V-Day

I'm not totally moping around, being all emo-ish on valentine's day. I barely even noticed it. Still, I wish that I had a reason to really celebrate it, and I wish things had gone better.

And back to real life.

Thirty One Today - Aimee Mann
To Love Somebody - Bee Gees
Kiss The Rain - Billy Myers
Lay Lady Lay - Bob Dylan
Fall Apart Again - Brandi Carlile
Love's Made A Fool Of You - Buddy Holly
Love Loss Hope Repeat - Carbon Leaf
Gray Room - Damien Rice
Stay or Leave - Dave Matthews
Ashes and Wine - A Fine Frenzy
Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac
The Last Time I Saw Her - Gordon Lightfoot
Apologies - Grace Potter & The Nocturnals
We Can Work It Out (The Beatles) - Heather Nova
Blues Run the Game - Jackson C. Frank
Fire & Rain - James Taylor
Somos lo que fue - Jesse & Joy
Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now) - Phil Collins
I Still Care For You - Ray LaMontagne
Come Around - Rhett Miller
Much Farther To Go - Rosie Thomas

I still think of you.

Hype - Buy

House : Carry You Away Soundtrack

I'm a huge fan of the TV show House, MD. It's got good stories, even better characters and a fantastic taste in music for it. Last fall, FOX released a soundtrack of some of the songs that made it onto the show. It's a very fun soundtrack, with some really good, and some rare songs onto it.
Beyond that album, there's a bunch of other songs that have made it onto the show that didn't make it onto that soundtrack (and a couple that did, but are still really good.)
The main point in looking at this cross section of music from the show is it's tone and how that relates to the show itself, particularly when it comes to the character of house. All of the below songs are fairly moody ones - mostly dealing with loss or are otherwise not really 'up' songs. Overall, they form a really good feel for the show and House himself, who is a fairly depressed character all things considered. The comedy in the show aside, there's usually a couple of moments where we really see House as himself - alone and depressed. These songs fit perfectly.

Are You Alright? - Lucinda Williams
Beautiful - Elvis Costello
Colors - Amos Lee
Good Man - Josh Ritter
Grey Room - Damien Rice
Hope for the Hopeless - A Fine Frenzy
Human - Civil Twilight
In The Deep - Bird York
Orange Sky - Alexi Murdoch
See The World - Gomez
Some Devil - Dave Matthews
Walter Reed - Michael Penn

Hype - Buy - Look

Duet - LaMontagne & Rice

In addition to the Covers and Original feature that I'm doing, there's a couple of other similar things that I like to collect and listen to - collaborations between artists during concerts or in the studio. It's always something cool to take a listen to. There's some familiar couplings out there, and sometimes, there's the occasional concert collaborations.
To start off, one such pairing that I've come across really worked - Damien Rice and Ray LaMontagne, where they covered To Love Somebody (Originally the Bee Gees) before a French audience. This is a fantastic pairing - Both artists work extensively with the acoustic guitar, and their playing compliments each other's fantastically. LaMontagne takes the lead for this song while Rice picks up after the first chorus, but their voices are so similar that it's hard to tell them apart most of the time, without really listening to it.

The song also really fits with some of their music. Damien Rice has a sort of brooding thing that goes on, and Ray LaMontagne has some of his more senimental moments, for which this song really suits the two of them. I like this song - it's the perfect one for my current mood at the moment.

To Love Somebody - Ray LaMontagne & Damien Rice


Hype - Buy