#elvis going from a complete boy-next-door look - very cute and innocent - to a bad boy that looks like he's about to rip your clothes off

[hooked-on-elvis]

[mixtapespoilers]

Pretty Bad Ideas

This is actually an old one with a bit of updating. Way back when I worked at tiny, doomed Powerhead Games, I organized a mixed CD swap for the office. There was a list of rules - some where mandatory, the others you had to pick three from to follow - and you had three names to give a copy of your mix to. It was a fun thing that only happened one other time. This was the twilight of CDs, after all, and while people were largely game to burn stuff to disc if you provided said discs, there were still those that didn’t understand why they couldn’t just dump shit in a folder and load it to our internal server.

Not everybody gets that some things are made special by their limitations.

Anyway, this was my entry. I didn’t set out to have a theme, but after the first few tracks were more or less locked in to place, one became pretty obvious. Pretty much all the songs are about things you maybe shouldn’t have done, maybe shouldn’t do, or maybe shouldn’t be doing. On top of that, a lot of them are about doing those things anyway, and living with what happens next. Or not, in some cases.

So, yeah: Pretty Bad Ideas.

Pulp - ‘Babies’

You can’t make this sort of mix and not invite Pulp along. ‘Babies’ is off His ‘N’ Hers, the band’s proper leap into the brit-pop movement. Cocker’s smooth, smoky confessional of a man recalling how he learned about sex from listening to it through a bedroom door is Pulp at their Pulp-iest: being where you’re not supposed to be, innocently blundering into the wider world, being wrong but so sincerely wrong, it’s like a bingo card for the band. There’s an innocence to many of the fuck-ups Pulp sets to song, a kind of doomed inevitability that can’t help but look bad to anyone on the outside. And let’s not forget that video, either.

Squeeze - ‘Vicky Verky’

I’m a huge sucker for storytelling songs in the vein of Squeeze  and Elvis Costello, and ‘Vicky Verky’ manages to squeeze like eight years of a young couple’s life into just over three minutes that never let up from pace set at the start. It’s a sweet song that could have gone any number of ways, ending on an optimistic note that most of the songs here never quite get to.

Elvis Costello & the Attractions - ‘You Little Fool’

Speaking of Costello. ‘You Little Fool’ is every kid that grew up with parents who saw them as strangers, who had to learn how to act and fall in love from pop songs and movies. It reminds me of all the stuff I just had to sort of figure out growing up, like shaving, which resulted in a half-inch scar just above my chin that stuck around for about eight years or so. It reminds me of my first serious girlfriend, and how very Real and Important that was from the inside. More than any of that, though, it reminds me of blasting this song at 2:30am in Alt.Coffee at Patrick after closing up for the night as a way of pressuring him into a no-strings hook-up with some cute girl that was in to him for whatever reason. Abuse? Absolutely. But from a place of love.

The Long Blondes - ‘Once and Never Again’

One of a handful of songs representing the Long Blondes at their purest, ‘Once and Never Again’ is chock-full of helpful advice from an older woman to a younger one, all delivered with a creeping, escalating sense that something’s off. By the time it gets there and all the cards are on the table, it feels almost inevitable. Turns out yes, a lot of the people looking to help you are just trying to fuck you.

The White Stripes - ‘My Doorbell’

A call to action in the form of a messy, timeless-sounding blues song. When you gonna make your move? Think about it while I throw this piano and drum set down several flights of stairs.

Ani Difranco - ‘Gravel’

It’s a good and helpful thing to recognize toxic people in your life. It is a less good, less healthy thing to then get on the back of their motorcycle and drive off into the sunset. But then, Ani hasn’t exactly made a career out of songs about being highly sensible and responsible, so.

Bob Dylan - ‘One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)’

I love the perspective shifts, how the narrator comes to see how drastically different things look from the other side. I love the way the piano builds and plummets in the chorus, like it’s trying to break of the record itself and go whipping around the room. I love the slow realization of how bad things have gotten so quickly. I love this song.

Ryan Adams - ‘Come Pick Me Up’

Early Ryan Adams is the best Ryan Adams, and ‘Come Pick Me Up’ is the best of the lot. He sounds so goddamn tired, like he’s trying to coax the last bit of life out of a broken cigarette found in the couch cushions. I’m a sucker for songs about doomed romances and the glints of hope that cling to the edges, and the one here breaks the mode. Neither person is perfect. Neither person is happy. Neither person has any business being with the other. There’s so much hurt, but no real blame, just longing. The worst of then was better than right now.

The Rolling Stones - ‘Under My Thumb’

One of the best songs about being a completely fucking awful person ever, and kind of the poster child for this whole mix.

Los Campesinos! - ‘My Year in Lists’

Pop perfection in a minute and fifty seconds. Gareth and the band weave in and around each other without colliding in disaster or missing a step, packing every inch of the song with clever exhaustion and regretful frustration. Probably my favorite Los Camps! song and the best example of weaponized indie pop I can imagine.

The Beach Boys - ‘I Was Made to Love Her’

A ray of sunlight in the middle of everything, because why not? This is actually a cover of a Stevie Wonder song, which is good, but far too constrained by comparison. Brian Wilson throws his voice around like a blunt instrument in a way he rarely got to, and it elevates the whole thing into something special and warm that fills whatever room its playing in. Years after making this mix, this would be the first song danced to at my wedding, picked by me at almost the last minute. Probably a lesson that should have been learned then and there, now that I think about it.

The Indelicates - ‘Sixteen’

Yay, back to cynicism! Every line the Indelicates put to paper is sharpened to a razor edge and dripping with venom - the album this is off in particular is less a collection of songs and more of an uninvited guest showing you his favorite cutting implements against your will. Never are those knives sharper than when they turn them inward.

The Futureheads - ‘Radio Heart’

No, YOU’RE an idiot who can’t walk down the street or flip through Spotify’s algorithmic playlists without developing a half-dozen tiny crushes. Idiot.

Blur - ‘The Universal’

Damon Albarn is capable of taking the most optimistic lines (”Yes, it really, really, really could happen”) and twisting them in to hollow shells of their former selves. ‘The Universal’ sounds like a poisoned promise, a temptation to pull you off the path and make everything right again if you’ll just...let them...go.

The Walkmen - ‘Thinking of a Dream I had’

So much snarling, so much sad. The image painted here is all too familiar - leaning against the subway wall at two in the morning, sobering up against my better judgment, waiting for the train to take me home. There are songs that sound like closing time, like pouring out into the streets with your friends after last call into the streets at night. This is a song for after they’ve gone.

The Kills - ‘What New York Used to Be’

The Kills never fail to sound, to me at least, like that super tempting next drink that’s going to tip you over from having a good time to blazing a path of self-destruction through the rest of the night. ‘What New York Used to Be’ is a montage of quick cuts, wide crowd shots  and close ups on couples arguing at the bar. It’s angry and it doesn’t know why.

Mike Doughty - ‘Rising Sign’

And we end on a hopeful note, not surprisingly. Even fuck ups with a weakness for bad ideas manage a happy ending, sometimes.