Feb 10

#LOTD2014: March Playlist

Continuing to push through the way-overdue Lyric-of-the-Day project recaps from 2013-2014 with the March 2014 playlist. As a refresher, each day from Jan. 1, 2013 through Dec. 31, 2014, I posted a lyric on my Twitter feed. At the end of each month, I created a Spotify playlist of the songs featured, and throughout much of 2013-14 here on the blog.

Here’s March’s #LOTD2014 playlist (find the Spotify playlist I’ve created from these lyrics linked at the end of the post or on the clickable image at right), with some brief explanations (in italics) for a number of the lyrics.

  • “I’m filling a need/I’m plugging a hole/My mama’s so glad/I ain’t on the dole” #RollingStones “When The Whip Comes Down” #LOTD2014 3/1
  • “All my friends know the low rider/The low rider is a little higher” #WAR “Low Rider” #LOTD2014 3/2 #BeALotCoolerIfYouDid #McConnaissance (Matthew McConaughey wins the Best Actor Oscar for “Dallas Buyers Club”)
  • “For the millionth time askin’ me/Questions like Wendy Williams harassin’ me” #JayZ “A Million & 1 Questions” #LOTD2014 3/3
  • “I have no fear of falling/But I hate hitting the ground” #TheBadlees “Fear Of Falling” #LOTD2014 3/4 (I took a tumble while jogging in downtown L.A. and broke my left pinkie.)
  • “They can plead/But they can’t see the light/Cause the boy with cold hard cash/Is always Mr. Right” #Madonna “Material Girl” #LOTD2014 3/5
  • “Bend my finger back (snap)/Wrap it in a paper towel/Break a twig in half and set it straight” #VampireWeekend “Finger Back” #LOTD2014 3/6 (Surgery on that broken pinkie with my long-time hand and wrist specialist, Dr. Shin.)
  • “Light up, light up/As if you have a choice/Even if you cannot hear my voice/I’ll be right beside you dear” #SnowPatrol “Run” #LOTD2014 3/7
  • “The infrastructure will collapse/From voltage spikes/Throw your keys in the bowl” #Radiohead “House Of Cards” #LOTD2014 3/8
  • “Take the water prisoner/Fill the sky with screams and cries/Bathe in fiery answers” #TownesVanZandt “Lungs” #LOTD2014 3/9 #TrueDetective (HBO airs the last episode of the amazing first season of “True Detective.”)
  • “Hey brother, do you still believe in one another?/Hey sister, do you still believe in love I wonder?” #Avicii “Hey Brother” #LOTD2014 3/10
  • “Headphones are loud/Chilling on a pillowy cloud/Comfort of codeine & Springsteen pristine” #KurtVile “Snowflakes Are Dancing” #LOTD2014 3/11
  • “Sun’s brighter than its ever been/Why ain’t I?/Cause I’m a Son of an American/ That’s why” #TheSoSoGlos “Son Of An American” #LOTD2014 3/12
  • “Ain’t nuttin goin on but the bomb-ass rap song/Hittin all night long” #IceCube “You Know How We Do It” #LOTD2014 3/13 (cc: @danny_mendoza)
  • “I forget to forget nothing is important/Holding back the fool again” #SmashingPumpkins “To Forgive” #LOTD2014 3/14
  • “Shoefly, dragonfly/Get back t’your mother/Pick up a flat rock/Skip it across Green River” #CCR “Green River” #LOTD2014 3/15 #StPatsChicago (In Chicago for work, but spent the day enjoying the city’s incredible annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration.)
  • “I need a garden/Where nothing’s forbidden/I need an apple/That no one’s been eatin'” #TheWallflowers “When You’re On Top” #LOTD2014 3/16
  • “When the night has no end/And the day yet to begin/As the room spins around/I need your love” #U2 “Hawkmoon 269” #LOTD2014 3/17
  • “Cannonball and rifle/Rifle and cannonball/That’s the way the thunder rumbles” #EchoAndTheBunnymen “Bedbugs And Ballyhoo” #LOTD2014 3/18
  • “We live for just these twenty years/Do we have to die for the fifty more?” #DavidBowie “Young Americans” #LOTD2014 3/19
  • “Does your imagination try to make you what you wanted to be/I’m sorry I do what I did but it came naturally” #Haim “The Wire” #LOTD2014 3/20
  • “Moons and Junes & ferris wheels/The dizzy dancing way you feel/As every fairy tale comes real” #JudyCollins “Both Sides Now” #LOTD2014 3/21 (Attended the “Mad Men” creator and cast roundtable at Paleyfest at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood.)
  • “Hold back the dam/Fill these bags with sand/Every boy, woman, every man/Has got to…” “Lend A Hand” #JakobDylan #LOTD2014 3/22 #SCervice (Worked with a group of underprivileged junior high and high school students interested in journalism as part of USC’s annual Day of Service.)
  • “Put our heads together/Start a new country up/Our father’s father’s father tried/Erased parts he didn’t like”#REM “Cuyahoga” #LOTD2014 3/23
  • “Lake made of sand/And the milk don’t pour/And the honey don’t dance/And the money ain’t yours” #ChanceTheRapper “Pusha Man” #LOTD2014 3/24
  • “Did I tell you how much I miss your smile?/Did I tell you I was okay?/Well no way” #AdamAnt “Wonderful” #LOTD2014 3/25
  • “You wake and let’s wait to start the morning process/Rebuilding & you’re still a work in progress” #Eminem “Beautiful Pain” #LOTD2014 3/26
  • “I’ve been watching you/Think I wanna know ya/I’m a little dangerous/I’d love to show ya” #MorrisDayAndTheTime “Jungle Love” #LOTD2014 3/27
  • “There’s a brand new groove goin’ round/In your city, in your town/And the kick drum is the fault” #Prince “Housequake” #LOTD2014 3/28
  • “Lay your cross down/And let the long reaching arm/Of hope bring you around” #TerenceTrentDarby “Dance Little Sister” #LOTD2014 3/29
  • “Now I’m lookin’ at a flashback Sunday/Zoom lens feelings just won’t disappear” #JGeilsBand “Freeze Frame” #LOTD2014 3/30
  • “There’s music on the station/But I’m just listening to cold wind whistling” #ArcadeFire “Cold Wind” #LOTD2014 3/31

