The words don't make sense but the sounds say "kindness." The shape the face makes tells me something is wrong but the sounds say "all is well." When I ride the teacups, I lose track of where the sky is and I feel like I've woken up late at night and my parents aren't home. I never used to get dizzy. I used to count the rows in the couch and imagine tiny canyons. The hands hurt me but the sounds say "don't be afraid."
There are many recurring daydreams. Maybe you've had this one: with the wave of a hand and in a liminal space without end (think the milky white loading world that Morpheus and Neo occupy at points in The Matrix), every single people on the early is suddenly present and placed in a "best to worst" order. The scale can change: maybe it's looks, maybe it's how funny they are, maybe it's an ethical judgement on "good to bad." The daydream allows for a true objectivity, and for one to placed in a line, know their order in a group.
My uncle once said to his progressive daughter, during an argument that was either about the ethics of land ownership or the politics of recognizing gender fluidity, that in order for him to make his way in the world, he needed to put people into groups. All people need to fall within ten to fifteen groups. He said he was not picky about how those groups were constructed ("You can make the groups! You tell me the groups!"), but that he needed the ability to bundle people together to make the world coherent for himself.
The fear enters my house only at night, and only in the handful of minutes before I go to bed alone. Waking to a noise at 2:30 AM does not bring the fear. One of the children calling out in the blackness does not bring the fear. The fear comes in dusk light, in the fading orange glow of a bedside lamp casting deep, soft shadows on a mostly dim room. Sleep will come, but in the moments before I sometimes imagine that there is, on the sidewalk, an entity shrouded in black, slowly making its way into the house, going from room to room and looming its negative face over the sleeping eyes and mouths of the other bodies in the house. It checks for sleep. It looks for a long time, and if you were to open your eyes you would really see it, but sleep is the protection. It can tell when you are faking, so the job becomes pretending to fall asleep so hard that it actually happens.
Recovering from a nausea once thought to be eternal, unplugging from the future expected and making slow sad peace with the future ascendent. Things much slower, much roughly, much looser than expected. The past tells the story, it knows what will happen next. Resignation, not retirement. A long road, not a gold watch. Were they ever really gold in the first place?
My grandfather sired twelve children from the comfort of his easy chair, ruling with fear and a fist of bone and meat because bone and meat really is all you need, iron overrated and no longer produced in America. The first five remember a severity, the next five lived in its reputation's shadow, the last two never even heard its story. He slapped and kicked and died in a hospital bed.
It's all so much more analog and tactile than the acid-eaters thought it would be. Undone by the common decay more than anything else. I read somewhere that deviance is a sacrifice made in response to longer lives, that it pays to be normal when being weird can take years off your life. On the one hand, what are the years worth if they aren't lived? On the other hand, if the years aren't worth their own value, what value does anything have?
Larry Bird was a mean son of a bitch. In being mean, he surpassed racism. Maybe there is a wisdom in unmitigated and unmodulated cruelty. I'm in my own hole, stay over there in yours. We're all in holes and maybe there have been dreams that we might get out, dig tunnels to each other, share chestnuts and tips on how to build ramps. But what's out there, anyway? Nothing is waiting, might as well get to it.
Sorry. If it was my fault, I mean. I don't know if it was, but it probably was. The Monday Morning Mixtape, and its teetering on the brink of blog oblivion, I mean. Possible reasons it doesn't work as a weekly activity anymore: because I don't do enough to get people involved; because I don't have my finger on the pulse of what would be considered interesting in terms of themes; because I let it fade into the background; because I let what I thought would be a nice replacement for a worthy blog project become this sort of inessential shadow of the thing it was going to replace; because I misread the room in terms of what people actually want from music, which is maybe not "to write about music"; because I didn't think about how disparate all our musical tastes are and how that might lead such a mixtape to feel sometimes like a bunch of siloed music-listeners lobbing musical suggestions over the prison walls and never hearing anything back in reply; because, I don't know, because I'm still forcing a blog into people's eyeballs at such a late time in our lives. I go through cycles, like sometimes I wonder what the point of all this is, and I'm sorry for that too, that it means that you have to read about it yet again on the blog that I'm sorry for. I'm not sorry for this song, though. It's a good song, and I'm glad to have this mixtape as a vehicle to give it to you. —Joe
"Total.Fucking.Gone.Song" by Dillinger Four
from Versus God, 2000
Not my favorite song off of Versus God, but certainly one of the top twelve songs on the twelve-song album. I might just fuck around and find a way to worm every song from this record into future mixtape lists. Since the air is coming out of this particular recurring recommendation engine, I might as well help speed it along by throwing all the tracks from what I have come to understand as the pinnacle of Midwestern punk music in increasingly esoteric and tangential ways. Versus God! Normally I would say "you had to be there," but I really don't think you do. You can be there now, baby. —Nate
"Unhappy Song" by Swamp Dogg
from Swamp Dogg Contemplates the Afterlife, 2026
I wouldn't say I'm unhappy. See, this is why it's good to document your feelings in writing somewhere (even if it's, oh lord, on a blog). I can trace the weeks and months of my life in which I truly felt unhappy. And I can compare and contrast what I was feeling then to what I'm feeling now. I don't think I'm unhappy now. There is, of course, the overarching truth that the is "no reason for me to be unhappy," which is a constant truth, but we all know that's not really how the brain functions, typically. Depression, for example, doesn't need an external reason, you're just unhappy because of your brain chemistry. But without a reason pretty much ever, I still find myself unhappy sometimes, during certain periods of my life. Right now, though, I'm okay. I think any negative feeling I have right now could possibly be described as: disconnected. I feel like I'm losing grip of certain things that I've held close during this stage in my life. Perhaps the blog is one of them, I don't know. This is the longest sustained slump I've ever felt about this thing. That's not unhappiness, it's just a disconnect. Like, why is this thing that has been so important to me for so long sort of drifting in the background so often? I don't know. It's not unhappiness though, I know that. —Joe
"The Lazy Song" by Bruno Mars
from Doo-Wops & Hooligans, 2010
I always associate this song with Lamson, because he played it constantly when it came out. It's not really that good of a song, but it's got a very certain vibe. When you're on that wavelength, it's like an old armchair or your favorite roach clip. —Sean E.
"Drumming Song" by Florence + the Machine
from Lungs, 2009
Well... I made a mistake when picking a song and blurb for this week...
So instead of writing a whole new blurb, here's the blurb for the song I would've picked for last week's clapping theme:
"Here Come the Sixers" by Reed Streets
a single, 2019
Philadelphians across the city are clapping their hands at the news that the Sixers have traded for Jaylen Brown. The Eagles have a couple great Jalens (different spelling, but still...), so there are high hopes for Brown, a champion with the Boston Celtics in 2024. Add in the rumors that LeBron James is considering the Sixers are his next team, and there's plenty to be excited about after a few disappointing seasons out of the Sixers.
(Joe, feel free to leave it all in.)
