1/22/2009

Green Monkey Number Crunching

Splotchy's done it again! His epic Green Monkey Music Project is back for Volume no. 14. You can read about it and then download here.


The name of this mix was NUMB3R5! and the theme asked for songs with a number in the title. I was happy to play along but realized too late that if I'd submitted 6060-842 by The B-52s, I would have scored with the song and the artist having numbers in the name. No matter. My choices and explanations are as follows:


2:19 by Tom Waits - This song is featured on the Orphans release and the time in the title refers to the train Tom's baby's leaving on and not the running time of the song. Thankfully, this leaves plenty of time to take in all the arresting sounds Mr. Waits likes to paint with.

40,000 Years B.C. by Gyan - While on a quest to figure out where Jane Siberry had been hiding (she's now called Issa), she was nice enough to introduce me through her website to this Australian singer/songwriter. I love the haunting drawn out sound of her vocals and the accompanying music which clocks in a little shy of 40,000 years.

96 Tears by The Stranglers - This is a fantastic and driving remake of the classic by ? and the Mysterians. Sometimes strangulation's just the thing a song needs.


25 Minutes To Go by Johnny Cash - Whether it's gallows humour or a man singing his own countdown to the gallows, I'm there. A minor Cash classic.

10 Fingers 11 Toes by The Ponys - If I had a garage, I'd ask The Ponys to play in it, providing they like a nice game of Rummoli. This is a fun and noisy little number that reminds me that I grew up next door to a family where the dad had 11 fingers and 10 toes. I'm not sure why but he ended up taking his own life.

5 and 1/2 Minute Hallway by Poe - This is the strangest song until you read Poe's brother's novel House of Leaves and then it makes more sense but still stays pretty strange. I love the whole album this is from.


And there you have it, download, enjoy, or not, and thank Splotchy!

12 comments:

The Imaginary Reviewer said...

Ooh, interesting! I've been meaning to look up Poe since I read her brother's book this year. Without a doubt it's one of the best books I've ever read. In fact, if I actually owned a copy (rather than borrowing it) I'd have probably read it another two or three times since.

Thanks for including that, I'll definitely give it a good listen!

Sean Wraight said...

Excellent playlist diversity Dale. I really like your selections. I think I'll have to dig out some Stranglers discs tonight and rediscover those.

Love the Tom Waits pick too!

Sean

Les Becker said...

See, this is why I don't play these things... all I can think of is "1 Little, 2 Little, 3 Little Indians"... hardly politically correct anymore, and I would've got my ass kicked for it, I know.

Barbara Bruederlin said...

Very nice! I shall be checking out all the tunes. Muchos gratius to you and Splotchy and the other contestants.

I am shocked though - no 99 Luftballoon?

Anonymous said...

No Prince's 1999? sheesh

Dale said...

The book's really fascinating and I plan to read it again too Mr I.R. And no, you may not borrow it. The CDs been on my regularly played list for years, several of the songs have tie-ins to the book.

Hey Sean, glad you liked my picks. I didn't realize how many number songs I had so it was tough to choose just six.

I let iTunes help me think Les, I mean why tax myself?

It wasn't on my list Barbara but it was on someone else's! Go see!

Click on over to Splotchy's place Bluez - it made the cut, again through someone else!

Andi said...

Excellent choices! I'm particularly fond of the Poe, Waits, and Cash songs. I really need to re-buy the Poe album since I think it got lost in my move from NC to TX. I love that album...*sob*.

Chancelucky said...

I say it's way too easy to have songs with the numbers one and two in the title. One is the loneliest number after all and it does take two to figure things like that out.

So, I'm wondering if there are any songs about irrational numbers as opposed to irrational boyfriends or girlfriends. Pi, Euler's number, the square root of 2, maybe the square root of negative 1 by AC/DC,

Also wondering if there's a song title that contains the number Zero.

The Pythagoreans were supposed to be into music and always figuring out special harmonic ratios. You'd think they'd done some tribute to an irrational number somewhere in there and gotten it on Kasey Kasem's Top 43/29.

Anonymous said...

I also love "Haunted" by Poe. This reminds me that I was going to figure out a way to send you Poe's amazing cover of "I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say No." I'd just email it to you but audio files are so damn big. I wish I weren't so technologically lame.

But this is a really cool playlist. If I were contributing, I would add

88 Lines about 44 Women The Nails
1959 Sisters of Mercy
3 Strange Days School of Fish
6'1" Liz Phair
2cv Lloyd Cole
The 15th (Originally by Wire, covered by Fischerspooner)
1000 Umbrellas XTC

Chancelucky, on my itunes I have two songs about zero:

Zero Smashing Pumpkins
Zeroes and Ones Jesus Jones

Splotchy said...

Thanks a lot for playing. Again, some songs I had never heard before. These mixes are wonderful for getting introduced to new, great music.

Chris the Hippie said...

Downloading and listening right now! I like Tom Waits.

Dale said...

I've bought it for myself a couple of times too Andi as well as for other people. I wonder why she hasn't put out another cd lately?

You figure, Chancelucky?

Send it to me by Gmail Holly, it has huge capacity. I like your entries to the mix and thank you for answering Chancelucky.

I always hear a lot of new things this way which I love Splotchy, your entries in particular are always fascinating.

Hey Chris, I knew you were a man of distinction. Tom's so excellent.