Certain Songs

Certain Songs #2539: Sufjan Stevens – “Heirloom”

January 26, 2023 by Jim Connelly Leave a Comment

Album: All Delighted People EP
Year: 2010

. . .

Of course, we weren’t ever going to get the other 48 albums of Sufjan Stevens’ purported “50 States Project.” No single human being could have possibly done that. Even one as prolific as Sufjan Stevens.

What we did get was a shit-ton of other things: a Illinois outtakes album called The Avalanche, a soundtrack album called the BQE and a box set of 42 Christmas songs. But no official follow-up. Not until 2010, when it was announced that Sufjan’s next official studio album, entitled The Age of Adz, would drop in October.

Certain Songs #2538: Sufjan Stevens – “Casimir Pulaski Day”

January 25, 2023 by Jim Connelly Leave a Comment

Album: Illinois
Year: 2005

. . .

On the short list of Prettiest Songs Ever Recorded, Christian Indie Folk Division, “Casimir Pulaski Day” is also one of the most heartbreaking songs ever written, and Sufjan Stevens gets right into it over a lonely acoustic guitar.

Certain Songs #2537: Sufjan Stevens – “Chicago”

January 24, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Illinois
Year: 2005

. . .

Road trip!

Another one of those songs that I love beyond all reasons, Sufjan Stevens grand and glorious travelogue “Chicago” is one of the most profound things I’ve ever heard about being a small-town young discovering the beauty and madness of the big city. And realizing that even if that experience somehow changes you, you’re still yourself, too. Just a different yourself.

Certain Songs #2536: Sufjan Stevens – “Decatur, Or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother!”

January 23, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Illinois
Year: 2005

. . .

Utterly bursting at the seams with ambition and musicality, Sufjan Stevens 2005 album Illinois betrays just how over the top it is by having at least three different titles. You can refer to it as Illinois, Illinoise, or the hilarious Come on and Feel The Illinoise!

Oh, and then there are the song titles: my favorites are “Prairie Fire That Wanders About” and “They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!”, but I also have to give a shout out to “The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You’re Going to Have to Leave Now, or, ‘I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!'” because it’s an instrumental.

Certain Songs #2535: Suede – “She Still Leads Me On”

January 20, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Autofiction
Year: 2022

. . .

I believe that this is the longest time gap between two songs I’ve written about by the same artist. Yesterday’s Suede song, “Metal Mickey,” originally came out as a single in 1992, and today’s Suede song, the gloriously soaring “She Still Leads Me On” came out in 2022. That’s thirty years. Of course, given that which songs I write about and don’t write about is the very definition of arbitrary, it’s also a statistic that means nothing — like postseason counting stats — but I figured that I would point that out anyways.

Certain Songs #2534: Suede – “Metal Mickey”

January 19, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Suede
Year: 1992

. . .

Suede was formed by guitarist Justine Frischmann, her singer boyfriend Brett Anderson and bassist Mat Osman back in 1989, but it took awhile for them to release their first album. In in that time, a lot of things happened. First, they they recruited Bernard Butler, who not only was a hotshot lead guitarist, he also had the most Britpop name ever. Secondly, Anderson & Frischmann broke up, and she was eventually booted from the band for preferring to hang with her new boyfriend, Blur’s Damon Albarn.

That turned out to be the best for all involved: Frischmann formed Elastica and wrote songs like “Connection” and “Stutter,” and Anderson and Butler got down to business of writing their big glammy songs that made the British press go absolutely apeshit.

Certain Songs #2533: The Suburbs – “Love Is The Law”

January 18, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Love is The Law
Year: 1984

. . .

While “Who are The Suburbs?” will always be the answer to the Jeopardy clue “this artist’s self-titled EP was the first release on the Minneapolis label known as Twin/Tone Records,” I do recall listening to their early 80’s albums — In Combo and Credit in Heaven — during the pre-air KFSR days and nothing really sticking.

Certain Songs #2532: Styx – “Lorelei”

January 17, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Equinox
Year: 1975

. . .

So before we get into all of this utter madness, here is a Styx fact that you probably didn’t know: when they had their first massive hit, “Lady,” they were an indie band. It’s true: the first four Styx albums — Styx, Styx II, The Serpent is Rising and Man of Miracles — were all on a Chicago independent label called Wooden Nickel records. And “Lady,” which was originally released as a single in 1973 and ended up at #6 in the spring of 1975 because of reasons, was from Styx II. Given that this was the early 1970s, one can only conclude that Styx were indie rock pioneers!

Certain Songs #2531: The Style Council – “My Ever Changing Moods”

January 16, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: My Ever Changing Moods
Year: 1984

. . .

So, let’s start with some record company shenanigans, shall we?

The Style Council’s debut album was called Cafe Bleu in every part of the world except for the U.S. And that’s because, when the “My Ever Changing Moods” single was released in the U.S., it actually got some traction here — unlike every single The Jam had ever released — and the Geffen marketing folks decided to make it the first track on the album and also call the album My Ever Changing Moods.

Certain Songs #2530: The Style Council – “Headstart For Happiness”

January 15, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Introducing The Style Council
Year: 1983

. . .

Paul Weller wasn’t one to rest on his laurels. After all, the final single by The Jam, the utterly tremendous “Beat Surrender” came out in November, 1982, and the first single by his new project, The Style Council — a collaboration with keyboardist Mick Talbot — the perfectly fine “Speak Like a Child” came out in March of 1983.

Of course, I was still trying to process the break-up of The Jam, who were — and are — one of my all-time favorite bands, and a band who was only getting better, as I think their final two albums, Sound Affects and The Gift are their best, as are the non-album singles that accompanied those records: the aformentioned “Beat Surrender,” but also “Funeral Pyre” and of course “Going Underground,” still one of the greatest songs anybody has ever done.