Here’s the Spotify playlist if you’d like to listen along: #LOTD204: March

Jul 09

#LOTD2013: June Playlist

#LOTD2013: JuneThere’s no doubt: it’s a heck of a lot easier to catch up on the #LOTD2013 playlists on a monthly basis than it is to do so on the weekly Photo-A-Day posts. Without further ado, here are June’s Lyric-of-the-Day Tweets (find the Spotify playlist I’ve created from these lyrics linked at the end of the post or on the clickable image at right), with some brief explanations (in italics) for a number of the lyrics. Remember, if you want to see the lyrics as they pop up daily, just give me a follow on Twitter!

  • “Stretched to the limit attention spans/Snap back retract/Collapse into laugh tracks/Noise response applause” #Beck “Hell Yes” #LOTD2013 6/1
  • “Laughing on the bus/Playing games with the faces/She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy” #SimonAndGarfunkel “America” #LOTD2013 6/2
  • “If there’s something inside that you want to say/Say it out loud it’ll be okay” #TheBetaBand “Dry The Rain” #LOTD2013 6/3
  • “She looks me in the eye & says/We’re gonna last forever/And ya know I can’t begin to doubt it” #TomPetty “Here Comes My Girl” #LOTD2013 6/4 (The most special and personal treat of a great Petty show at the Fonda Theater in Hollywood.)
  • “Under a big old sky, out in a field of green/There’s gotta be something left for us to believe” #TPATH “Kings Highway” #LOTD2013 6/5 (And the second best personal treat from the night before.)
  • “Stand up and deliver/Your wildest fantasy/Do what the fuck you want to/There’s no one to appease” #Muse “Panic Station” #LOTD2013 6/6
  • “Our god is a sinner, our king is a con/The room’s about to crumble as I burst into song” #TheHives “Go Right Ahead” #LOTD2013 6/7
  • “Sold me out for chump change/Told me they had it all arranged/You handed me down, that’s a fact” #JamesBrown “The Payback”
  • “Eight miles high/And when you touch down/You’ll find that it’s/Stranger than known” #TheByrds “Eight Miles High” #LOTD2013 6/9
  • “Love don’t play any games with me/Anymore like she did before” #RyanAdams “New York, New York” #LOTD2013 6/10 (A week of NYC-related tunes kicks off with a rocking choice for the arrival in town.)
  • “There’s a woman/On the outside/Looking inside/Does she see me?” #SuzanneVega “Tom’s Diner” #LOTD2013 6/11
  • “Wearin’ the cross of my calling/On wheels of fire I come rollin’ down here” #BruceSpringsteen “The Rising” #LOTD2013 6/12 (After a business meeting in lower Manhattan, I got a chance to walk down and check the progress of the new World Trade Center building.)
  • “Subway steam, like silhouettes in dreams/They stood by me, just like moonbeams” #TheWallflowers “6th Avenue Heartache” #LOTD2013 6/13
  • “Tom, get your plane right on time/I know you’ve been eager to fly now” #SimonAndGarfunkel “The Only Living Boy In New York” #LOTD2013 6/14 (Got my plane back to L.A. on time. Unfortunately, American Airlines was into their own delays — as usual — on this long Friday.)
  • “It’s the room, the sun and the sky/It’s the room, the sun and the sky” #SilversunPickups “Lazy Eye” #LOTD2013 6/15
