Songs of the Decade 2001-2010

Songs of the Decade. Wait, you say, aren't you a year late? Shouldn't this list have been published last year? Well, no, because technically the decade only ends on December 31, 2010. So everybody else who published similar lists last year did so a year early. I win again.

(Either way, you will notice that no songs from 2010 made the cut.)

Songs of the Year 2010

Here it is. Logwood Burning's first annual list of the best sounds of the year (the word "best" being used, as always, in a purely subjective sense).

Compiling this list was hard work, but it became a lot easier as I ruled out songs that were not actually released this year, songs that I could not find for download, and songs that, upon repeat listening, turned out to actually not be that good.

"Murder She Wrote" by Chaka Demus & Pliers

I don't remember much from my first trip to Jamaica. I was only 8 years old. The year was 1992.

One thing I recall, though vaguely, is the ascent up the slippery rocks of the tourist trap known as Dunns River Falls, hand-in-hand in a chain with my family and the other tourists.

"Kids" by MGMT

Up on Magic Mountain, I split a shake with a cutie little English chick. We both wanted to see what it would do.

She had arrived on the island on vacation with her boyfriend over a year earlier, as an accountant. When her boyfriend dumped her in the middle of their trip, she decided to just stick around and make a living as a novelty act singing Thai pop songs.

"Steal My Kisses" by Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals

It was a hot and sunny Wednesday afternoon. We lay in bed together, napping, listening to my most recent mix CD. She rested her head on my shoulder and I brushed her hair from her face. We weren't supposed to be together, which I had tried to explain to her. I was supposed to be (at least, in my own mind) the image of proper behaviour, a model of moral rightousness for the others. But she refused to give up and I always found her waiting for me in my bed. That tenacity, combined with her coy, demure demeanor, not to mention those freckles, made her very hard to resist. But somehow I did. In the end, my sense of duty won out over my desire for her, although it was far from a flawless victory. When that song came on, she sang the chorus softly in my ear and drove me crazy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkSaK4zXPzs&feature=related

"They Don't Know / Corrupt" by Bounty Killer

Montego Bay, Jamaica. July 2009. Reggae Sumfest.

In Ocho Rios, I had picked up tickets for two of the music festival's three nights: Thursday (Dancehall Night) and Saturday (International Night 2).

Dancehall Night was a rapid immersion into a culture totally foreign to me. The music as aggressive, as vulgar, as violent as anything. One performer after another, all sex and murder and rivalries, all night long. The fans flashed hand signals, twirled towels, fired blowtorches (blowtorches!), made pistols with their fingers and shot them into the air "brrrup brrrup brrrup!" And on this night, there was a ceremony to officially crown Beenie Man the king of all this. But it was Bounty Killer who stole the show.

"Denial, Revisited" by The Offspring

I'm sorry. I don't have a good break-up story for you. I have lots of stories of unfulfilled longing and desire, and many more about missed opportunities and regret. I have a few tales of relationships that simply ran their course and of others that unceremoniously fizzled out. There may have been a couple of break-ups that seemed bad at the time. But I have to say that I have no stories of truly ugly, messy splits, of love turned rancid, of nights spent alone crying, of broken vows and crushed dreams and possessions to be divvied up. Not yet, anyway. So, in the meantime, this one is for a friend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8GzCoB6EHs

"Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon

I see her every once in a while. Nevermind how I met her. She doesn't show all that much interest in touching me, but sometimes she'll let me make love to her. I wouldn't mind waking up next to her every morning. Instead, I'm stuck desperately trying to play it cool, to pretend I'm less interested than she is. I suppose I could make some grand romantic gesture and try to win her over. But her mother wants her to be with me, so she probably won't.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RHczpn-Jno

"Like a Hurricane" by Neil Young & Crazy Horse

I headed to Seoul for the weekend. Alone, ten thousand kilometres from home, from the people I loved, I decided to spend my Saturday night getting drunk in the sleazy expat neighbourhood of Itaewon.

"Just Can't Get Enough" by Depeche Mode

The kitchen was, in my opinion, the toughest job at camp.  The long hours on your feet, the heat, the cramped quarters with the same people, the cleaning, the dishwashing, and (probably the worst part) the isolation from the rest of the camp. I spent my first half week there, after which it was decided that I was better at other things, which is fortunate, because otherwise I probably wouldn't have stuck around for as long as I did.

In other words, I kinda hated working in the kitchen.

"Jump Around" by House of Pain

We went to our high school dances. Bought tickets for five bucks in the cafeteria at lunch. Got dressed up in our most fashionable clothes. Withstood frisking by eleventh graders. Got inside and sat on the stairs.

