This is a good one. John actually sent me such a compilation though it was specifically for the winter months in Scotland, but this is along those lines ...
January - Pilot
Blue Valentines - Tom Waits
Easter Parade - Emmy the Great
April Fools - Rufus Wainwright
May Day - Elvis Perkins
June Evenings - Air France
4th July, Asbury Park - Bruce Springsteen
August - Rilo Kiley
September Gurls - Big Star
Halloweenhead - Ryan Adams
Mr November - The National
Everyday is Christmas - The Webb Brothers
While writing the list, of course, fresh ideas kept on presenting themselves, so here, you lucky people, is a bonus tape, since it's been long since I last posted something
New Year's Day - U2
Ash Wednesday - Elvis Perkins
Good Friday - Elvis Perkins
April Skies - Jesus & Mary Chain
Bank Holiday - Blur
June Gloom - The Like
July, July - The Decemberists
A Summer Wasting - Belle and Sebastian
September - Ryan Adams & the Cardinals
Moondance - Van Morrison
Gone 'til November - Wyclef Jean
The Last Good Day of the Year - Cousteau
Really, I only included a second one because I couldn't face leaving off either Mr November or Gone 'til November (which manages to include the names of most of the other months in its lyric).
Mr November is a tremendous song, one of my favourites. Mr November is a term used in America to describe someone who really comes good when the heat is on, as the World Series would traditionally take place in November. It has even been co-opted in politics, with the presidential election taking place in November, and, in fact, The National offered this song to Obama to be used, and, I think, had their own t-shirts made up with Obama's face on them - something like that, anyway ...
Found it slightly tricky to come up with anything about the passing of the months of the year without resorting to cliche, I think it would be easier to focus on a specific month. When I used to write lists on my facebook page, I used to revel in their banality (eg 10 Favourite London Tube Lines) so perhaps I can be gleefully inane now and put the months of the year in order of preference. (from worst to best)
February
October
January
November
March
September
August
December
April
July
May
June
My experience of facebook statuses is that, while Wildean wit and noteworthy recollection goes unremarked upon, the above is the kind of level of expression which will get a stream of comments, so I will, to save you the trouble, provide my own facebook-esque response to this:
Bobby McGee: HaHa
Jimbob McGinty: I hate February
Taggart: Spot on, mate. Love June!!!?!!
Errol Waldhammer: You're a dick
Ernest Santangelo: I agree with you about April, but not about December
Bobby McGee: How about a list of favourite weeks of the year? That would be AWESOME!!
Vance Johnson III: Who do you think you are? Only God can judge the months of the year...
That kind of thing ...
So, anyway, in terms of the year and it's start and placing our own narrative structure upon it, I thought this
On a tube train, faking a hangover,
head in clean hands ducking fierce friendliness
we start the year as we mean to go on -
the memory of other people's mixtapes
fading not quite quickly enough to stop
ourselves (dosed up on irony or not)
from breaking it down, glibly listing it up:
How did that month go? What will this year have,
season for fresh season, that may just save
next New Year's Day from quiet desperation?
Great post! February is so poo it's unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteGlad you're back in the blogosphere
If you can, you could link in to Spotify(?) as featured in Charlie B's column to give us the aural pleasure of your tapes too
I have thought about doing that - it may happen but i rather think i might confuse myself. And I'm trying to keep this as defiantly old-school as possible. It would be quite fun, though, i admit
ReplyDeleteI know that's you, Errol Waldhammer, stop hiding behind a false name
ReplyDeleteSpotify!
ReplyDelete