  • “You’re the reason I sing/You’re the reason why the opera is in me” #U2 “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own” #LOTD2013 6/16 (For my dad.)
  • “The first mate he got drunk/Broke in the cap’ns trunk/The constable had to come and take him away” #BeachBoys “Sloop John B” #LOTD2013 6/17
  • “I knew it when I met you/I’m not gonna let you runaway/I knew it when I held you I wasn’t letting go” #Killers “Runaways” #LOTD2013 6/18
  • “What a gas it was to see him/Walk her every day/Into a shady place/With her lips she said” #ThePixies “Gigantic” #LOTD2013 6/19
  • “Before anybody wanted K-West beats/Me and my girl split the buffet at KFC” #KanyeWest “Touch The Sky” #LOTD2013 6/20
  • “At the drive-in/In the old man’s Ford/Behind the bushes/Until I’m screamin’ for more” #Poison “Talk Dirty To Me” #LOTD2013 6/21 (Thanks to that post-game jukebox in Wrigleyville.)
  • “People talking, people laughing/A man selling ice cream/Singing Italian songs” #Chicago “Saturday In The Park” #LOTD2013 6/22 (As I posted that day, I was eating brunch in Chicago on a Saturday in Wicker Park when this song came on the diner’s loudspeakers. The start of a really good day.)
  • “Mercury is rising still/Turn the fan on high/I won’t step on my own shadow/No one wants to cry” #REM “Summer Turns To High” #LOTD2013 6/23
  • “And I’ll be workin’/From sun up to midnight” #MichaelJackson “Workin’ Day And Night” #LOTD2013 6/24
  • “There been times I thought I couldn’t last for long/But now I think I’m able to carry on” #SamCooke “A Change Is Gonna Come” #LOTD2013 6/25 (After this day’s, um, amazing(?) Voting Rights Act decision by the Supreme Court, I guess the change is going to have to come … again.)
  • “But no matter what you do/It always feels as though you tripped and fell” #TheRaconteurs “Steady, As She Goes” #LOTD2013 6/26
  • “She’s a Georgia Peach never within reach/He’s a felon from Baton Rouge” #BetterThanEzra “A Southern Thing” #LOTD2013 6/27
  • “Door is locked just you and me/Can I take you to a restaurant that’s got glass tables” #EnglishBeat “Mirror In The Bathroom” #LOTD2013 6/28
  • “The temperature’s about 88/Hop in the water plug just for old times sake” #DJJazzyJeffAndTheFreshPrince “Summertime” #LOTD2013 6/29 (SoCal’s first summer heat wave of 2013 hit hard on this sunny Saturday.)
  • “Maybe you’re the same as me/We see things they’ll never see/You and I, we’re gonna …” “Live Forever” #Oasis #LOTD2013 6/30

Here’s the Spotify playlist if you’d like to listen along: #LOTD2013: June

May 02

#LOTD2013: March Playlist

#LOTD2013: MarchA busy April means I’m still playing a little bit of catch-up with my two “A-Day” projects for 2013. I’m pretty close on the Photo-A-Day project, but with the calendar turning to May yesterday, I’m now officially way behind on my Lyric of the Day recaps.

But, good news! I was able to pull together the list of March’s Tweets (find the Spotify playlist I’ve created from these lyrics linked at the end of the post or on the clickable image at right), with some brief explanations (in italics) for a number of the lyrics. Remember, if you want to see the lyrics as they pop up daily, just give me a follow on Twitter!