—Batts
"Midnight Song" by Wild Nothing
from Nocturne, 2012
I don't often make it till midnight. If I'm up at midnight, like especially on a weeknight, I know I'm fucked the next day. At the very least, it means I won't be able to wake up early enough to hit the gym, and I'll feel sluggish and weak the rest of that day. At worst, I'm so tired I can barely get out of bed. And if I'm eating Taco Bell after midnight? Fucking forget it. I've been going to a club semi-often recently that takes your phone before you go in, and gives it back at the end of the night. Unless you find a dude wearing a watch, there's literally no way to know what time it is. So I've made a little game of it, trying to guess what time it is as the coat check gal searches for the phones and brings them back to the counter. I can usually get it within the right hour, but I also am usually underestimating. The reaction when I see the phone and it says 1:30 AM is: "ohhhh noooooooooooooo." —Joe
"Bird Song" by the Men
from New Moon, 2013
The Men touched the sun for approximately three years there in the early 2010s depending how you feel about Leave Home (an exciting suggestion of what's to come, but not yet the real thing). There's a clear arc from the band's three best records; Open Your Heart is a rip-shit punk band that can seemingly do anything, New Moon is that rip-shit punk band slicing off the shag and polishing the diamond, Tomorrow's Hits is the final form, in which the punk band reinvents themselves as the Rolling Stones circa Sticky Fingers. This track is right in the murky middle, the butterfly coming out of the crystals; boozy pianos, slide guitars, harmonicas-a-honkin', all this energy reigned in, waiting to blow the fuck up. Great rock song. —Nate
"'Cello Song" by Nick Drake
from Five Leaves Left, 1969
Isn't there a movie or TV show that makes a joke about a cello that's like the character saying it says "cello?" instead of "hello?" I forget. Tough to remember stuff like that when I'm listened to Nick Drake. It's also tough to remember that, before Nick Drake made music so sad that it killed him, he was making this ornate chamber music that really scratches an itch within me sometimes. What an artist. I could listen to him any— oh! It's School of Rock, isn't it? Jack Black makes the cello player play bass guitar? "Cello?!" Ah shit, I was gonna write about School of Rock in the next blurb. Fuck. Sorry for the repeat. —Joe
"Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin
from Led Zeppelin III, 1970
If there's a good song in a Family Movie Night movie, I'm all over that shit. I'm rushing off to the nearest computer to download an mp3 of that song and uploading it to the kids' iPod. We watched School of Rock a few weeks ago, and the kids really liked it (their first Linklater!). And I was able to get a total of three songs off the screen and into their consciousness: the title track with Jack Black and the kids, obviously (it's a classic!); the AC/DC version of "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)" (the Jack Black version during the end credits is a little too much for me, i.e. decidedly NOT a classic); and "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" by Ramones. "Immigrant Song" is a great one too but would've been pushing it. But I am 100% confident that there's gonna to be a moment in the future, even years from now, when "Immigrant Song" is playing, and my middle child is like, "Daddy, is this from School of Rock?" That's how her brain works. She is genetically the closest to me, it seems. —Joe
"Travel Song" by Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
from Broom, 2005
Do people take a break from their hobbies when they are traveling? This is a sincere question, I have no idea. I feel like the only things I've called a "hobby" in the past 20 years were blogging and drinking. I am taking a permanent break from the latter, but I haven't taken a break from the former in at least eight years. The next Monday Morning Mixtape is going to be in three weeks, when I'm in Wildwood. It would never occur to me that we would take a break for that reason. (I mean, I know we're taking a break from MMM, but not for the specific reason of traveling.) I'm trying to picture a scenario in which I'm not bringing my computer on vacation. Maybe an all-inclusive or something? But we have none of those on the horizon, and I guess I would probably try to publish everything in advance? Back to my original question though: for people who have normal hobbies, are they something you forget about when you're away for a short while? Like all you knitters, gamers, painters, athletes, are you just forgetting about your passion while you chill on a beach chair? There is no judgment in this question, I'm legitimately curious. —Joe
"Pop Song" by STRFKR
from Starfucker, 2008
I've been kicking it with a new friend and she seems to know some famous people. I've made it pretty clear from the get-go that I am not a starfucker. I don't think this was even something she needed to hear from me, it just makes me more comfortable if I'm upfront about it. I did tell the story about Mike Scott at the birthday party (with the subsequent punches thrown toward the South Philly plumbers in the Linc's tailgating parking lot) to illustrate my point. I'm the anti-starfucker. I will ignore any celebrity that gets in my way. Except maybe STRFKR. I should look up what this dude looks like so if I recognize him I can make a very funny exception to my rule. —Joe
"The Whale Song" by Modest Mouse
from No One's First, and You're Next EP, 2009
I have a core memory of being [REDACTED] out of my mind on [REDACTED] in my living room with [REDACTED] and [REDACTED], listening to this song so loudly that our neighbor threatened to call the cops. For a good long while there, this was the last good Modest Mouse song, but the new album that came out earlier this year is quite good. It ain't Lonesome Crowded West or The Moon & Antarctica, but it's potentially the best album since that era. —Nate
So many layers of my understanding of this song have been added since I first heard it, in my youth, in the nascent stages of my musical discovery period (which is, decades later, still ongoing). The attachment to and falling out of the Doors, the constant reevaluation of the irony of Jim Morrison as my own understanding of what irony is ebbed and flowed, the experience with Record Club and how it acted like a relitigation or perhaps even like picking at an old wound, the evolving understanding of character and fiction and how they inform art, the way that art then informs our understanding of the world, the understanding that things can be many things at once and we can use those things like tools in a toolbelt to be deployed only when we need them........ I mean, all of that is true, but sometimes I wish I could just be a little kid in my parents' basement listening to the Doors for the first time and gathering the very simple notion that this song is weird even for these guys. —Joe
"Dancing Song" by Washington Social Club
from Catching Looks, 2004
Much ballyhoo made over the notion that it is impossible to dance while sober, both from external sources and within my own head. I think maybe we need to consider the fact that I just don't like dancing, as opposed to the more loftier idea that dancing is reserved only for those who are able to let themselves free, out of the cage of societal norms, reaching the ideal of human nature in which we find ourselves fully unencumbered by all expectations and are thus able to finally achieve the art of dancing, of moving your body, and that only then can you reach your full potential as a human being. Listen—in sobriety, I've danced. Or tried to, anyway. I just don't like it. I'd rather chill at my assigned wedding guest table and chitchat with the other guests. I don't need to dance. I won't feel anything. Just let me relax with my club soda in peace, please. —Joe
"Ferry Song" by Twin Peaks
from Lookout Low, 2019
Think about how a ferry and a bridge are mortal enemies. This is a profoundly stupid idea, something that maybe I'd only come up with if I was reaching for something to write in 20 different blurbs for a mixtape that itself feels like a sinking ferry. But, like, think about what would happen to the ferry if there were bridges everywhere. And think about how many ferries would be born if a bridge were to collapse. A mark of progress, a bridge, but also a harbinger of doom, depending on from whose perspective you view it. I think that was a Shel Silverstein poem, wasn't it? —Joe
"Wayward Song" by the Earlies
from These Were the Earlies, 2004
There are some albums in my life that I stumbled upon and fell in love with and hold dearly and ALSO, crucially, keep isolated from everything else, or sheltered maybe, sheltered from my natural impulse to explore, more and more, to carve out room for more art like it, especially from that same artist, and my love for these particular albums is so that it shields me from that impulse. E.g. the Earlies and their beautiful album These Were the Earlies. One of the only true random impulse buys in a record store in my lifetime, imprinted in my heart during formative years, held fast and true through most of life's journey now. I love it, but the question remains: would I love it like I do now if I tried to listen to other Earlies albums? My fear is no, I would not. I would like or maybe even love other Earlies albums if I tried, but somehow, that love would pull from the love I have from this first one, and make it seem more pedestrian. I don't have to know everything. I can leave some things under the shroud of mystery. Who are the Earlies? Where were they from and where did they go? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, and I don't want to know. Let the mystery be. —Joe
"The Authority Song" by Jimmy Eat World
