Friday, August 26, 2011

THAT'S GREAT, IT STARTS WITH AN EARTHQUAKE: What with events earlier this week and forecast for this weekend in the Northeast, this week's Playlist is naturally "songs about/referencing natural disasters." Let's start off with "Shake It Up" from the Cars and then move to David Wilcox's "Eye of the Hurricane" (not actually about a storm, but still apropos). Stay safe and dry, everyone!

59 comments:

  1. Heather K11:02 AM

    I'm going with Eli's Coming taking the lesser known Dan Rydell reading of Eli as a portent of doom

    ReplyDelete
  2. Obvious, but Rock You Like a Hurricane by the Scorpions.

    ReplyDelete
  3. littleredyarn11:12 AM

    "Like A Hurricane", Neil Young
    "Hurricane", Bob Dylan (yeah, I know but the title fits)
    "High and Dry", Radiohead and the cover by Jamie Cullum

    Stay safe, everyone! 

    ReplyDelete
  4. Benner11:18 AM

    "Snowstorm," Galaxie 500.

    "Flood," TMBG

    "The Hardest Button to Button," White Stripes.  ("it sounded like an earthquake")

    "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," Gordon Lightfoot.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Fleetwood Mac, "Landslide"

    ReplyDelete
  6. Jordan11:25 AM

    "Lost in the Flood"-Bruce
    "Shelter from the Storm"-Dylan (or many, many excellent covers)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Janice11:28 AM

    "Blizzard of '77", Nada Surf

    ReplyDelete
  8. Bruce Cockburn, "The Coming Rains" (It's more preparing for the storm rather than referencing one, but seems perfect for today.)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Meghan11:40 AM

    "I Feel the Earth Move" Carole King

    ReplyDelete
  10. Adam C.12:09 PM

    "Louisiana 1927," Randy Newman
    "My Oklahoma Home," Bruce & the Seeger Sessions Band
    "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live," Bruce & the Seeger Sessions Band
    "Ridin' the Storm Out," REO Speedwagon

    ReplyDelete
  11. Adam C.12:12 PM

    Oh, and "Crumblin' Down," John Mellencamp

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hurricane Party, Cowboy Mouth

    ReplyDelete
  13. "Feels Like Rain" by John Hiatt and particularly the Buddy Guy version. One of my all-time favorite songs.

    ReplyDelete
  14. jashimberg12:49 PM

    The New Yorker had the same idea this week!
    http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/08/hurricane-irene-playlist.html

    ReplyDelete
  15. Andrea1:20 PM

    It's a stretch -  but I can't resist.
    Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat - Guys and Dolls.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Gilligan's Island Theme

    ReplyDelete
  17. Renee2:09 PM

    That's what I was going to say!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Benner2:45 PM

    "When the Levee Breaks," Led Zeppelin.

    "Texas Flood," Stevie Ray Vaughan.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Fred App2:46 PM

    "Here Comes The Flood," Peter Gabriel. And even though it was mentioned already, have to give props to the Randy Newman song. I saw Marcia Ball play it once at Jazzfest during a torrential downpour.

    Also: "O Mary Don't You Weep," by Springsteen. I suppose Pharoah's army getting drownd-ed qualifies as a natural disaster. But, again, I associate it with Jazzfest: the first Jazzfest after Katrina, when Bruce appeared and sang this song and the reaction from the crowd was just transcendent, like the world's largest revival meeting ever.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Benner2:46 PM

    Additionally, Beethoven's Pastoral symphony. 

    ReplyDelete
  21. Maggie2:49 PM

    It's the End of the World As We Know It - R.E.M. ("That's great it starts with an earthquake..."/"I am a hurricane....")

    ReplyDelete
  22. Marsha3:08 PM

    Matt, I had no idea that you and I had such similar taste in music - earlier this week with the Christine Lavin, and now with the David Wilcox. This pleases me.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I am a man of many deep and surprising secrets, Marsha. 

    ReplyDelete
  24. StvMg3:14 PM

    After The Flood: Lone Justice

    ReplyDelete
  25. Marsha3:20 PM

    See, now, here I thought you were an International Man of Mystery. Ah well.

