Billy's Best New Songs

Last week, Bob sent me a link to Esquire Online's "Best New Songs of 2010." I'm sitting at my computer late one Spring Break night and decide, what the hell, why not check out this link.

An hour later, I owned some 40 of the 50 or so songs they recommended. And I owned all of the ones that the Victoria's Secret supermodel danced to in their special exclusive video. (To be fair, I owned about a dozen already, because I'm so darn hip.)

Because I have tons of gift card money in iTunes from Christmas and my birthday and plenty of eMusic credits, I also purchased another dozen or so additional songs from the artists mentioned. Let me remind you: I'm a lowly educator. I don't want you to think I'm some rich dude for whom small expenditures mean nothing.

Here's the bands from whom I went out and purchased a song, with the bands from whom I was inspired to purchase additional songs earning an asterisk:

• Sloan River Project
• Bettie Serveert
• The xx *
• Midlake
• Los Campesinos!
• Clipse
• David Nail
• Retribution Gospel *
• Galactic *

More importantly, what the Esquire list inspired me to do was to start on the first official mix CD I've compiled in more than a year.

We all do random inexplicable shit. For me, I write poetry and make mix CDs, and both have very little rational explanation behind them. But I compiled my favorite songs inspired by the Esquire list, threw them in with a couple of other favorite recommended compilations, added a dash of my own discoveries from the last six months, and made a mix.

It being spring, the time of new life and cute cuddly animals, I named this little CD "THUMPER" and gave copies of it to some appreciated coworkers. Those of you who might be interested in obtaining a copy, I'll make the mix available for your sampling pleasure if you pass along your email address (if I already have it, just express your interest).

• Satellite Mind    Metric
• The Modern Leper    Frightened Rabbit
• Heart Of Steel    Galactic
• You and I    Kyler England
• Ali In the Jungle    The Hours
• I Know About You (Acoustic)    Dashboard Confessional
• Ain't No Secret    The Alternate Routes
• How You Like Me Now    The Heavy
• One Of Those Days    Joshua Radin
• Taking Chances (Glee Cast Version)    Glee Cast
• My Old Man    Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers
• Trinity    Paper Tongues
• Dirty Wings    Megan Slankard
• Better Love    Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors
• Do It Again    Galactic
• Boy Like Me    Jessica Harp
• You're Not Listening    The Rescues
• Sympathetic Vibrations (feat. Amber Rubarth & Alex Wong)    The Paper Raincoat
• If You Would Come Back Home    William Fitzsimmons
• Make It Up To You    Pete Schmidt

If, God help you, you're too shy to leave a comment, then just email me on the down-low, and I'll pass along the link. If you don't know me well enough to know my email address, then you'd best leave a comment.

Happy THUMPER mix. Whatever that may mean to you.


The picture of Champy's, located in Chattanooga, is included because I've been there four times in the last 14 days, which means it deserves some kind of credit for my need to make a mix CD in the first place.

Can't Get It Out Of My Head

Buddy and Julie Miller (with Patti Griffin)--"Chalk" (mp3)

You know how they can get stuck in your head, and they're usually some drivel, some incessant beat or goofy repetition of a word like "umbrella" or "alcohol." You know how they can appear to be playing everywhere all the time. Or maybe they aren't even a real song; maybe they are a commercial jingle or a part of song that you used to like that has been sold to a multinational corporation to promote a product not even remotely connected to the song.

But sometimes even an honest song can get stuck in your head.

It doesn't happen often.

There's too much static out there, too much noise to allow a place for an acoustic guitar and a voice, eventually joined by a piano and another voice, maybe an electric guitar overdub for the solo.

"Chalk" is written by Julie Miller and performed by her husband, Buddy Miller. Julie Miller is a woman who has written more good songs than I can even count, and still, I consider this among her very best.

The odd thing is that she doesn't sing on it. Patti Griffin provides the harmony voice. What must it be like, I wonder, to write a song this good and to have the critical sense to realize that you are not the right person to sing it?

Here's my theory: though Buddy has a good voice, he has to strain a bit on the melody of this song, and that reaching for notes (that he does reach) gives the song an additional emotional weight. Since the lyrics carry their share of pain and resignation, the way he works so hard to keep control of the melody mirrors the lyrics. Julie's version, given her kind of odd, little girl voice, probably wouldn't work as well.

So if you are one of those readers who don't listen to the music on this blog, make an exception here. "Chalk" is enough country for those who like country, enough folk for the folkies, in addtion to having interesting guitar parts and harmonies for the musicians.

Chalk by Julie Miller

I always pretended for your sake
So you wouldn't know how you made my heart break
I tried so hard to save you from yourself
But I never could cry out loud for help

All I did was help you tell a lie
You never even knew it when I said goodbye
I ran so far and I don't know why

You never even knew who I was
You saw about as far as a blind man does
I carried you with me everywhere I went
I carried everything till my back was bent

All I did was help you tell a lie
You never even knew it when I said goodbye
It keeps on raining and I don't know why

All our words are written down in chalk
Out in the rain on the sidewalk
If all our heartaches were in a stack
They'd go all the way up to heaven and back

We don't know all the trouble we're in
We don't know how to get home again
Jesus come and save us from our sin

It won't be too long before people will be putting out their lists of best CDs and best songs of 2009. This is will be on mine.


"Chalk" is on Buddy and Julie Miller's latest CD, Written In Chalk, available at Itunes.