from Bleed American, 2001
I have no memory or impression of this song even now re-listening to it. Bleed American is perhaps a front-to-back, no skips record, so I do not mean it as an insult when I say this is potentially the worst song on that monumental record. Best song is "A Praise Chorus." When I was using a four-track recorder to cut demos in my bedroom and dorm room, I'm pretty sure I scratched something out and titled it "A Craise Phorus." I did this because I am an American visionary and soon-to-be recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for Naming Cassette Demos. —Nate
"Prison Song" by System of a Down
from Toxicity, 2001
There's comfort in knowing that, in anyone else's hands, a song called "Prison Song" would almost assuredly be speaking to the figurative idea of a prison, like say you are typing furiously on a blog while stuck in a windowless office in between notes about children who were in situations so unsafe that they were in the news, and how you can feel a prison here in this situation and then look up at the high walls and barred windows of the prison that the clients must find themselves in, and thus in comparison scoff at the idea that this cushy office job could ever be a prison at all, the comparison somehow both soothing and agitating all at once, but in System of a Down's hands, it's literally about prison. —Joe
"Apartment Song" by Really From
from Really From, 2021
I've never lived in an apartment. Unless I'm constricting the definition of "apartment" too much? Are dorm rooms apartments? I lived in two different dorm rooms. I think apartments need their own kitchens, so I'm not counting it. Are extended stay hotel rooms apartments, then? I lived in one for six months, but there was no landlord and we weren't paying rent. This isn't something I need to do, live in an apartment, by the way. This isn't a checklist, just a stray thought. We own a home and I intend on living in it long enough to pay it off and actually own it instead of "borrowing" it from the bank for 30 fucking years. But you never know where life brings ya, right? If I ever find myself living an apartment, I will think back to this blurb, on this mixtape from July 2026, attached to a jazz-emo song. —Joe
"SHOWER SONG" by Tierra Whack
from WORLD WIDE WHACK, 2024
Sometimes I think about water shortages. These thoughts manifested from a confluence of a too-close reading of Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler and some disparate blog ravings by our very own Nate Dogg. But I also read something on Reddit the other day—no more or less reliable than a science fiction novel and a blog, I'd argue—that there is more than enough fresh water to last the inhabitants of earth a very long time, it's just that we have a distribution problem. And whether that's true or not, I really do trust the ingenuity of humanity, and how if water started getting low, we'd figure out a way to make more of it. Will I eventually not be able to shower as much as Tierra Whack wants me to? Maybe! But I think we—our generation and our children's generation—are going to be spared from widespread thirsty dystopia. —Joe
"Pain Song" by Yatta Bandz
from Scars, 2021
The new Effie song, I fear, is not very good. Little too far in the rage-rap direction, trying a little too hard to freak out the squares, huffing a little too strongly on the gecs gas without having the gecs movement. It might be a 5 or a 6 out of 10. Even at her most mid, she's still got juice, check the pre-chorus on that badboy. Song is called "Red Horse," I should say. Also, you may have noticed I am not writing about Yatta Bandz right now. This is out of kindness and respect. If you can't say something nice, and so forth. —Nate
"Road Song" by Sleeper's Bell
from Clover, 2025
We have two pretty big blogging milestones coming up in the next month or so. On August 4th, we'll be celebrating exactly five years of PoYB posting something every single day. And then sometime around there, we'll be publishing our 10,000th blog post. I don't have anything planned for either one. I mean, the way things are looking, there's a greater than 0% chance that these things are going to happen on the same day, so that would be cool. We're also gonna hit 1.5 million views around that same time, but I don't think that's as likely to happen on the same day. A sane person would see the confluence of these milestones as a sign that maybe things should slow down or even stop around here. Ya know, hit the road, and take that road away from here (he says, in a sweaty attempt to somehow connect these meta thoughts with the song they're sitting under). —Joe
"Anniversary Song" by Glocca Morra
from Just Married, 2012
The fifth anniversary of the blog posting every day is something that I'm pretty proud of. It's interesting to think back to the years leading up to that, and how I had tried to keep streaks going, and would never reach a month straight. And now here's the end of month 60 in a row. It's weird how something like that can become normal. I wouldn't say I'm thinking about Puke on Your Birthday all the time, but it's always in the back of my mind somewhere, either 1) when I'm like "ah shit it's Friday, I better start working on the mixtape," or 2) when I'm like "oh damn, that thought that I just had, that would make for a pretty great blog post." —Joe
"Walking Song" by U.S. Girls
from Scratch It, 2025
There's nothing better than that feeling when something clicks into place in my mind re: the blog (okay, there are plenty of better feelings, but stay with me). Like I'll be listening to the Record Club album for a few days, for example, and then all of a sudden, I'll be making dinner or getting out of the shower or walking to the train and BAM, it hits me. The whole goddamn blog post just arrives in my head. I have to get it out of my head and onto the screen, and that takes time, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the moment when it arrives. The crux of the blog post. I can envision it. Does this happen to anyone else? Maybe it happens to everyone else but most people just don't have the means or motivations to get it out in this particular way? —Joe
"Surf Song" by Fenix*TX
from Fēnix★TX, 1999
Monday Morning Mixtape is interesting in that context because so rarely does my writing in this space have an overarching theme or hook (with a few exceptions over the past 80 weeks, though nothing good enough to make me want to revisit it), and so there is by design no eureka moment. It's just me sitting down for x amount of time, typing whatever comes to my head in that moment. Most of the time, the writing is pedestrian. Every once in a while, there is a small moment of stardust that makes the words in the blurb sparkle, but mostly I'm typing just to type in this space. I think that's okay. Not everything has to be worthy of exaltation. Sometimes it's nice to just practice typing, and practice getting your thoughts into words on the screen. It better prepares yourself for the task when inspiration does truly arrive in all its glory. You don't wanna miss it. —Joe
"Heart Song" by Fust
from Big Ugly, 2025
I wonder if that's partially the reason why MMM's attendance has slowly tapered off over the past eighteen months—people just don't feel like writing. I mean, that is the biggest difference between PoYB's Monday Morning Mixtape and WXPN's Friday Morning Mixtape, right? The XPN listeners aren't being forced to justify their songs' inclusions in that mixtape. They just think of a song and send it in. And I enjoy XPN's mixtape just as much. Oh, I won't lie, the thought has crossed my mind, to try it that way here. To take away the writing aspect, to juice the numbers for the mixtape. But I can't bring myself to do it. That would be ripping the soul out of this blog. This is a writing blog. We write here. If you're looking to get together with friends and put together songs onto a playlist, there is ample opportunity to do so. This is something different. We're exchanging ideas here. And plus, let's be fucking real, the only thing sadder than one dude putting together a six-song mixtape with six disparate little blurbs about each song is one dude putting together a six-song mixtape and not writing anything about it. And you know that eventually it would devolve back into that, even after the initial surge of interest. That's how it goes with everything, both on this blog and in real life. You get excited about something, it's fun for a while, and then it gradually tapers off. Are there exceptions to this in real life? Sure. But generally, you have to work at something in order for it to not wither away and die. You can't just be comfortable with stasis. You need to help something grow and change and adapt. I couldn't do that with MMM. —Joe
"Okkervil River Song" by Okkervil River
from Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See, 2002
This is probably the most beautiful song I've ever heard. I'm happy to share it with you, just in case you've never heard it. I'm happy to share it within the context of a mixtape, put together by two or more friends, together. Maybe you've picked up some cool songs along the way. Have you? I have. I am thankful for that. And I am thankful that I'll be hearing some good songs in the future too, on the mixtapes after this. We're not ending, we're just slowing down. At worst, things stay the same, and I only have to suffer through the playlist-making mechanisms of that dastardly Spotify once a month instead of once a week. At best, a worthy blog endeavor gets a little room to breathe, and it survives as a gentle pulse controlled by the heart that is the gift of blogging. It's just some fucking thing. "And I searched and stared, but only the river stared back." —Joe
NEXT WEEK: We're taking a break next week! Come back on the first Monday of each month for some more MMM!
