The Friday Fillip

I’m stealing a leaf from the new NYTimes book blog Paper Cuts. On Wednesdays they feature a writer’s playlist “[b]ecause books and music, on good days, just seem to go together.” Well, I say Friday and music just seem to do the same thing, and so here’s a short playlist from me. I’ve tried to include links to samples of the music, and in some cases I can only hope you’ve got iTunes on you machine to make the iTunes sample work.

Let’s have your playlists, with or without samples. I’m always trying to broaden my musical tastes and would welcome suggestions from everyone.

Belleville Rendez-Vous (The Triplets of Belleville)
Ben Charest
[sample]

I loved the movie and this song is just as wacky. Charest does a great job of evoking a not-too-distant-past with the Django jangle of the guitar, and the nonsense words frustrate any attempt I might make out of habit to slip into meaning.

J’veux pas finir ma vie à Acapulco
Danser toute raide avec des gigolos
Moi je veux être tordue
Triplement tordue
Balancée comme une Triplette de Belleville
(Allez les filles!)

 

Oica La O Sr. Vinho
Mariza
[iTunes sample]

Fado isn’t all torn hearts and sobbing — though there’s nothing wrong with that. In this jaunty little number Mariza, a current queen of the genre, addresses Mr. Wine in a way that always makes me want to bounce, if not strut.

 

Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet
Composed by Gavin Bryars
[iTunes sample] [sample on Bryars’ site / with Tom Waits]

This is an odd one. The English composer Gavin Bryars tells the story of how, after working on a documentary about street people in London, he was given the left over tapes, one of which included a man singing a religious song. Eventually, Bryars looped the tape and composed a slowly developing orchestral work to go behind it. The full version is something like 20 minutes of the old man’s wavering voice repeating and repeating and… This drives some people crazy, but others, like me, find it quite moving and meditative.

 

Three Little Birds
Bob Marley
[iTunes sample]

This is a great little feel-good song:

Rise up this mornin,
Smiled with the risin sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin, (this is my message to you-ou-ou:)

Dont worry about a thing,
cause every little thing gonna be all right.
Singin: dont worry about a thing,
cause every little thing gonna be all right!

 

Lascia Ch’io Pianga (Rinaldo)
Suzie Le Blanc
[iTunes sample] [sample by unidentified soprano]

This Handel aria is one of the best aural definitions of beauty I know, and Suzie Le Blanc’s clear voice carries just the right amount of emotion to make it perfect:

Lascia ch’io pianga la dura sorte,
E che sospiri la libertà!

Let me weep over my cruel fate,
And that I long for freedom!

 

Kyrie / Petite Messe Solonnelle
Composed by Gioacchino Rossini
[iTunes sample]

Here’s is the last thing that the composer of the William Tell Overture and the Barber of Seville ever wrote. It’s a modest work as unlike his earlier compositions as chalk from cheese, scored for piano and harmonium, of all things. The Kyrie has an unexpected rhythym and bass line that I find very appealing. I can only find a sample by The King’s Consort, which schleps a bit as far as I’m concerned; I prefer the version by Marcus Creed.

 

Old Dan Tucker
Bruce Springsteen
[iTunes sample] [mp3.com sample]

This version of an old song on Springsteen’s tribute to Pete Seeger albumn (We Shall Overcome) is raucous, infectious and always drags me into bellowing along, which is best done on the highway with all the windows open and a throat lozenge at hand. The guy on the cymbals cracks me up.