{"id":3902,"date":"2017-04-29T15:11:27","date_gmt":"2017-04-29T21:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=3902"},"modified":"2017-04-29T15:14:57","modified_gmt":"2017-04-29T21:14:57","slug":"odd-musical-lots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=3902","title":{"rendered":"Odd (Musical) Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Today we have a first: an all-music Odd Lots. The idea is to make a few worthy songs (worthy in my view; YMMV) more visible. Where they can be purchased online, I&#8217;ll provide a link. Some are only on CDs. And a few may well be unobtainium. Not sure what to suggest about that. I&#8217;ve mentioned a few of these before and even linked to some. Where relevant, I&#8217;ll mention why I think they&#8217;re worthy.<\/li>\n<li>Rayburn Wright&#8217;s &#8220;Shaker Suite&#8221; (<a href= \"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Wright-Shaker-Suite\/dp\/B01LZOCXIZ\/\" target= \"_blank\">here, by the Canadian Brass<\/a>) is a short compendium of three Shaker melodies: The well known &#8220;Simple Gifts&#8221; plus two very obscure tunes: the somber &#8220;We Will Walk with Mother and Mourn&#8221; and the marvelously energetic &#8220;I&#8217;ve Set My Face for Zion&#8217;s Kingdom,&#8221; which (assuming Carol isn&#8217;t in the car with me) I blast whenever it comes up on the mix SD.<\/li>\n<li>It was never a single, but <a href= \"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Shades-Of-Gray\/dp\/B00122PGPE\/\" target= \"_blank\">the Monkees&#8217; cover of &#8220;Shades of Gray&#8221;<\/a> is in my view the best song they ever did. <a href= \"http:\/\/www.duntemann.com\/june2007.htm#06-29-2007\" target= \"_blank\">I&#8217;ve mentioned the song here before<\/a>, and yes, I&#8217;m biased for personal reasons (read the entry) but still: When did 60s pop ever have a lyric that sane and subtle?<\/li>\n<li>I have always had a fraught relationship with religion, but one thing I discovered when I returned to Catholicism in the &#8217;90s was that there were actually hymns that weren&#8217;t 350 years old. Marty Haugen has written quite a few, but none serves my energetic spirit so well as <a href= \"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Send-Down-the-Fire\/dp\/B01NBZU0EI\/\" target= \"_blank\">&#8220;Send Down the Fire.&#8221;<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Energetic? Punch in Ralph Vaughan Williams&#8217; <a href= \"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-Running-Set\/dp\/B003H3CYHE\/\" target= \"_blank\">&#8220;The Running Set,&#8221;<\/a> dial it up to eleven, and you&#8217;ll know what &#8220;manic&#8221; means.<\/li>\n<li>Is it a sendup of Fifties political paranoia? Or is it just a silly beer-hall march? <a href= \"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Close-The-Door\/dp\/B0048W8Y3Q\/\" target= \"_blank\">Jim Lowe&#8217;s &#8220;Close the Door&#8221;<\/a> defies analysis&#8230;which doesn&#8217;t mean it isn&#8217;t great fun.<\/li>\n<li>A lot of people have covered &#8220;Sweets for My Sweet,&#8221; but I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s ever been done better than a local Chicago band called The Riddles. I heard it live at a church Teen Club dance in 1968, and eventually found a slightly crufty 45 rip on the peer-to-peer networks ten years ago. <a href= \"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZUOD1eLW3uE\" target=\"_blank\">It&#8217;s now on YouTube<\/a>, though you have to either listen to or FF past the flipside.<\/li>\n<li>One of the best (and perhaps weirdest) soundtrack cuts I&#8217;ve heard in the last 20 years is &#8220;Building the Crate&#8221; from Chicken Run. It&#8217;s not available as an MP3 single, but <a href= \"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Chicken-Run-John-Powell\/dp\/B00004TRTW\/\" target=\"_blank\">you can buy the full soundtrack CD<\/a>, or <a href= \"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=p81dM2URI-0\" target= \"_blank\">listen to the song on YouTube<\/a>. Klezmer, kazoos, and a full orchestra with a strong tuba line&#8211;what more could you ask for?<\/li>\n<li>Although rougher than I generally like my music, there&#8217;s just something inexplicably likeable about <a href= \"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/You-Dont-Want-Me-Anymore\/dp\/B004Q8FCCS\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;You Don&#8217;t Want Me Anymore&#8221;<\/a> by Steel Breeze, which hit #16 on Billboard in 1982. Energetic, well, yeah.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Wild-West\/dp\/B005HKUMAQ\/\" target=\"_blank\">This is probably my favorite TV series theme song ever<\/a>, from what is almost certainly the first steampunk western. Lee Anne down the street had it bad for Artemis Gordon, and I&#8217;m betting a lot of other girl geeks did too. Yeah, the giant steam-powered tarantula in the movie was cool, but nothing will ever beat the original series.<\/li>\n<li>My high school turned down Styx&#8217;s bid to play for the 1972 senior prom because they were&#8230;too obscure. Heh. Bad call. And this is what I consider their best song, a terrific waltz that is almost a hymn: <a href= \"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Show-Me-The-Way\/dp\/B001O03DIG\/\" target= \"_blank\">&#8220;Show Me the Way.&#8221;<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Another soundtrack cut that I don&#8217;t think ever got the recognition it deserved: <a href= \"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Through-Heavens-Prince-Soundtrack-Version\/dp\/B00KFF3QE2\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Through Heaven&#8217;s Eyes&#8221;<\/a> from <em>Prince of Egypt<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>From the same soundtrack, <a href= \"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Plagues-Prince-Egypt-Soundtrack-Version\/dp\/B00KFF4I4Y\/\" target=\"_blank\">the item that gave me the idea<\/a> for the scene in <em>The Cunning Blood<\/em> where Sahan Grusa destroys Sophia Gorganis&#8217;s pirate colony by simulating the biblical plagues using nanotech.<\/li>\n<li>Well. This was fun. I have to remember to do another one at some point. Let me know what you think.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today we have a first: an all-music Odd Lots. The idea is to make a few worthy songs (worthy in my view; YMMV) more visible. Where they can be purchased online, I&#8217;ll provide a link. Some are only on CDs. And a few may well be unobtainium. Not sure what to suggest about that. I&#8217;ve [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,27],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-3902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","category-reviews","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3902"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3905,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902\/revisions\/3905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}