She wuther on my heights until I never listen to this half-warm mailed-in naked ploy to turn XCX sketches into clipped viral video bait again. First track reminds me of the Body and Daughters, which is genuinely a thrill before it becomes haunted house. The rest of this is an attempted to generate heat without a moment of friction, to generate buzz without any bees. Perhaps someday we will be free of Charli on this blog, but I suppose that day will never come as long as the blogfather retains his naked and disgusting lust for her. In closing, Sky Ferrera was never that good.
A power-pop approach to an exploding emo moment that understands the moves but never finds the edge that identifies the era's hallmarks. The challenge is to find a way to balance the individual perspective that powers great writing with the universality that career up-scaling requires, and Chroma is a bit too far in the wrong direction as to approach meaninglessness. A tween version of teen music. It's a shame, for Cartel at least, that America can seemingly only sustain one All-American Rejects at a time.
The novel is Flesh. The author is David Szalay. The accolades are the 2025 Man Booker Prize, which, if you are uninitiated, is one of the more prestigious literary awards among the stuffy-ass faux intellectual set. The reason to read the fucking thing, besides the fact that it can be deeply and appreciably consumed in a weekend despite being 375 pages long, is that it is an incredible work of just writing the next fucking sentence.
A straw man could level minimalism as a criticism, but the wise sage recognizes that minimalism is the fucking point. You get the character's name (Istvan), a general sense of what's going on in his life (lower-middle-class in Hungary), and an early inciting incident (a sexual awakening in his teens) that takes about 20 pages. Something quite fucked up happens on page 23 with almost no fanfare. It's a gunshot shock that feels sudden until you go back and realize you've been on rails to get to that point without even noticing it because this book is a magic trick of just telling you the most important thing that's happening, even if it's nothing. It is just writing the fucking sentence then moving on to the next one.
A problem that continues to plague society—and one that is in some ways a response to the isolation and segregation that comes with an online-first existence—is the desire to have things explained, to have someone clearly tell you what something means, to share how someone should feel about something, to reduce within the consumer of culture any need to sit or interoperate or process or disagree about what one act / art / effect does or does not mean. If that last sentence was even quasi-legible to you, this novel is a boon.
It never tells us in any significant way how any of the characters feel about each other, unless they are directly telling each other in the dialog. It never shades how we, as readers, are supposed to understand or respond to what is happening in Istvan's life. It's the kind of novel that three people can read and come away with three completely different interpretations on and all of them can be both correct and wrong as hell. It archives the specific universality that all great art strives for: it exists both as a direct expression of perspective and vessel so vacant that anyone can pour themselves into it and see their own reflection.
And, not for nothing, if fucking moves. It runs. I was shocked by A) how little was happening B) how propulsive what little there was turned out to be and C) how thrilled I was to be able to apply my own judgement or reaction to what happened without the hand of the author pointing me in a direction or offering any legible direction of their own.
The way that Szalay achieves this is by just writing the next fucking sentence and not worrying about anything else. He is wholly enveloped in his characters, his only service is what they are doing now, to each other, and what they do next as a result of whatever just happened (a blow job, a trip to the beach, a job interview, a death). This is less like a novel and more like peering into someone's life as a ghost might; strictly observing, explaining nothing, experiencing everything.
In closing, a good deal of this book is about smoking cigarettes on balconies. Strong recommend, an easy One Nate Up.
As in most things, the faster Give Up the Ghost's pace, the better things go. There's a lot more alt-country in this than looky-loos might expect, but it's swaddled in a classicist's approach to working-class bumpkin melodrama. Brandi has a little more Reba in her that one might expect if their way in is her late-era work, but she's also got a little more Molly Hatchet than rubes would expect. Good country record, nice foundation from which to build.
The Nates Scale requires that art be good, interesting, or both. "Good" is a slippery concept; you know it when you hear it, but the more you hear the harder it becomes to find. "Interesting" is easier; anything with a recognizable spark of inspiration—and the ambition to see that spark into a flame—is worthy of designation.
Pool Kids are interesting. An emo band with DIY roots going for a mainstream sound borrowing tools from outside its genre touch-points at a moment when the traditional understanding of mainstream appeal is completely beyond reach is interesting. That this band has attempted to sound like Minutes to Midnight-era Linkin Park is interesting. The record is a cascade of choices and expressions of perspective made with conviction. That makes it worthy of my time, if not my adoration.
I didn't realize this band was named after a Fugazi song until yesterday. Chodemaster, thy name is Nate.
Anyway, just because Steve Albini died doesn't mean he took the formulas with him. Went Silent is a Shellac album with grander ambitions and a quarter-less malice. You can hear it the second "Chaos Herder Pt 2" kicks off, sounding like a Dude Incredible B-side until the guitars blow up into a stadium stance. Lyrics fall away, the focus on locked grooves becomes more apparent. This album puts on a show, it hits its marks, it boasts a coordination and a synchronicity that the Swedish watch-making-swim-dancers would envy. Acid is a defense when applied correctly, and golly does this band follow the instructions.
The larger shoegaze revival appears to have petered out, what with many of its original soldiers now moving on (TAGaBoW) or moving out (never happened for Whisp, did it?). One suspects that full body 2 wouldn't have been fully enlisted in the ranks, but there is an undeniable joy in their approach to mastering the arts of haze-craft. This motherfucker sounds a little bit like a chip-tune version of loveless by My Bloody Valentine, or the soundtrack to a lost NES game about Thurston Moore.
If either of those sentence fragments meant a word to you, the friggin' call is coming from inside the house, partner. If not: there's an elegant, delicate, considered approach to how Infinity Signature combines boundless howling guitars with precise electro-mope embellishments. This is bedroom music, assuming your bedroom is in a cave system somewhere.
There's extensive lore behind this band if you're the kind of degenerate who reads extended-universe Dune novels, but the simplest possible line is: The guy from Pinback and one of the guys from Hot Snakes / Rocket from the Crypt / Drive like Jehu get together and mix their mopey Built to Spill chocolate with the other's hot-shit surf noise rock peanut butter. Let's be honest and say that it times it is not greater than the sum of its parts, but let's continue the dialog and acknowledge that it quite often is. You are unlikely to find a more approachable way into the hornet's nest of exquisite pain that is the larger Noise Rock Underground than YELL AT CLOUD. Hell, just listen to "Destroyed by Touch" or "Hello Gallows" and take it from there. Ride the wave until it crushes you, get crushed until you rise again.
There is no greater signal to me that we are at the precipice of a taste recession than the muted response generated by Every Inch of Earth Pulsates.
Say what you will about LCD Soundsystem and the fervor that band generated, and say what you will about the exposure to embarrassment that band's crest put aging hipsters in proximity to, but you must also acknowledge it was a genuine movement and moment. Those songs fucking moved people, in the exact same ways that tracks like "Thinner Wine" and "How to Walk" would move people now were the levers and systems of the American Vibe manufacturing industry undone by de-regulation and automation.
A column about music, and about how the music informs our lives. Today's author is Nate. See the previous songs HERE.
