Mmmm, music.

[brigdh]

Crossposted to lunatunes for their "current top five songs" theme, but as that's a locked community, I thought I'd share with my own dear flist.


1. Least of My Kind - Echo's Children.
I got this song from here just last week, so quite a few of you might already have it, but I thought I'd point it out for anyone who missed it. And besides, it's my current song-stuck-on-endless-repeat. This is a song from a werewolf to the guy who has just killed her. It's a pretty enough folk song in its own right, but the reason I'm so head over heels for it is the way the singer so politely uses 'my lord' to mean 'fuck you, bitch': "Far off, a wolf pack hears / Heads turn with pricking ears / Thought you, my lord, that I had no kin?"

2. Skin - Naked Raven
Pin my wrists and hold me down
Everything can wait but now
Take me whole and hard and take me home

Okay, wait. The thing about this song is that it's so delicate. You have a chorus like this, and yet the song itself is just unbelievably ethereal, nothing but a guitar and a few light notes of piano and soft female vocals. It's the incongruity of the whole thing that makes it the top played song on my ipod.

3. My Firstborn for a Song - Bell X1
Somewhere in this froth
And howling wind
There's something worth singing

So take me to your king
I hear he's the man to see
And I will cross his palm

This is a gorgeous Irish indie song about the desire to create something, and about writer's block. I haven't actually had any lately, but boy do I sympathize.

4. Westfall - Okkervil River
But evil don't look like anything.

Indie folk. Trust me on this one: download it, and listen to the lyrics. Your whole perception of the song will change at about the second-to-last verse, and god, I love the way they tell this story.

5. Paris is Burning - St. Vincent
We are waiting on a telegram
To give us news of the fall
I am sorry to report, dear, Paris is burning after all
We have taken to the streets in hope and rejoiced revolting
We are dancing a black waltz; fair Paris is burning, after all

Indie rock/chamber pop. With handclaps. It's more captivating that I'm expressing, but I love this song.

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I love the werewolf song! Have you heard anything else by the artist?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Isn't it excellent? Here's all I have of them:

She Is Gone (http://www.sendspace.com/file/o38sef) - a serial killer and ghosts
You Work Too Hard (http://www.sendspace.com/file/pzf4kc) - fairies
The Wedding Dance (http://www.sendspace.com/file/igfq34) - tricking a demon groom
Tibbeth of Hale (http://www.sendspace.com/file/50m7b9) - apparently based on Barbara Hambly's novel Stranger at the Wedding? I don't know, I've never read it.
Under the Gripping Beast (http://www.sendspace.com/file/s7wxlr) - a writer makes a deal with the devil to write good songs

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Yes, that's a character from that book.

I liked "Westfall" a lot too.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Would you like some music? Richard Thompson? Tracey & Grammar? The Pogues? Flash Girls? Maddy Prior/Steeleye Span? Son Volt? Leonard Cohen? Springsteen?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! I can't think of anything in particular I've been looking for lately, but if you can think of anything to recommend, I'd love to hear it.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Check my LJ. ;)

Don't suppose you have...

[stargazersilent.livejournal.com]

Hi, I found your LJ while searching for "Under the Gripping Beast." Last year, I heard a live singing of that around a campfire by a man with an unusually haunting voice.

I was wondering... Do you have a copy of "Warrior Maid"? (And if you do, may I beg you to upload it?)

Thanks!

Re: Don't suppose you have...

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry. I don't know much about Echo's Children myself; the only songs I have are the ones in this post, and I got those from someone else in a music community (lunatunes, which is unfortunately locked to nonmembers, or I'd link you to the specific post where I got them. It doesn't have 'Warrior Maid' anyway, though).

Good luck finding it!