Five Best...Neil Young Album Openers

#5. "Goin' Back" from Comes a Time

I feel like goin' back
Back where there's nowhere to stay
When fire fills the sky
I'll still remember that day
These rocks I'm climbin' down
Have already left the ground
Careening through space

#4. "Walk On" from On the Beach

Ooh baby, that's hard to change
I can't tell them how to feel.
Some get stoned, some get strange,
But sooner or later it all gets real.

Walk on, walk on,
Walk on, walk on.

#3. "Tell Me Why" from After the Gold Rush

Tell me lies later, come and see me
I'll be around for a while.
I am lonely but you can free me
All in the way that you smile
Tell me why, tell me why

#2. "Cinnamon Girl" from Everybody Knows This is Nowhere

Ten silver saxes, a bass with a bow
The drummer relaxes and waits between shows
For his cinnamon girl

#1. "Out on the Weekend" from Harvest

See the lonely boy, out on the weekend
Trying to make it pay.
Can't relate to joy, he tries to speak and
Can't begin to say

Five Best...Scapegoat Songs

#5. "Scapegoat" by Chumbawamba

Scapegoat
Looking for a scapegoat
There's always someone else for
You to blame
Backed into a corner
He barricades his life
Fastens up the shutters every night

#4. "Sacrificial Bonfire" by XTC

The scapegoat blood spilled
Spittled and grilled it crackled and spat
And children grew fat on the meat
Change must be earnt
Sacrificial bonfire must burn

#3. "Ballad in Plain D" by Bob Dylan

Of the two sisters, I loved the young.
With sensitive instincts, she was the creative one.
The constant scapegoat, she was easily undone
By the jealousy of others around her.

#2. "Endless Highway" by the Band

When they get a scapegoat by the throat
It's hard labour and cold beans
If ya get away real quick
You'll be eatin' from the poison peanut machine
Well, I sing by night, wander by day
I'm on the road and it looks like I'm here to stay

#1. "The Sound of Music" by Joy Division

I'll walk you through the heartbreak,
Show you all the out takes,
I can't see it getting higher,
Systematically degraded,
Emotionally a scapegoat,
I can't see it getting better.

Five Best...Songs from Déjà Vu

#5. "Everybody I Love You"

Know you got to run
Know you got to hide
Still there is a great life
Engrained deep within your eyes
Open up, open up
Baby let me in
You expect for me to love you
When you hate yourself, my friend

#4. "Country Girl: Whiskey Boot Hill/Down, Down, Down/Country Girl"

Country girl I think you're pretty,
Got to make you understand,
Have no lovers in the city,
Let me be your country man.
Got to make you understand.

#3. "Our House"

Staring at the fire
For hours and hours
While I listen to you
Play your love songs
All night long for me
Only for me

#2. "Carry On"

Girl when I was on my own
Chasing you down
What was it made you run?
Trying your best just to get around.
The questions of a thousand dreams
What you do and what you see
Lover can you talk to me?

#1. "Helpless"

Helpless, helpless, helpless
Baby can you hear me now?
The chains are locked and tied across the door,
Baby, sing with me somehow.

"If I Could Only Turn Back the Clock to When God and Her Were Born"

A quick post today:

While driving to the post office, I was listening to "Shelter from the Storm" from Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan, and heard this verse:

I've heard newborn babies wailin' like a mournin' dove
And old men with broken teeth stranded without love.
Do I understand your question, man, is it hopeless and forlorn?
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

I've listened to "Shelter" at least 150 times in my life, and even on my listen #151, I said out loud to myself, "What a fucking amazing song."

Five Best...Bacon Songs

#5. "Muskrat Love" by the Captain and Tennille

Nibbling on bacon, chewin' on cheese
Sammy says to Susie "Honey, would you please be my missus?"
And she say yes
With her kisses

#4. "What's Good?" by Lou Reed

Life's like a mayonnaise soda
And life's like space without room
And life's like bacon and ice cream
That's what life's like without you

#3. "Death by Cholesterol" by Mucky Pup

Death by cholesterol,
Death by cholesterol,
Eggs, bacon, Crisco, butter, these will make your heart stutter.
Eggs, bacon, Crisco, butter, these will make your heart stutter.

#2. "Piggies" by the Beatles

Everywhere there's lots of piggies,
Living piggy lives.
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives,
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.

#1. "Incomin' Bacon" by Zack Attack

You know, baby, I don’t really dig
Flyin' strips of Porky Pig
Incomin' bacon
Duck 'n' cover
She’s hurlin' bacon at her brother
Duck 'n' cover
She’s hurlin' bacon at her brother
Ow!

(I've never heard of Zack Attack and the only thing I know about them is that they have an album called Constipated, but those are some mighty funny lyrics)

Any post about bacon must include this conversation:

Vincent: Want some bacon?
Jules: No man, I don't eat pork.
Vincent: Are you Jewish?
Jules: Nah, I ain't Jewish, I just don't dig on swine, that's all.
Vincent: Why not?
Jules: Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.
Vincent: Bacon tastes gooood. Pork chops taste gooood.
Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfucker. Pigs sleep and root in shit. That's a filthy animal. I ain't eat nothin' that ain't got enough sense enough to disregard its own feces.
Vincent: How about a dog? Dogs eats its own feces.
Jules: I don't eat dog either.
Vincent: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?
Jules: I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're definitely dirty. But a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.
Vincent: Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filthy animal. Is that true?
Jules: Well we'd have to be talkin' about one charmin' motherfuckin' pig. I mean he'd have to be ten times more charmin' than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I'm sayin'?

Live or Let Live or Die?

My laptop has been on the fritz the last couple of days and my pictures of Israel are on it, which is why I haven't posted Vol. II of my trip. Once the computer is fixed, I'll be sure to continue with my adventures.

While in Israel, I was listening to a kid from Houston, Texas named Eric have a friendly argument with another Sachlav participant about whether they'd rather live to be 100 but be in more pain or live only to 75 but have those years full of joy and the least amount of agony possible.

At one point, every teenager (and even into the adult years) has this argument, whether internally or externally. Personally, I'd rather live a full 75 than a so-so 100 (Eric thought the same thing), and I was thinking about this yesterday when I heard this:

I'd rather die happy than not die at all
And a man is a fool who will not heed the call

That's from "W.S. Walcott Medicine Show" by the Band, and sums up perfectly what millions of wasted words in thousands of naive arguments couldn't fully sum up.

Five Best...New Year's Songs

#5. "Grace Cathedral Hill" by the Decemberists

Grace Cathedral Hill
All wrapped in bones of setting sun
All dust and stone and moribund
I paid twenty-five cents to light a little white candle
For a New Year's Day

#4. "Lightning Strikes (Not Once but Twice)" by the Clash

It's Cuban Day, Oi Vey!
Chinese New Year, let's call it a day

#3. "New Year's Resolution" by Otis Redding

Let's turn over a new leave
And baby let's make promises
That we can keep
And call it a New Year's resolution, hmmm

#2. "New Year's Day" by U2

All is quiet on New Year's Day
A world in white gets underway
I want to be with you
Be with you night and day
Nothing changes on New Year's Day
On New Year's Day

#1. "Auld Lang Syne" by Various Artists

For Auld Lang Syne, my dear,
For Auld Lang Syne,
We'll take a cup of kindness yet,
For Auld Lang Syne.