"Keep Me in Your Heart"
Warren Zevon
from The Wind
2003
I was laying on a bed in the bottom half of the split-level house I grew up in at about 7:30 PM the night my mother died. The room was my grandmother's. It would have been the room she died in if she hadn't been transferred to hospice care at the end of her life. My parents had been sleeping there, moving down there while renovations were being done in their bedroom upstairs. Laying there, their clothes in open drawer and pill bottles on the nightstands, my Aunt Jen called down and told me to come upstairs because my mom was about to die.
Did I run up the stairs? Did I hustle with all the speed I could? Did I break a sweat? It's not that far to get from one room to the other in my childhood home. Could I have shaved a few seconds off?
My father and two of my aunts were sitting around my mother, who was pale and still. My father was clicking around on his phone, pulling up music to play as my mother passed, talking to her and telling her it was alright, that we loved her, that she could go, that she was alright. He played "Do You Realize??" by the Flaming Lips, which when played on YouTube has a few-seconds long intro of animal sounds, and I thought to myself "he's blowing this, she's going to leave this world to the sound of apes hooting."
When did she stop breathing? Was I there? I think I saw her take her last breath but if I'm honest with myself I can't really remember it. I recall looking for breath but I don't remember if I saw it. I can conjure the image both ways in my head right now, unsure of which is the true memory. I am afraid that I missed it, that we were playing music to a corpse.
I can't decide if it matters. It can't be known until it's too late what someone retains at the end, what senses are firing, what she was thinking if she was there, if she noticed that her sons weren't there.
Then it was over. She was gone and her body was just a body and there was a great exhale in the room. Dying is hard work both for the dying and the ones bearing witness and being there. It's groaning and pain and rashes and smashing ice chips on a marble countertop and buying soup and straining out the noodles and meat so all that's there is broth and it's calling people and answering questions and putting meals into freezers and sitting in a room with someone who cannot speak who you would kill to hear from again. It felt like a play had just ended or like we were coming home from an extended church service, loosening proverbial ties and taking off proverbial stockings.
I called my brothers. My dad texted his family. We set our phones aside and drank wine with the body, keeping the faeries away. We told stories, told jokes, said things that would have horrified her, thrilled her, made her laugh. We remembered how we loved each other, how she loved us. After an hour we snapped into the work that comes with celebrating a life and putting a body to rest. The work became its own escape until it was over, and now the rest of it happens.
Did y'all choose this week's band in anticipation of it being a good week for a swim? Even if it was random, I'm glad it worked out this way. Stay cool out there, friends.
CATEGORY OF VOTING: "Fatter, Older, and More Than Fine" — Over on the other blog, PoYB's less thin and less young blogging cousin, Nate went on a tear in January 2026, posting something almost every day for almost the entire month. A lot of those were music reviews, and a lot of those culminated in a critical assessment of "fine." But some were more than fine! I gathered the five best-reviewed albums from Fatter, Older 2026 so far and put them on the poll. Then you voted. Will this album remain more than fine in Nate's estimation six months later? We'll find out. Or maybe not—Nate hasn't responded to my emails about the 1975's classic album Notes on a Conditional Form in over three years.
LOSING ALBUMS:Every Inch of Earth Pulsates by W.H. Lung; Infinity Signature by full body 2; Went Silent by Place Position; YELL AT CLOUD by PLOSIVS
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ALBUM DETAILS
GENRE: Emo-pop, indie rock, midwest emo, dream pop, math pop, indie pop
ABOUT: Pool Kids formed in 2017 in Tallahassee, Florida. The band consists of Christine Goodwyne (vocals), Andy Anaya (guitar), and Nicolette Alvarez (bass), and Caden Clinton (drums). Anaya and Alvarez joined later, though. The first two years consisted of playing at any dive bar that would take a cold call, but in April 2019, Hayley Williams tweeted "This is what Pmore WISHED we sounded like in the early 2000's [sic]," which understandably changed their fate. They seem to have morphed from math rock to emo pop, if the genre tags for their discography are accurate. They also have a hardcore alter ego named POOL. Pool Kids are currently on Epitaph Records.
DISCOGRAPHY: This is their third and most recent LP, after their 2018 debut, Music to Practice Safe Sex To, and their 2022 self-titled album.
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ADDITIONAL INFO
READING SOME SHIT: an August 2025 feature with Paste Magazine
RECORD CLUB CONNECTIONS: Hayley Williams, who tweeted the band's big break, is the frontwoman for RC alumni Paramore. One of the songs on this album, "Tinted Windows," is literally the name of an RC artist. And Pool Kids are not the first RC band with a hardcore alter ego, as the one and only Taylor Swift is a hardcore screamo alter ego of Ogbert the Nerd.
Since we're listening to Pool Kids, I thought it would be nice to remember all the songs from Record Club history that feature swimming: "Swim" by Stereo League, "And the Horses All Go Swimming" by the Districts, and "Swim" by Empty Country. Plus, Mac Miller had a non-RC album named Swimming. Oh, and this is the third Kid from RC, after Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid and, of course, Smart Kids by McGruff the Crime Dog.
MENTIONS ON THE BLOG: I wasn't sure, because I am vaguely familiar with the 2022 self-titled, and "pool kids" is a tough search on blogger. But I didn't find anything. If I need correction, drop it in the comments.
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RECORD CLUB ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
This week's discography dive album: Telephone by the Districts
This week's follow-up album:Bhangra Rangeela by Red Baraat
Listen with us! Keep your favorite Record Club artists in the rotation!
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COUNTDOWN:
69 Weeks Until Week 420
We are tracking and counting down every week from here on out till Record Club Week 420. We started this countdown 69 weeks out. During Record Club Week 420, we will be covering Donny Most by the esteemed Happy Days virgin Donny Most. The goal for Week 420 of Record Club is that it will feature 69 reviews from 69 different people.
Welcome to Monday Morning Mixtape, a PoYB Contributor-curated playlist of songs, made just for you at the start of each week.
"Dog with a Blog"
Happy 22nd birthday to Francesca Capaldi, star of the hit Disney Channel original series Dog with a Blog, which is a show I'd somehow never heard of until picking this MMM theme for our blog. Let's pick songs for the show Dog with a Blog
Okay, so the very first thing you should know is that the titular dog with the titular blog is named Stan. I didn't know this until right now. I'm looking it up. It's right there on the Wikipedia page for Dog with a Blog. Stan is voiced by a guy named Stephen Full. That's right, the dog can talk. I learned that too. I'm learning so much. Don't worry about looking it up yourself, I got you covered. I'll handle the Wikipedia page about Dog with a Blog, okay? I do need you to do one thing, though. I need you to listen to "Stan" by Eminem, which is something you've done before, of course, but THIS time, I need you to close your eyes while you're listening, and I need you to pretend that the titular Stan of this song is actually Stan the dog from Dog with a Blog. Trust me, it makes the Eminem song EVEN BETTER!!! —Joe
"Minneapolis" by that dog.