    (I am now on a Wilcox video kick at my desk. Well done.)

    ReplyDelete
  26. Meghan3:23 PM

    Trying to Reason With Hurricane Season by Jimmy Buffet

    Blowin' in the Wind by Bob Dylan

    ReplyDelete
  27. J.OConnor3:55 PM

    Like Joe Strummer, I live by the river (the Delaware, that is), so most of the songs that come to mind deal with flooding.
    Randy Newman's Louisiana 1927 has already been mentioned, but the same flood also inspired Bessie Smith's Blackwater Blues.   It's been covered alot; my favorite version is Dinah Washington's at the Newport Jazz Festival, but it doesn't seem to be online anywhere.
    Harold Arlen wrote two famous storm songs (both with lyrics by Ted Kohler), Stormy Weather and Ill Wind.  Famous versions by Lena Horne, Ethyl Waters, and Ella.
    The importance of having adequate provisions for a storm is a key plot point in one version of the folk song "The Er-i-e Canal."  Not the version sung by Pete Seeger or Bruce ("low bridge, everybody down"), but the version done by Burl Ives ("Oh the Er-i-e was a-rising, gin was a-getting low, and I scarcely think we'll get a drink, till we get to Buffalo." Some kind stranger posted it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtGxUG12H6I
    Several Dylan songs have been mentioned, but not Down in the Flood ("Well it's sugar for sugar, salt for salt, you go down in the flood, it's gonna be your own fault")
    And finally, given the apocalyptic potential in having an earthquake and a hurricane in the same week, and since "The End of the World As We Know It" has already been mentioned, I'll proffer the country gospel standard "God Gave Noah the Rainbow Sign" ("no more water, the fire next time"), by the Carter Family and Ralph Stanley, among many others, and hope that it isn't a prophesy for Labor Day.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Anonymous3:59 PM

    Reaaly? This far without "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall"?

    Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
    And where have you been, my darling young one?
    I've stumbled on the side of twelve fleeing hipsters,
    I've walked and I've crawled on six shut down buslines,
    I've stepped in the middle of seven dead subways,
    I've been out in front of a closed Coney Island,
    I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of this Irene,
    And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
    It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Devin McCullen4:00 PM

    "New Orleans", on Emmylou Harris's latest album.  Speaking of, am I the only person afraid that Rebecca Black's going to get her hands on "Big Black Dog"?

    ReplyDelete
  30. J.OConnor4:02 PM

    I just remembered another appropriate apocolyptic country gospel song:  The Carter Family's "The Storms are on the Ocean" ("The storms are on the ocean, the heavens may cease to be, this world may lose it's motion, love, if I prove false to thee").

    ReplyDelete
  31. The Pathetic Earthling4:04 PM

    Godzilla - Blue Oyster Cult   ("History shows again and again / how nature points out the folly of men...")

    ReplyDelete
  32. J.OConnor4:19 PM

    Oh, and Toots and the Maytalls' "Pressure Drop."

    ReplyDelete
  33. littleredyarn4:32 PM

    If you're in a Buffet frame of mind, how about "Volcano"?

    ReplyDelete
  34. Leslie4:44 PM

    Stormfront by Billy Joel

    ReplyDelete
  35. Watts4:53 PM

    I was hoping this would be today's theme.

    I saw Buddy Guy at an outdoor concert years ago and the weather was threatening to make it a short show.  He got all the way to the encore before the storm started and as luck would have it, he was covering "Knock on Wood." (It's like thunder / Lightning)

    The Volcano Song - The Budos Band
    Suddenly There Is a Tidal Wave - The Magnetic Fields
    Five Feet High and Risin' - Johnny Cash
    Little Earthquakes - Tori Amos
    Dust Storm Disaster - Woody Guthrie
    This Old Town - Nanci Griffith
    Wasn't That a Mighty Storm - Nanci Griffith
    High Water - Bob Dylan
    Muddy Waters - James and Bill Monroe
    Rain Please Go Away – Alison Krauss and Dan Tyminski

    Storms Never Last – Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter
    How Much Rain Can One Man Stand – Waylon Jennings
    Flood of ’57 – Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys
    I Can't Stand the Rain - The Commitments (or Ann Peebles)
    Hurricane - Joan Osborne
    Earthquake Song - The Little Girls (Happiest song ever about impending natural disaster)

    And, honestly, if the sky really started Raining Men, that would be kind of a natural disaster, right?

