From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V12 #281 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Saturday, February 2 2013 Volume 12 : Number 281 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] Round One [Georgette deFriesse ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2013 15:37:26 -0500 From: Georgette deFriesse Subject: [RS] Round One 1. Mariana's Table You Stay Here Mariana's Table by a mile! Richard has a few songs where the imagery is more like a beautifully crafted short story than a song. This is one of them. It is exquisitely constructed, painting vivid pictures with his words. It reminds me of one of R. B. Cunninghame-Graham's short "sketches," taking a slice of everyday life and writing so beautifully about it. 2. A Tune For Nowhere Waiting For The Storm A Tune for Nowhere. Just a subjective preference for no particular reason. 3. Abuelita Wisteria Abuelita. It's soulful. It addresses a horrific time in Argentina's history in Richard's typically compassionate way. 4. Last Fare Of The Day Get Up Clara No preference: I love them both. Last Fare of the Day makes me cry every time I hear it. Get Up Clara makes me laugh every time I hear it. Ron, you've picked some bizarre pairings. 5. Ascent TV Light Ascent. 6. Balloon Man Easy Street Balloon Man. Another one of Richard's slice-of-life-with-a-heaping-side-of-compassion songs. Freakin' love it! 7. Confession Fenario Confession, I guess. Which is not to dismiss Fenario, but Confession is a pretty neat song. 8. Howling At The Trouble By Now By Now by a mile. Yes, the subject's creepy...but again, Richard's written a short story, not a song. The way he draws a parallel between the runaway girl and a deer is pure magic. 9. I Saw My Youth Today You Again I Saw My Youth Today is simply one of my all-time favorite songs. The New England tour when he introduced it, I happened to see him a couple of times. I was blown away the first time I heard this. So at a gig a few days later, I fully expected he would do it in the course of the evening. However, he didn't and we were at the time when he was going to do his final encore and everyone was yelling out their choice, so of course I yelled "I Saw My Youth Today!" When everyone was done yelling, he said, "I always like to err on the side of the new." And so he played it to an audience where almost no one had heard it before. When it ended...long l-o-n-g silence...then one voice, a man's, gasped, "Beautiful!" Then more voices and then a swell of clapping. A song that can leave an entire audience so profoundly moved belongs at the top of any list. 10. Parasol Ants There Goes Mavis Parasol Ants. It's a fun way to start the album. 11.One Man's Arkansas State of the Union Love them both very, very much and refuse to choose one over another. Arkansas speaks so movingly of a person's attachment to his home and the grief of leaving it. That touches to me in a very personal way. In State of the Union, he writes compassionately of the struggles of an addict. If you've ever had a loved one battling addiction, you probably are grateful that someone out there isn't using addicts as punching bags to score cheap points. Plus I love the way he compares our national addiction to oil to drug addiction. 12. On A Sea Of Fleur-De-Lis Hazel's House Fleurs-de-Lis...just lyrically rich and playful. 13. Mary Magdalene So Says The Whipporwill I want to love Whippoorwill but dang, they are (disappearing) night-active birds that eat insects! So I like it, but don't love it, and I like Mary Magdalene. Another toss up. ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V12 #281 ************************************