from Retreat from the Sun, 1997
A wonderfully emo song about female desire. There is an informal list of songs that I would like to someday cover, and this is on it. Now all I have to do is learn the song, change the key so it's in my range, find another three to five people who are willing to learn the parts, go back in time about fifteen years where I was at a point in my life where I had the drive to perform songs live or record them, and we're off to the races. —Nate
"Dog Puke" by Blankface
a single, 2026
I think this one speaks for itself. It is not a good song, and it makes my head hurt. It's OK, I don't need to listen to every mixtape. I also don't need to do anything related to dogs, because I don't like dogs that much. I like maybe ten percent of dogs, and even those I prefer to not be around. Why deal with them? I'd rather be alone. —Zach
"Second Chance Summer" by G Hannelius
from Girlhood EP, 2026
First thought is that I should see if any of Francesca's castmates on Dog with a Blog have any music to their name. Second thought is that it looks like the main (human) star of the show, G Hannelius, dropped her debut EP earlier in the year. Third thought was that the phrase "Second Chance Summer" sounds relevant enough to this season that we are currently in that it might be a good pick for the mixtape. Fourth though is that the lyric video features, on continuous loop, G Hannelius in a bra and panties, which is cool. Fifth thought was to double check her age—27. Sixth thought was that it's still a little weird to sexualize someone who was very much a child in the context that I'm supposed to be writing about. Seventh thought is that I should also be more protective of other bloggers, that I should be focusing on her art on the blog, not some video of hers ten years later. Eighth thought is that it wasn't G Hannelius who was the blogger, duh, it was the dog! It's right there in the name! Dog with a Blog! Final thought: I'm an idiot in so many ways. —Joe
"Sunday Morning" by All Dogs
from Kicking Every Day, 2015
"Dog" is an easy in-road to this otherwise impenetrable mixtape theme. Songs about dogs! Not really what the theme is going for, but who's stopping you? No one is stopping me, certainly, from writing about dogs in this blurb! Actually, wait......... no, I already wrote about dogs. Used this same exactly song as the header for that post, actually. WHOOPS!!!! Oh my. Bad blogging. I bet the dog with a blog on Dog with a Blog had a better blog than this blog. He probably wrote about humans. On my blog, I just write about dogs, how all dogs are gonna die one day (funny that this blog post from six years ago speculated that Chloe was gonna die soon and yet she's still kicking it six summers later). Also, All Dogs, the band. Underrated classic, this one. You might recognize the name of the band from the T-shirt of the dude from the Hotelier in the video we've all watched a thousand times. That's a better video than any video of a dog. Maybe not as good as Dog with a Blog, though. —Joe
"on the floor" by On Dogs
from end of the day EP, 2023
Now this is one I can get behind. I listen to too much indie music, though. I need other music. Maybe doing morning pages, as The Artist Way prescribes, will help. I did it for the first time today the way it's meant to be done—pen and paper, first thing in the morning. Julia Cameron makes it out to be a spiritual path. I did touch my novel for the first time in a while today, so maybe it's connected? But I also didn't turn on my phone from 7 PM Friday until noon Sunday, so that's also helpful. —Zach
"Ghost with a Boner" by Diarrhea Planet
from Aloha EP, 2011
"X with Y" is a wonderful format, both for what was apparently a television show some time ago and for rock and roll songs. Here, let's you and I together, without thinking about it too long, think of all the great songs that follow a "X with Y" naming convention. "Hooker with a Penis" by Tool, that one leaps to mind. "Ghost with a Boner" of course. That's the list! —Nate
"Reagan" by Killer Mike
from R.A.P. Music, 2012
Okay, this one is a streeeeeeeeeeetch. Francesca Capaldi's co-star on Dog with a Blog is G Hannelius. Francesca Capaldi's co-star on Dog with a Blog is Stephen Full. But Francesca Capaldi's co-star on Dog with a Blog is also a guy named Regan Burns. So I chose a song full of Reagan burns. Get it??!?!?! Boy, I really do wonder if the dog's blog on Dog with a Blog was a better blog than PoYB blog. Not with witty insights like this, I don't think!!!! —Joe
"Your Dog" by Soccer Mommy
from Clean, 2018
Cats are much better than dogs. They are less high maintenance, and give you love when you really need it, unlike dogs, who give love all the time, but with a smell and too much fur everywhere. When I see a cat, my heart jumps, but I'd never get a dog. There are those who consider me heartless. There are those who wouldn't be my friend because of this. To say I don't care at all wouldn't be true. —Zach
"Nate Growing Up" by Labrinth
from Euphoria (Original Score from the HBO Series), 2019
TRY TO FOLLOW okay so Larry Joe Campbell plays a character called "The Hawk" in the sixteenth episode of Dog with a Blog and I recognized him from According to Jim which is a show that I used to watch fifteen minutes of on weeknights that I'd get back from work at like 8 PM and my parents would have it on the TV while I was eating leftovers of whatever I missed at dinner that night and I remember exactly one joke from those cumulative hours of half-watching According to Jim and it was Larry Joe Campbell and Jim Belushi standing next to each other and one of their hot wives said something like "ya know if you guys had a tall skinny friend your group nickname could be spaghetti and meatballs" but I know I recognized Larry Joe Campbell from something else and it looks like he was in Season 1 of the all-time great show American Vandal and so was, get this, G Hannelius, did they talk about their brief time on Dog with a Blog together like Melissa Peterman and Stephen Tobolowsky talked about "Grannies Gone Wild" when they did Haul Out the Holly together, I wonder, and but that didn't satisfy my itch that I had seen Larry Joe Campbell in something way more recently, and as it turns out also, he was in an episode of Euphoria that I watched recently, he was a cop, a serious cop of all fucking things, this fucking guy, spaghetti and meatball guy, he arrests Nate for assault and Nate is being hauled off to jail by Larry Joe Campbell and this song plays, yes, I am putting a soundtrack song on a mixtape, fucking grab me by the neck and choke me as a punishment. —Joe
"The Dugout" by Ladyhawk
from Ladyhawk, 2006
Blog rock lasted from roughly 2003 until probably 2009, and since I was in the middle of my age-coming during that window, I love all of it very much. If a blog wrote about a band, I was inclined to like it. God, blogs! Wonderful stuff. Nah Right, that was a good one. Fake Shore Drive, that one is still going, I think. Hype Machine, used to check that one out all the time until it became more or less a constant stream of dream-pop / bedroom techno. Alligator Arms, Take it or Leave it, Dad's Not Punk, Warming Glow, Tiny Mix Tapes. These were good blogs! Anyway, this is Ladyhawk. The were a lesser-known blog rock band that opened for Tapes 'n Tapes when I saw them in Buffalo in 2007 (this is a very blog rock sentence I just wrote). —Nate
"Bin Night" by Peter Capaldi
from Sweet Illusions, 2025
Happy 22nd birthday to Francesca Capaldi! I tried to see what else she was in besides Dog with a Blog, but options were limited. I watched a trailer for a 2024 movie called Stinky Summer, in which she plays a minor role. Thought maybe I could use the trailer song. Unfortunately, since Stinky Summer has a budget so low that it couldn't even afford a Wikipedia page, it made use of a public domain classical music song that I'm sure you would recognize and I have no idea how to google. Someone in the comments for that trailer said that they were there on that YouTube video watching the trailer solely because Francesca Capaldi was involved. Someone else asked if Francesca Capaldi was related to Peter Capaldi ("a coincidence like Donald Glover not being related to Danny?"). I am going out on a limb and saying no, Francesca Capaldi is not related to the Doctor Who guy. Though I'll be honest, I didn't do the research. I'm just doing Occam's razor here. Francesca Capaldi's Wikipedia page would be so fucking quick to mention that familial connection, right? Anyways, I think that we can just pretend that they are related anyway, and drop this random fucking song by the random fucking not-related-to-Francesca dude from the British nerd show. What would the dog with the blog say about this? I don't know. I've never seen the show. I have a blog though. And on this blog, we're assuming the dog probably likes this song a lot. That's because the dog has SHIT TASTE IN MUSIC. —Joe
I guess I knew this song once upon a time and the tune is in my memory somewhere. It's amazing, what memory does. In exactly whichharddriveisthisparticularsongstored? I don't know this song, but I've heard it playing before, and it exists. I think it's a joke. Is T-Pain one big joke? From his appearance on "I'm on a Boat" as well his Tiny Desk concert, it seems like it might be possible. —Zach
NEXT WEEK: "Cue the Alice Cooper Song" — School's out! Let's get one more mixtape about school before we forget about it for the next three months (chosen by Joe)
I've said for a while now that one of my greatest anxieties is feeling misunderstood (a malady for which the only remedy is, it seems, writing too much), but lately I've noticed this same fear within others. How we're all disconnected for banal techno-fascist reasons and we're overcompensating by making everything so clear and verbose in writing and in conversation, everyone so goddamn afraid that we're going to have the wrong impressions of each other, miss some deeper important truth that's hiding in plain sight. What I'm proposing now, within the space of this blurb, is that we should all just let everyone else think what they want to think, and keep your truth close. —Joe
