, and the bonus track is one I really, really like singing in the car.

1. “Echo Park”, Joseph Arthur
2. “Cannonball”, Brandi Carlile
3. “Heavenly Day”, Patty Griffin
4. “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her”, Mary Chapin Carpenter
5. “Only Tongue Can Tell”, Trashcan Sinatras
6. “The Banks are Made of Marble”, The Weavers
7. “Lay My Head Down”, Indigo Girls
8. “Ol’ 55″, Tom Waits
9. “Take ‘em All”, Ultima Thule
10. “These Thousand Hills”, Third Day

Bonus Track: “Better than You”, Terri Clark

Happy Easter!

You can configure your Itunes party shuffle to display both recently and not-so-recently played songs. But sometimes, the results of the FRT shuffle leave me wondering if another hand is at work. I sense a theme.

I think more people should annotate, however briefly, their FRTs.

#1 is an oft-recorded classic from a stalwart of the kind of authentic country rock I love so much. #2 is a new track from a favorite Christian band, and #3 is by the former leader of the Christian band Caedmon’s Call. #4 is my favorite track, oddly, off the sublime “Appetite for Destruction” (has it really been twenty years?) #5 is from a third Christian artist who is growing on me, #6 from my beloved Emmylou, and #7 a wicked good cover of the Prince track by a great trio. I remember driving a group of teenagers up to Big Bear two years ago, all of us singing #8 aloud, me wondering if I was going to get in trouble for doing so. #9, as popular and widely played as it was seven or eight years ago, still gives me chills. And #10 is off, well, my favorite album from the whole dang ’70s, the breathtakingly good “Late for the Sky.” Bonus track from my favorite Welsh band of the ’90s.

1. “Paradise”, John Prine
2. “Mirrors and Smoke”, Jars of Clay
3. “Wedding Dress”, Derek Webb
4. “Rocket Queen”, Guns n’ Roses
5. “Closer to Myself”, Kendall Payne
6. “Orphan Girl”, Emmylou Harris
7. “When Doves Cry”, Be Good Tanyas
8. “I Touch Myself”, Divinyls
9. “Cowboy, Take Me Away”, Dixie Chicks
10. “Before the Deluge”, Jackson Browne

Bonus Track: “Bulimic Beats”, Catatonia