How this works: open iTunes, put the play setting on shuffle (or random), and write about what memories or thoughts you have on the first 5 songs that it plays. Or, if it plays a bunch of songs you’ve never listened to or have nothing to say about, just pick the first 5 songs that you do have something to say about.
1. Glen Hansard, “Fallen From the Sky” (Once Soundtrack)
One of the songs from the soundtrack for my favorite movie of 2007. It shows up in the movie during the scenes in the recording studio, shortly after the Hansard, Marketa Irglova, and the hired Irish musicians there with them play “When Your Mind’s Made Up”, arguably the musical highlight of the film. It’s a cute little song, though one of the lesser ones from the movie and from the soundtrack in my opinion, and so I haven’t listened to it a whole lot.
2. Death Cab for Cutie, “I Will Possess Your Heart” (Narrow Stairs)
This song was the leadoff single from Narrow Stairs and the first thing it always reminds me of is its amazing video. The full version of the song clocks in well over 8 minutes, and Ben Gibbard doesn’t sing his first line until about the 4:30 mark, so the song only exists on radio (and MTV) in a much-shortened form. It’s definitely different from what I’d come to expect from Death Cab, but I really love the song. It will occasionally play on my iPod shuffle when I’m at work or walking to or from my car and I always find it hard to resist air drumming, air bass-ing, and air piano-ing to the first half of the song. The album isn’t the band’s best by a long shot, but this song is one of my very favorites that they’ve done.
3. The Decemberists, “The Crane Wife 3″ (The Crane Wife)
This is the first track of an album I wished I liked more than I did. I’d heard a lot of good things about The Crane Wife before I listened to it, and I liked about 3 songs on it a lot, but I didn’t like the rest of it enough to re-visit the album much. This song was one that I liked a lot off of that album, and is actually my 2nd most-played Decemberists song, behind “Sons & Daughters”.
Funny thing though, I just heard this song last night in an AT&T commercial that aired during the Olympics. AT&T using Decemberists music to promote itself? What’s next, songs by The Who used to sell Hummers? Oh wait, never mind.
4. Sara Groves, “Conversations” (Conversations)
The title track from the only Sara Groves album I own, one I got as a blind buy based purely on some praise I’d read about it. Groves has a great earthy sort of voice, and this song is one of only two or three from the album that I ever listened to a lot. She starts out the song singing entirely a capella, before she’s joined by some soft piano notes and later a stringed instrument I can only guess is a mandolin. It’s a very earnest and heartfelt song and probably the best one on the album. She has released a few albums since this one but I’ve never checked them out, for whatever reason. She seemed sort of like a female version of Chris Rice, one of the best singer/songwriters the Contemporary Christian sub-genre has had in the past decade, though it’s a sub-genre I essentially quit keeping up with 4 or 5 years ago, with the exception of a few bands or artists I was already a big fan of.
5. Five Times August, “Most Uncommon Thing” (The Independent)
This is a song I own at least 3 different versions of, as it’s been recorded in as many different ways on different releases. Five Times August is the moniker under which singer/songwriter Brad Skistimas performs. “Most Uncommon Thing” is a sweet love song that he wrote for and played at the wedding of his older sister. It was one of the very first FTA songs I heard some 5 years ago when I ran across Skistimas’ music on the old mp3.com website and started to become a fan. One of the songs he had posted on his page was a solo acoustic version of “Most Uncommon Thing”, and I liked it a lot. It was one of two or three songs from his early recordings that really got me interested in his music and made me want to keep up with his career. As far as these types of songs go, it’s kinda similar to Stephen Speaks’ “Out of My League”, but performed with different instruments. It’s one of his better songs but not one that he plays live very often; in fact I’ve seen him play at least 7 live gigs over the past 4 years, and I don’t know that I’ve ever heard it played in concert.
The version that iTunes played was a re-mixed version with strings and piano, a version that was first included on a Limited Edition EP that Skistimas made 100 copies of in 2006 and gave for free to the first fans who asked for it. It was then included on The Independent, a 2007 repackaging of his 2005 album Fry Street that was sold in Wal-Mart stores nationwide after he signed a deal with the chain (which was remarkable in itself as Skistimas has never signed with a record label).