    ReplyDelete
  36. Antarctica - Midnight Oil (It starts "I'm a landslide")

    ReplyDelete
  37. Big Joe5:33 PM

    The Doors - Riders on the Storm
    The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter

    ReplyDelete
  38. janet5:35 PM

    The Epic Storm -- Spotify playlist

    ReplyDelete
  39. J. Bowman5:50 PM

    I was just kissing a guy in the bathroom on the right, and he says the line is "eye of a hurricane."

    Oh, also: "Apres Moi" by Regina Spektor. (le deluge, evidement.)

    ReplyDelete
  40. Chrisl5:59 PM

    Bad Moon Rising -- Creedence
    Texas Flood -- Stevie Ray Vaughan

    ReplyDelete
  41. J. Bowman6:35 PM

    I hereby stick Nelson's "After the Rain" in your head.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Anonymous7:42 PM

    How about Bruce Cockburn's "After the Rain" too.

    Also, from the unofficial Sports Night soundtrack:

    Sweet Destiny - Todd Thibaud

    " Somewhere down south, now, looks like it's starting to blow.
    It's a hurricane warning...."

    ReplyDelete
  43. Anonymous7:43 PM

    How about Bruce Cockburn's "After the Rain" too.

    Also, from the unofficial Sports Night soundtrack:

    Sweet Destiny - Todd Thibaud

    " Somewhere down south, now, looks like it's starting to blow.
    It's a hurricane warning...."

    ReplyDelete
  44. Anonymous7:43 PM

    How about Bruce Cockburn's "After the Rain" too.

    Also, from the unofficial Sports Night soundtrack:

    Sweet Destiny - Todd Thibaud

    " Somewhere down south, now, looks like it's starting to blow.
    It's a hurricane warning...."

    ReplyDelete
  45. Hannah Lee7:57 PM

    "Guest" was me.  oops

    No idea why the duplicate posts, though.

    ReplyDelete
  46. kd bart8:19 PM

    Rainy Night in Georgia-Brooke Benton

    ReplyDelete
  47. Adam C.8:30 PM

    Another from Springsteen: "I'm A Rocker" ("True love is broken and your tears are fallin' faster/
    You're sufferin' from a pain in your heart or some other natural disaster").

    ReplyDelete
  48. Anonymous11:00 PM

    This Tornado Loves You---Neko Case

    ReplyDelete
  49. The artist name may have been enough of a clue, but yes, that guest = me.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Anonymous2:50 AM

    You pretty much said what i could not effectively communicate. +1

    My site:
    internet anbieter www.dslvergleichdsl.com

    ReplyDelete
  51. gtv200010:28 AM

    Cry Like a Rainstorm - the Bonnie Raitt version

    ReplyDelete
  52. I'm sure it's been said, but I didn't see it: "Landslide," Fleetwood Mac

    ReplyDelete
  53. Two more rain songs that came to mind (even though we've seen basically nothing in NYC yet):

    "Rain" by Jackopierce
    "Rain" by Dana Glover

    ReplyDelete
  54. Tosy and Cosh2:47 PM

    Cassandra Wilson!

    ReplyDelete
  55. Tosy and Cosh2:50 PM

    I'm meaning at some point to put on the 4 (?) Storm Interludes from Peter Grimes today . . . Or maybe they're not all storm interludes? It's been a while.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Adam C.2:50 PM

    Heard it in the car this morning (as I scoured the area for those rarest of beasts, C and D batteries) and realized it was a perfect fit:

    "All You Zombies," The Hooters

    ReplyDelete
  57. Anonymous5:33 PM

    I may be pulling at straws here, but I'm bored, forgive me.  "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" by Mama herself, Vicki Lawrence

    ReplyDelete
  58. Leslie5:33 PM

    Oops, that was me.

    ReplyDelete
  59. kd bart9:27 PM

    All these comments and no one mentioned "Who'll Stop the Rain" by CCR?  

    ReplyDelete