Although the title dates me, which album/CD/recording/whatever - more than a single song - best speaks to or describes you? And why?
The other day as I was working on my fish tanks, I put on Johnny Winter’s album Nothing But the Blues. (The turntable and our old vinyl is in the basement with my bigger tank.) Not only do I love acoustic blues and Johnny’s playing, but I was reminded again how perfectly so many of the lyrics matched my general mood/personality/lifeview.
Of course, it kinda gave me pause to realize that the lyrics that spoke to me included:
I’m so tired of trying,
trying to get along with you.
and
I’m too lazy to go out drinking, too mean to stay at home.
So which album (or whatever you wish to call it) was written and performed with you in mind?
After the painful break up of a long relation, almost everything on “Blood On The Tracks” by Bob Dylan made sense to me. I loved the album before, but only after this separation, I really could appreciate it entirely. I had the impression that every single emotion that is impressed in these songs was my own. This experience was relieving and hurtful at the same time. But although this was many years ago, it is still one of my favourite albums. So, it IS not me all the time, but it used to be, and I will identify with it as long as I’m able to listen to it.
Not necessarily literally, but Uncle Tupelo’s No Depression is like this for me. I have always found it to speak to me in ways that other albums do not. That or Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch, but since it’s instrumental, that’s getting into more abstract stuff there.
The Allman Brothers Band’s Brothers and Sisters. I love the blues too, and hearing Jessica always puts a smile on my face. I know the whole album by heart and it always reminds me of great times back in the early 70’s.
Wilco’s A Ghost is Born. That album has been in my life for about 5 years now and I have listened to it countless times. If it had been a cassette instead of a CD, I would have needed to replace it at least twice by now. Every time I listen to it, I find something else to love about it, and it hits me where I live.
Irene Kral’s “Where is Love?”. Perhaps the finest love ballad CD ever made; a duet only, with Alan Broadbent on piano. Every time I listen to it, it provokes new feelings-for this I’m thankful.
I cant pick a single disc. I can pick a playlist, but not a disc as I have different ‘sound tracks’
I mean, I have melancholy memory of past romance, I have mellow happiness, I have perky, I have gently sleepy after sex, I have banzai run in the car on the autobahn …
Google it up if you need to. It’s kinda funny, but I have been on a serious Nick Lowe kick lately, inspired by hearing his, “So It Goes” in the Adventureland movie.
This would probably change depending on when you asked me, but ATM I’d say King Crimson’s Larks Tongues in Aspic. There is just so much depth and variety to that album, yet it is a perfect whole.
Book of Secrets by Lorena McKennitt (Five stars, 486 reviews on Amazon) for years reflected my inner life. It was just hypnotic - I drove miles and miles in a raging storm, just carried away, surprised as hell how painless the trip was made with that music. The ugly, boring parts of life were made less so, somehow… Right now, though, no one album in particular.
Gerry Rafferty, City to City. I’ve owned it in vinyl, cassette and CD. Had the words to "Right Down The Line"printed on the funeral booklet when my late wife died 13 years ago.
“Baker Street,” “Home and Dry,” yeah, good stuff.
A Wizard, A True Star by Todd Rundgren. Sometimes confusing, sometimes pretentious, definitely sentimental, occasionally aggressive, eclectically-mixed, but also quite distinctive as a whole.
Runner-up is Exordium and Terminus by Zager and Evans.
Misterioso - Theloniuos Monk. I love his music. Everything he plays feels just right and he has a real ability to express my exact thoughts in a musical way. Sometimes it feels as if there is complete synchronization between Monk’s subconscious and my own. Great stuff.
