Friday Random Ten: Contra apocalypse edition

I can't say this is truly random as it's a selection from a playlist that includes a subset of 317 songs I've been listening to a lot lately as I try not to freak out. It's got all the songs I could find that for one reason or another soothed the screaming & apocalyptic fantods gripping me of late. Some of them are kind of scary and ominous, others are funny & sweet; some are about New Orleans or Mississippi (or anyplace affected by Katrina), some are about anarchy & chaos -- you get the idea.

As you might imagine, the playlist is heavy on Alex Chilton (not, alas, represented below - but I did read somewhere the other day that he's been heard from after disappearing in New Orleans for a few days), plus a lot of my regulars like Lucinda Williams, Tom Waits, Warren Zevon, and Leonard Cohen. "The Great Event," which happened to be #11 in this particular sequence, is what my alarm clock is playing these days. Much better than the news.

1. "Lakes of Pontchartrain" Be Good Tanyas Blue Horse

   Classic folk music story of rich stranger/ traveler obtaining shelter & hospitality from beautiful local girl of modest means - he proposes marriage but alas her heart is pledged to another and she refuses him. He vows to remember her forever. Nice arrangement here from the BGTs. "... and I fell in love with a Creole girl/ on the lakes of Pontchartrain..."

2. "She Steers By Lightning" Richard Thompson You? Me? Us? (voltage enhanced)

   Quite possibly one of my all-time favorite songs. Certainly in the top 700. Very ominous. Might also explain why I drive the way I do. "My Maggie, she's got a loose one/ she uses Milton as a road map/ My Maggie, she is a bright thing/ She talks in couplets/ she steers by lightning."

3. "John the Gun " Sandy Denny Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (box set)

   This particular version originally appears on the 1974 Fairport Live recorded in Sydney. Jerry Donahue is playing lead guitar (not RT), but Dave Mattacks is on drums, Dave Pegg on bass, and Dave Swarbrick contributes some scary-ass violin solos: "Ideals of peace are gold which fools/ have found upon the plains of war/ I shall destroy them all..."

4. "Crescent City " Lucinda Williams Lucinda Williams

   "This town has said what it has to say/ now I'm after that back highway/ and that longest bridge that I ever crossed/ over Pontchartrain..." That's how far I get before I start to cry.

5. "Living in Babylon" Heartbeats Rhythm Quartet Spinning World

   I guess this one is the only song on the list that you could actually contradance to if you wanted to. Plus I like the lyrics: "... with every step you wonder who you are/ who is this frightened boy alone in his car/ listening to the music coming out of its dash/ taking his tired brain to a place in the past..."

6. "Walking in Space" Original Broadway Cast Hair

   I've been singing this one a lot lately, for some reason. " .. my body is walking in space/ my soul is in orbit with god face to face/ floating flipping flying tripping/ tripping from potsville to mainline/ tripping from mainline to this/ on a rocket to the fourth dimension/ total self awareness/ the intention/ my mind is as clear as country air/ I feel my flesh/ all colors mesh..."

7. "Black Sky " Sam Phillips Martinis & Bikinis

   Very nice ominous drums: "The trees are listening/ each time a missile's made/ they hide three mystics/ the earth sends from her grave/ to tell us the future/ has been stolen away/ by diggers, drillers and sellers/ we won't stop/ 'till we're underneath a black sky."

8. "Desperadoes Under the Eaves " Warren Zevon Warren Zevon

   "...all the salty margaritas in Los Angeles/ I'm gonna drink em up/ and if California slides into the ocean/ like the mystics and statistics say it will/ I predict this motel will be standing/ until I pay my bill..." I can't really add much to that.

9. "Alabama Song " Marianne Faithfull 20th Century Blues

   Marianne Faithfull can make anything sound vaguely apocalyptic of course, but Kurt Weill gives one a particularly good opportunity, I think. She released another recording of it on The Seven Deadly Sins which is a little smoother and there's a band behind her, but I prefer this live recording with just her and Paul Trueblood on piano. You know this song: "Oh show me the way to the next whiskey bar/ oh don't ask why/ oh don't ask why/ for we must find the next whiskey bar/ for if we don't find the next whiskey bar/ I tell you we must die..."

10. "Can't Feel at Home" Mud Boy & the Neutrons They Walk Among Us

    An only slightly demented version of this gospel standard (sometimes called "This World is Not My Home" or "I Can't Feel at Home in This World Any More") from Memphis luminaries Lee Baker, Jimmy Crosthwait, Jim Dickinson, and Sid Selvidge. ..."This world is not my home/ I"m only passin by/ my troubles & my hopes are all stored up on high/ all of my kindred have gone on before & I can't feel at home in this world any more..."

11. "The Great Event" Leonard Cohen More Best Of

    A seriously weird little piece; the liner notes credit the vocals to LC and Victoria, which happens to be the name of one of the synthesized voices (on my erstwhile Mac, anyway) you can set certain Instant Message programs to use to read the incoming messages out loud for you. I'm pretty sure it's her, um, singing (or whatever you call it): "It's going to happen very soon: The great event which will end the horror, which will end the sorrow. Next Tuesday, when the sun goes down, I will play the Moonlight Sonata backwards. This will reverse the effects of the world's mad plunge into suffering for the last two hundred million years. What a lovely night that will be. What a sigh of relief, as the senile robins become bright red again and the retired nightingales pick up their dusty tails and assert the majesty of creation."