"Flippen (The Flip)" by the Punch Brothers
from Who's Feeling Young Now?, 2012
On Saturday night, I received a WhatsApp message from someone who I don't know, but who is in a writing WhatsApp group that I created. Maybe I met her once? I'm not sure. The message is nine photos of a handwritten document that is basically a testimony to this person being abused and raped within her marriage, and names authority figures that pushed her to stay in the marriage and enabled such behavior. I'm really not sure how to handle the situation. Do I respond by asking her if she meant to send it? Again, I don't know this person. But I also want to help her if I can. Maybe she sent it to lots of people? I have so many questions. I don't think I can ignore it. —Zach
"Railroad Cancellation" by Don Caballero
from World Class Listening Problem, 2006
Drums on this thing are really what sells it, which makes sense since Don Caballero was never so much a true collaborative band as it was a vehicle for the percussive acrobatics of mercurial drummer Damon Che. Che has released several videos of him playing drums along to his band's most well-known output, and if you have an interest in such things, I recommend checking them out, in part because I have never seen someone set up their drums quite the same way this cat does. It looks uncomfortable as hell to play drums, the way he plays them. —Nate
"loopy" by Duval Timothy & Carlos Niño
from rain music, 2026
"I'll never know and neither will you of the life you don't choose. We'll only know that whatever that... life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn't carry us." – Cheryl Strayed, Dear Sugar. You can check the stars, you can check your brass instruments and nautical charts, but how will you know what choices, what life decisions are meant for your ship? And which ones are for the ghost ship? —Gloria
"Svensk Sås" by Todd Terje
from It's Album Time, 2014
I think if Todd Terje found his zeitgeisty niche in 2026 instead of 2014, there would be people claiming that he it was a psy-op thing, because how else would some weird-ass nu-disco mostly-instrumentals album reach as many people as it did ("popular" being relatively, as always, in this space, like I don't think my mom knows how Todd Terje is, but anyone who gave a shit about music in the mid-'10s did). But see, this is what used to happen. The tastemakers would find something strange and unknown and decide to elevate it, and that decision was not drive by money, but art. It wasn't a perfect system, but it's better than what we have now. What we have now is soulless corporations making those decisions based on the maximum amount of money they can make off the decision. I'm talking about the algorithm. I'm always talking about the algorithm. If you're depending on Spotify to tell you what to listen to next, you're doing it all wrong. —Joe
"Ode to a Butterfly" by Nickel Creek
from Nickel Creek, 2000
My best ideas come on Shabbat, when I'm not using my phone or pen and paper. By the time Shabbat is over, the ideas are gone, like wisps in the wind. I'm trying to remember some of them now. My friend is having a birthday party on Monday and asked each person to perform some comedy. I'm thinking of repeating one sentence from Paul Auster's book "The Invention of Soltitude" about food he watched his father eat in Newark restaurants and doing some kind of performance art to it, maybe even stripping down to a wetsuit after starting the bit with a suit and tie. That's one idea. But there are so many more I've forgotten. By the time Shabbat ends, my phone comes back out and I want to spend 23 minutes watching the highlights from the Orioles five-run comeback against the Blue Jays in the 9th (hi, Nate). Maybe the trick is to not turn on my phone as quickly. Sometimes I don't. But it's the magic of knowing you can't turn on your phone that leads to ideas flowing so well. I imagine that Q-Tip, he of recent RC fame, knows this, too—he himself said he would keep some form of Shabbat, even though he isn't Jewish. This is what he said in 2010: "Friday at sunset I'm going to turn off my TV, my radio—I'm not going to do anything. And then when the sun sets on Saturday night, I'm going to raise hell!" —Zach
"La Femme d'argent" by Air
from Moon Safari, 1998
I saw Air perform Moon Safari live in Brooklyn, and it was phenomenal. It made up for the weird experience of getting there. I don't have the time to type it all up now. It's a long, meandering story that involves being asked by a stranger to do a mitzvah for Sukkot on the subway, being stuck underground and having every train we could use being delayed for what felt like hours, deciding to get above ground, and then being passed by a bus that we needed, before we finally figured out a way to get there. After the show, we hit even more random time-consuming adventures/struggles, but it's a good story in retrospect, better than I'm telling it here. And the show and night were a great time overall. —Gloria
"Like Herod" by Mogwai
from Mogwai Young Team, 1997
Perhaps the loudest concert I have ever attended: Mogwai at the Starlight Ballroom in Philadelphia sometime back in 2006. It was so loud I got sick to my stomach and left early. This was likely not the song that sent me home, but spiritually, it absolutely was. —Nate
"Cissy Strut" by the Meters
from The Meters, 1969
First heard this one in Another Round, a movie that came out less than six years ago, a movie that I loved instantly and burned a scar in my soul so deep that I don't think I'll ever be able to watch it again. That's hyperbole, I will have to watch it at some point, face that demon. I just know that rewatching it is going to make me so miserable that I'll want to crawl into my bed and die. Which is not really what I'm shooting for, here in sobriety. Like, okay, the thing about Another Round, the thing it gets so goddamn right, is that drinking is both a blessing and a curse. It's both, at all times. If it was a movie that said "drinking is good!" or "drinking is bad!", I could handle it easily. But because it says both and makes the case for both simultaneously, I can't watch it. It mirrors exactly my experiences with alcohol, every facet of it, all at once. And once a upon a time, I had to give all that up, and I just don't think I can be faced with all that I gave up just yet. —Joe
"My Paradise" by Frank Virgilio
from My Paradise, 2026
I feel like I have too much to write this week. And too much random stuff that I committed to. I'm writing this while waiting at the bus stop on my way to the Roots Picnic today, lol. Still, I can't skip this mixtape, as this is one of my absolute favorite categories of music, followed closely by, I guess, what we discovered last week were basically "barista recommendations." There is a lot of overlap between these two categories, but I'm trying to pick things that are less barista-y. I don't know if I'm accomplishing that. Actually, I don't think that I am. —Gloria
"Tigers" by the End of Tonight
from A Tribute to Tigers, 2005
Sometimes you like a song because it's got a pleasing melody, sometimes it is doing something unique or interesting, sometimes it has lyrics or emotional conveyance that hums at the right frequency and at the time. Sometimes you remember a song because you were riding in a car, high as a kite, in the middle of the afternoon, with the windows down and a thick, impenetrable fog reducing the visibility to five feet. —Nate
"Uja" by Tanya Tagaq
from Animism, 2014
I learned about Tagaq in a masters-level course that was basically a book club. We read a book called Split Tooth, written by Tagaq, and the group who led the discussion played us some of her music. The writing was even more disorienting than her music, if you can believe it. I was really excited about the class at the beginning, but it ended up probably being one of the most uncomfortable experiences I've ever had throughout my years of academia. The room was made up of a bunch of try-hards and a professor who didn't seem capable of reining it in. Even though it was a 9:30 AM class, I ended up dealing with it like I often dealt with discomfort back then (getting drunk before class—Spread Bagelry opens their bar at 7 AM). I remembered the other day that I based this one-off blog post on that book club class. About 80% of what I wrote was non-fiction, including the central premise that the professor sneezed without a mask and someone ratted him out. I reread this blog post now and realize that I am very bad at writing about people who don't exist, but pretty decent at writing about people who do exist. Which means that if I ever write a book, a lot of people are gonna end up suing me. —Joe
"Where Did You Go?" by Sandman Project
from Where Did You Go?, 2024
I thread the embroidery floss through the needle and go to sew a new patch on my backpack. I have a pile of patches that need to be sewn on. All gathered from National Parks over the last few years. I used to be so good at sewing the patches on as soon as I got home. But at some point, it got ahead of me, and I stopped trying to catch up. So much of my life is in these forgotten projects. Half finished. Are they still waiting for me to come back? Or have they forgotten as well? —Gloria
"Niggun of the Birds" by Shlomo Katz
from Yismach Melech, 2016
A niggun is a melody without words that is repeated over and over. One idea is that if you repeat a niggun for 20 minutes, you start to get to another level of consciousness. I've done it a couple times, and when I have, time starts to move differently. This is one of my favorite nigguns.
