Hitting random at Liberal Street Fighter

The ghosts of our youth wear the chains of old music. Sometimes it’s a pleasing rattle and clamor, sometimes it’s horrifying … Morley’s ghost bringing on repressed memories and associations. You know the ones, the fuzzy recollections of puffy-sleeved double breasted shirts and gravity defying solid masses of what had once been your hair.

  1. “Mental Hopscotch” – Missing Persons

    2. : I’ve always had a soft spot for these guys … Zappa alums w/ the hot wife out front all dressed in her best plastic. The songs hold up pretty well, IMHO.

  2. “The Right Stuff” – Brian Ferry

    3. :  The timeless lounge lizard.

  3. “Route 666” – dialogue from Natural Born Killers OST

    4. : I was lazy and just ripped the whole thing. Sue me.

  4. “Dazed and Confused” – Led Zeppelin

    5. : Often ended up on the turntable AFTER pogoing at the parties, when the buzz had turned sour and the adrenaline high was drying up and blowing away … a desperate attempt to hold onto the last of the night’s wild energy.

  5. “Digging Your Scene” – Blow Monkeys

    6. : How the hell did this get on here?

  6. “Let it Loose” – Rolling Stones

    7. : Timeless, essential.

  7. “Belly of the Whale” – Burning Sensations

    8. : Only good good for the memory kick, like when some crappy song like “Beth” comes on the oldies station and the sense memory of your mom’s car on a hot summer day floods your mind, triggered by a piece of crap that your sister liked … only w/ “Belly of the Whale” is was some chicks you knew who looked hot when they danced.

  8. “Venus in Furs – Velvet Underground

    9. : For those nights when the parties sucked, the buzz turned angry, just you and two or three friends cranky and sucking down some Gallo white from a jug that was on sale at the end of one of the store’s aisles.

  9. “Rock N Roll Nigger” – Patti Smith

    10. : Goddess! Getting fired up on your way out. In the perversity ONLY a digital DJ could exhibit, it’s toward the end of the list.

  10. “Pine Grove Blues” – Dewey Balfa: And now the little digital bastard is laughing at my Magic Eight Ball attempts to find some cohesive meaning in this latest random playlist!

For some reason, THAT thought immediately brings THIS song to mind:

They say they don’t need money
They’re living on nuts and berries
They say animals don’t worry
You know animals are hairy?
They think they know what’s best
They’re making a fool of us
They ought to be more careful
They’re setting a bad example
They have untroubled lives
They think everything’s nice
They like to laugh at people
They’re setting a bad example
(Go ahead) Laugh at me.

That this happens so often … songs coming to mind based on a phrase or a smell or any damned thing … makes me worry that I’ll end up a crazy old man in a home spewing forth unconnected lyrics at any aide or nurse who sets foot at my bedside.

Then again, maybe the beds in the home will be high-tech wonders, with multi-gig memories loaded with entire libraries of songs, smells, tastes … you can make your favorite genres part of your contract, and the thing will feed you a constant stream of these phantoms of youth as you spend your last months, days, hours in your deteriorating meat suit. Of course, America being America, I’m more likely to get the crappy pop repeated over and over again … which means I have more Blow Monkeys and Burning Sensations (oooo, listen, it’s Alphaville!) to look forward to.

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