  • “Once I get you up there/Where the air is rarefied/We’ll just glide/Starry-eyed” #FrankSinatra “Come Fly With Me” #LOTD2013 3/1 (One day home between flights from Miami and to Chicago.)
  • Chairman back2back “My kind of town, Chicago is/My kind of razmatazz/And it has all that jazz” #FrankSinatra “My Kind Of Town” #LOTD2013 3/2 (On to Chicago, perhaps the most American city.)
  • “Believe, believe in me, believe/That life can change, that you’re not stuck in vain” #SmashingPumpkins “Tonight, Tonight” #LOTD2013 3/3
  • “Will I catch the moon/Like a bird in a cage/It’s for you I swoon/I’m always in love” #Wilco “I’m Always In Love” #LOTD2013 3/4
  • “I’ll wait up in the dark/For you to speak to me/I’ll open up/Release me” #PearlJam “Release” #LOTD2013 3/5
  • “I’ve been runnin’/And I’ve been racin’/So many different towns/So many different places” #GLove “Home” #LOTD2013 3/6 (Finally home for a bit after a couple weeks on the road.)
  • “Little things amuse little minds/Well, nothin’s free except a little bit of bad advice” #Wallflowers “Laughing Out Loud” #LOTD2013 3/7
  • “I dreamed you/I saw your face/Caught my lifeline/Drifting through space” #TomPettyandtheHeartbreakers “Angel Dream (No. 4)” #LOTD2013 3/8
  • “They’re forming in a straight line/They’re going through a tight wind/Kids are losing their minds” #Ramones “Blitzkrieg Bop” #LOTD2013 3/9
  • “Hey, hey it’s okay to make/A little mess out of your life” #Cracker “This Is Cracker Soul” #LOTD2013 3/10
  • “We write songs about wrong cause it’s hard to see right/Look to the sky hoping it will bleed light” #Common “The Corner” #LOTD2013 3/11 (A favorite running song of mine, especially effective on this date.)
  • “In a parked car/A crowded street/You see your love/Made complete/Thread is ripping/Knot is slipping” #U2 “Love Is Blindness” #LOTD2013 3/12
  • “Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss” #TheWho “Won’t Get Fooled Again” #LOTD2013 3/13 #newpope (Sorry, I’m not remotely religious and the supposed importance of picking this figurehead who ends up standing for so many outdated ideas always baffles me.)
  • “Who’s usin’ who? What should we do?/Well you can’t be a pimp and a prostitute too” #TheWhiteStripes “Icky Thump” #LOTD2013 3/14
  • “A million dead-end streets & every time I thought I’d got it made/It seemed the taste was not so sweet”#DavidBowie “Changes” #LOTD2013 3/15
  • “Don’t need convincing at all/I love this place enough to have no doubt” #SnowPatrol “Take Back The City” #LOTD2013 3/16
  • “I want to feel sunlight on my face/I see the dust cloud disappear/Without a trace” #U2 “Where The Streets Have No Name” #LOTD2013 3/17 (The best song by the best Irish rock band of all time. Happy St. Pat’s!)
  • “Success is a state of mind/With a little bit of follow thru/And then you failed at that too” #JennyLewis “Bad Man’s World” #LOTD2013 3/18
  • “What’s gonna set you free/Look inside and you’ll see/When you’ve got so much to say/It’s called…” #BeastieBoys “Gratitude” #LOTD2013 3/19
  • “It was just to see, just to see/All the things you knew I’d written about you/So many illustrations” #Morrissey “Suedehead” #LOTD2013 3/20
  • “The sparkle in your eyes/Keeps me alive/And the sparkle in your eyes/Keeps me alive” #TheCult “She Sells Sanctuary” #LOTD2013 3/21
  • “She’s well acquainted/With the touch of a velvet hand/Like a lizard on a window pane” #TheBeatles “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” #LOTD2013 3/22 (Dinner at El Coyote gets a lyric from the White Album. You figure out the connection. ;-))
  • “She gets confused/Flying over the dateline/Her hands turn red/Cause the days change at night” #X “Los Angeles” #LOTD2013 3/23 (An especially great L.A. Saturday.)
  • “Nothing short a’ dying/Half as lonesome as the sound/Of the sleeping city sidewalk” #JohnnyCash “Sunday Morning Coming Down” #LOTD2013 3/24
  • “Do you go to the country/It isn’t very far/There’s people there who will hurt you/Cos of who you are” #Blur “Coffee and TV” #LOTD2013 3/25 (Coachella wristbands were delivered. Weeks later, Blur would deliver, as well.)
  • “The frozen Tundra ain’t cold enough/And baby ain’t old enough/For this game I’m rollin’ up” #IceCube “Pushin’ Weight” #LOTD2013 3/26
  • “This is the springtime of my loving/The second season I am to know/You are the sunlight …” #LedZeppelin “The Rain Song” #LOTD2013 3/27
  • “There’s this store where the creatures meet/I wonder what they do in there” #TheDoors “Love Street” #LOTD2013 3/28
  • “The hwy is for gamblers/Better use your sense/Take what you’ve gathered from coincidence”#Dylan “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue”#LOTD2013 3/29 (The final day of preparation for Response Expo 2013.)
  • “Can you keep them in the dark for life/Can you hide them from the waiting world” #Danzig “Mother” #LOTD2013 3/30
  • “Remember what the dormouse said/’Feed your head/Feed your head'” #JeffersonAirplane “White Rabbit” #LOTD2013 3/31 #HappyEaster (Guess it’s clear this one goes hand-in-hand with March 13.)

Here’s the Spotify playlist if you’d like to listen along: #LOTD2013: March