CheckOneTwo

Greetings, you landlocked rascals.  CheckOneTwo has just spent the last week in lovely Puerto Rico.  Got my rainforest on in a big way, and was also lucky enough to spend a weekend in San Juan during the San Juan Batista festival.  Lots of fun, sun, and time spent in a Jamaican bar drinking Puerto Rican beer. 

The flight back yesterday was the same as the flight to:  yours truly surrounded by upset young’uns.  It was like being at the Travs game on those Screaming Kids days they have for school groups.  Truly a time to turn up the mp3 player and drown out someone else’s sorrows.   A time, in fact, to wallow in musical minutiae.

A report from the CheckOneTwo mp3 player:  these are the tracks that have a number in the title.  Put them together, and it’s a pretty kick-arse playlist:

Garbage:  #1 Crush.  From the Romeo & Juliet soundtrack (ahh, I know, get off me, this song is terrific).  Shirley Manson makes me believe she’d sink ships for me. 

Sonic Youth:  100%, from Dirty.  You know it’s SY right from the opening feedback, and it gets better from there. 

Eileen Rose:  Two in One.   From the album Long Shot Novena.  Got to see Eileen Rose open for Frank Black a few years back, and I was immediately sucked in.  Boston chicka, pipes alternating between a soft croon and a rabid bluesy howl.   One of the greatest lines ever:  “I’m gonna take my sugar with lemon on the side….Tell the Angel move on over, the Devil’s gonna ride…..”

BR-549:  Six Days on the Road.   Great old trucker song remake.  “I’m poppin’ little white pills and my eyyyyyes are open wide….”

Paul Hardcastle:  19.   You know the one.  “N-n-n-nineteen.  Nineteen.”  One of the first songs I ever heard that used a sampler, and schooled me on important facts about the Vietnam War.  History class, and I could dance to it.

Jem:  24.  This is a song that I really love, although it may have been used as part of the promo for the Kiefer Sutherland series.  BabySham and I saw Jem at Bonnaroo a while back.  Terrible live set, but this Welsh lass has some great pipes in the studio. 

Lucinda Williams:  2-Kool 2-be 4-Gotten.  From Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, the album I always listen to while wandering around on Earth Day.  I think it’s because it was the soundtrack from when I opened the Sierra Club office here several years ago.  When Lucinda croons, “Junebuuuuuuug versus hurricane, junebuuuuug versus hurricane,” all is right with the world.

Smoke up Johnny:  12th Street.  We all know girls like the subject of this song, right?  The little rich girl who slummed around with us for a while, but then eventually ran back to her rich friends?  Sorry babe, but you ain’t gotta heart. 

Blind Melon:  3 is a Magic Number.  Shannon Hoon & Co. remake the old Schoolhouse Rock tune.  Give it a listen.  I’m pretty sure it was done in one take.

PJ Harvey:  50 Foot Queenie.   God bless America, this is a great song.  Polly Jean jumps in right over the opening bassline and wails away.  I love how she grows bigger and bigger over the course of the song.  HeyI’mTheKingOfTheWorld!  YouOughttaHearMySong!  ComeOnAndMeasureMe!  I’m FiftyInchesLong!!

Deftones:  7 Words.  Somebody’s got some serious scream abilities.  This is not the song you want to play while Grandma’s in the car, unless you’re in the will. 

Bow Wow Wow:  C30, C60, C90, Go!  C’mon, lie and tell me you didn’t have a crush on the Bow Wow Wow chick when we were kids.  She had candy, you wanted it, and here it is.  

Silver Swirly:  Six String Sail.  From the Shannon Yarbrough tribute album, Listen to What I’m Made Of.  I didn’t know Shannon, but this is one of my faves from the album.

The Donnas:  Zero.   Is there anyone better than the Donnas at just making funny three-chords-and-out songs about relationships?  Not for my money.   Dudes get their chops busted in every track, including this one.

The Cure:  Wrong Number.  OK, so it doesn’t actually have a number in the title, but close enough.  This song is The Cure in techno mode, with the best-laid plans this side of America.  BabySham loves hearing Robert Smith talking on the phone near the end, all British-y, when he says, “Sorry…wrong numbah…”

QUESTION:  Your favorite song with a number in the title (and why)?