In the end, all but three songs from my mix tape post were explicitly identified in comments on one site or another, though two or three were identified only indirectly ("That song by barenaked ladies..."), and one only by extensive Google searching. Not too shabby.
Here are the answers. You might be saying "Isn't this just a cheap way to squeeze another blog post out of this same tape?" You might be right.
Side One:
- 1) "Some are mathematicians, some are carpenters' wives." Bob Dylan, "Tangled Up in Blue." A rich source of lines for this sort of thing, but an easy one to get.
- 2) "I remember Christmas in the blistering cold, in a church on the Upper West Side." Ryan Adams, "New York, New York." I first heard this song on September 14, 2001, while driving down the Turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston for Mike Steeves's wedding. That tends to make it stick in the mind.
- 3) "See the oil fields at first light." U2, "Beautiful Day." U2 at their soaringly vague best.
- 4) "With fingernails that shine like justice, and a voice that is dark like tinted glass." Cake, "Short Skirt/ Long Jacket." I think we all want a girl like that.
- 5) "Your grandsons, they won't understand." The Strokes, "Last Nite." I have a hard time with this band, and, really, any band that are too jaded to have fun being rock stars.
- 6) "She left me roses by the stairs, surprises let me know she cares." Blink-182, "All the Small Things." These guys put at least one song on each album that's nothing but dick jokes, just to keep their fans from noticing that they're actually very talented as pop songwriters.
- 7) "We asked for Mojo Nixon, they said 'He don't work here.'" The Dead Milkmen, "Punk Rock Girl." If you don't have Mojo Nixon, then your store could use some fixin'.
- 8) "There will be no flowers flowing in the light that passes through me." Guided by Voices, "Glad Girls." In the alternate universe where I know how to play guitar, and am in a band, we do a mean cover of this.
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