Our teachers, looking terribly out of place in their role as chaperones, walked around in the dark and tried to keep an eye on things. The girls did their best to look gorgeous, and usually succeeded. They wore makeup, tight clothes, showed a lot more flesh than they could during the day. The boys grabbed their asses, grinded with them on the dance floor, made out with them behind the lockers. But we just sat on the stairs.

"The Body Breaks" by Devendra Banhart

She told me she grew up in Chile and had learned English by watching Mr. Dressup.  She said she had an apartment downtown but spent most of her time at her mother's big house in Senneville.  She told me that her father had been shot dead back home, that she had confronted his killer, that she had forgiven him. She told me she was studying law. She told me she worked at a gym, running a weight-loss program. She said she had once been engaged, and that she had once tried to kill herself, and had never fully recovered.  She told me she drove a red Mustang.  She told me she had a Hello Kitty tattoo on her butt. She told me she was once an underwear model.  She told me she had once been in a band.  She told me she played guitar and painted.  In fact, she said she painted a picture of me.  She told me she named her blanket and her mother's garden after me. When I left, she told me she missed me. She told me she loved me.

"Brainwash" by Painkiller (Exodus remix)

During the course of the night, I had consumed alcohol, energy drink, marijuana, half an ecstasy pill, a few swigs of acid water, and some of a mushroom shake. It was now about 9 am, and I was feeling pretty good, although I'm not sure if I was high on anything but the music. (Well, maybe just a little of the E.)

The Full Moon Party, the island's headline event, had sifted out, like grains of sand, all the trendy jetsetting flashpackers and beer-chugging pool party kids. As the ivory orb waned, all that remained was the solid core of misfits, hippies, stoners, lovers of psychedelic trance, and yours truly. And the locals, of course.

"Not Going Anywhere" by Keren Ann

I first met her at a crowded expat hangout in Busan's university district. She was there with her western friends. But when I approached her, she was sitting alone at the bar. We started talking. I put my arm around her. I asked her if that was okay, and she said yes.

We walked around in the night for what seemed like a lifetime. It was she who wanted to walk. I couldn't understand why we didn't just take a taxi. I'm still not sure. Maybe she was unsure of herself. Maybe she was testing me somehow.

"Leh Jani" by Omar Souleyman

The Montreal International Jazz Festival with my brother. On this evening, we found ourselves at the Bell stage looking up at this mustachioed middle-aged Syrian man in beige robes, red and white checkered headscarf, and aviators. And it was clear he was leading a dance party.

While the singer delivered the Arabic lyrics to his songs in traditional mawwal style, the man standing behind him produced these frantic pulsing electronic Middle Eastern rhythms on his synthesizer. With this brand of "Jihadi techno," the duo worked the young crowd into a dancing scarf-twirling frenzy, hoisting their friends up and bouncing them on their shoulders.

"Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" by The Offspring

When we were 15, we got into their van, camper in tow, and headed east with my buddy's family to the Gaspé.

There was a pool at this campground, and one sunny afternoon, we saw these girls there. Of course, we didn't talk to them. We wouldn't have known what to do with them if they fell into our swim trunks. But we snuck peeks at these glistening young bodies in bikinis, exchanged curious glances from the other side of the pool, trying desperately to play it cool. I sat in a deck chair and hid my excitement with my towel.

"Fake Plastic Trees" by Radiohead

"It sucks," she said.

"What do you mean, it sucks?" I replied, getting slightly aggravated.

She waved her hand away. "Only people on drugs like that music."

"A Levee for the Tears of New Orleans" by B.W. Brandes

It was a few months ago, at Quai des Brumes I believe, when I first caught a local band called The In & Outs in concert. It was not a large room, with only 10 or 15 people, but this trio brought it hard. They rocked our socks off. And our pants. And our underwear. Plus their showmanship was spectacular. At various points during the evening, the guitarist played with a violin bow and a pint glass. Then he was stomping on our tables as he played, kicking off our empty glasses. The bassist and the drummer switched places seamlessly during the last song.  These guys put on a hell of a show, pure rock and roll, and I left awestruck. I promised myself I'd go see them again.

"Stars" by Hum

In the nineties, a secret US government agency adbucted a little-known rock band from Illinois and conducted a long and humiliating series of experiments on them. Then they taught them advanced physics. Then they fired them into outer space on a rocket ship. Then they broke their hearts. This story is not true.

"No Woman, No Cry" by Bob Marley & The Wailers

Okay, let's get it started with the song from which this blog draws its title, shall we?

July 2009. I'm visiting my father's homeland for the first time since I was 8 years old. An obvious tourist trap is the Bob Marley Museum in uptown Kingston. I catch the last guided tour of the day. On my way out, an old Rastaman calls me over to sit with him on the curb in the museum's courtyard. I comply. Predictably, he offers me ganja, which I politely decline. And that's about it. After a sitting next to this old Rasta for a minute, I get up and go on my way.