I am realizing as I'm writing this how easy it is to get into health-speak that doesn't really mean much. I can imagine how someone reading the above paragraph might say "wow! I need to try that!" When it's really not much more than one nice thing you can do, as part of a menu of therapy and wellness options. The only thing someone can truly do to change their life is have children. —Zach
"The Great Gig in the Sky" by Pink Floyd
from The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973
I'm not the only one who pictures the tornado scene in The Wizard of Oz when they hear this song. Syncing that movie to The Dark Side of the Moon is a ritual of adolescence that all teens would benefit from trying out. I did, in my family's family room, Floyd on the five-piece stereo system, pushing play right when the MGM lion gives his second roar. It's one of the great mysteries of our time, one that shockingly no one seems too anxious to get to the bottom of: was this all coincidence, or by design? Does "The Great Gig in the Sky" perfectly align, both in timbre and in timing, with the tornado scene because someone made it that way, or did this just happen? It doesn't feel like the type of thing that just happens, it's just too much randomness in the world lining up perfectly. I don't think the universe actually works like that. But maybe. —Joe
"Raspberry Jam" by Allah-Las
from the soundtrack for Self Discovery for Social Survival, 2019
I lick the crack in my lips and actively make it worse. I need to put on ChapStick, but somehow never have it, even though I feel like I buy it all the time. It's something easily lost and easily bought. It's similar to how I feel about hair ties, too. Where do they go? Easily bought and easily lost. Certain things can be so important and so unimportant at the same time. —Gloria
"A Tender History in Rust" by Do Make Say Think
from You, You're a History in Rust, 2007
Fun game to play sometime: which geographic region is responsible for more great music? At a cookout last week, we tried to decide which had better musical output: the country of Canada, or New York City? We ended up on New York City, but it was more of a debate than you might think. Hard to overstate the importance of jazz, even if I don't care for it. A player who will not be named did resort to asking Claude, which I found pretty lame, until another person also consulted Claude and got a different answer, and we had fun talking about their two Claudes arguing with each other. —Nate
"Elul Nigun" by Eitan Katz
from Shuvu, 2013
אני יושב בבית כנסת של ההורים שלי, שומע לחזן (שהוא גם חבר טוב טוב של המשפחה) משתמש בניגון הזאת לתפילת הקדיש בסוף התפילה. אני רוצה לרקוד ולבכות באותו רגע. כל כך הרבה נוסטלגיה ושמחה ועצב בעולם שלנו. חיים קשים, חיים טובים. מה לעשות עם כל זה? תפילה גורם לאנשים לשנות, אפילו אם הם לא מאמינים באלוהים. לא משנה. רק לצאת ליער ולדבר עם עצמינו, אם משהו יותר גדול ממנו—זה משנה את החיים, ממש. —Zach
"The Grunt" by the J.B.s
a single, 1970
aaaaa wha!!! yowwww huH aeeeeaaaaaa etc. etc., thought briefly about just making the blurb all kinds of James Brown vocal tics in word form, but I decided that would be kind of lame, not that I have anything interesting to say about it, maybe it would be better if I wrote less sometimes and grunted more sometimes... I was excited about the prospect of this song, thought it was gonna be Brown's backing band doing a groove and Brown himself yipping and yapping in the background or something, but I didn't hear any vocalizations at all, which maybe disqualifies it from this mixtape, or maybe I just missed something, could be that, since I only listened once and I was kinda distracted. —Joe
"Bad Dog No Biscuits" by SEATBELTS
from Cowboy Bebop (soundtrack), 1998
Joe stuck my mixtape suggestion between Kill Bill and Akira weeks? What a fool. What an imbecile. Did he not expect me to go full wiiaboo? "Tank!" might be my personal "Desperado" / "Witchy Woman," insofar that I must stop whatever I'm doing and listen to to it. I saw Alton Brown in Concert (lol) in Wilmington earlier this year, and they played "Tank!" as pre-show music, and I really was in heaven. This song is not "Tank!"; I still really like it. —Sunny
"Paris" by M|O|O|N
from Moon EP, 2011
I don't know what I'm doing most of the time. I teach a weekly 60-minute movement class. This is often the reason I request others to suggest solid ~100bpm instrumental music to me. I believe music, generally, works better than having no music to receive a collection of strangers into a class. I've been told music with lyrics is distracting. I've been told familiar melodies are distracting. I've been told both of the previous opinions are stupid and shortsighted and I should ignore them. So I have no idea what to do, really. I look to see if anyone has any visible reaction to the music I've been playing, and the answer is usually no, so I only grow more bold. —Sunny
"Intro" by the xx
from xx, 2009
I've heard this song so many goddamn times, and I'm not even sure where. It's overplayed, overtalked, oversampled. Still a pretty great song. I even took a while to look "well what IS the xx song that I really like" and I was starting to find that hard too. So be it, sometimes you hit gold right at the intro and that's just fine and dandy. —Sunny
"Brokendate" by Com Truise from Galactic Melt, 2011
Sometime around the turn of the century, my parents flew me over to India. I've probably talked about this on the blog, but it was awful. An American going to a third world country unequipped is insane. That Seinfeld episode where Elaine is invited to the Indian wedding of her ex is on point. The '90s, early '00s in particular were awful; flights were fully open, but logistics weren't. In the meanwhile, the country has Westernized in such ways that you can find toilet paper by every toilet, which you can sit on rather than squat.
As awful as that trip was, my cousins still introduced me to media in the way only older relatives can. Me, Myself, Irene (cue Yaadein), cracking software, torrents and irc, scriptkiddy software that could open the CD drive (lol) of someone who didn't block their ports. My oldest cousin, who went through his own drama, loved '80s style synth, and the fervently told me to listen to Truise. —Sunny
NEXT WEEK: "Dog with a Blog" — Happy 22nd birthday to Francesca Capaldi, star of the hit Disney Channel original series Dog with a Blog, which is a show I'd somehow never heard of until picking this MMM theme for our blog. Let's pick songs for the show Dog with a Blog (chosen by Joe)
