I don’t know why, but this song seems, somehow, to be a perfect representation of the contents of Associate Justice Scalia’s withered consciousness today:
I’m not actually sure if John’s going to let me back on the blog after posting that, but what the hell.
Let’s consider this an invitation to come up with the best rage/blame/break-up songs you know.
YellowJournalism
“It’s my (Republican) party, and I’ll cry if I want to!”
Yatsuno
If you’ve never heard Jarron and The Long Road to Love’s song, “I Pray for You”, you don’t know bitter.
WereBear
Harry Nilsson:
Joy, to the world, was a beautiful girl, but to me Joy meant only sorrow…
Bobby Thomson
Liz Phair, The Divorce Song.
Green Day, Pulling Teeth
ETA: Fuck You by CeeLo Green is more upbeat and life-affirming.
John O
How does it FEEL? To be on your own…
Baud
The Way We Were
Steve M.
I think it would be awesome if Joan Baez duetted with these guys on this song.
Baud
The All in the Family theme song — Those were the Days
? Martin
I’d have to go with Cole’s standby on this one: Stuart
That’s about where Scalia’s reasoning is heading in my view.
Howard Beale IV
Outsourced to Martin Briley.
Roger Moore
Weird Al- One More Minute.
Chris
I still think this is better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJxCdh1Ps48
Felinious Wench
Bulls on Parade, baby.
Comrade Mary
Holy fucking shit, that’s actually GOOD.
Villago Delenda Est
“We’re not going to take it”
gbear
Needs moar Marshalls.
scav
To Keep My Love Alive. esp by Blossom Dearie.
Felinious Wench
Although Killing in the Name is also pure Tage as well.
“Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!”
Baud
Shit. Didn’t fully read the post. Was coming up with generic songs for Scalia.
Howard Beale IV
Outsourced to Split Enz.
Haydnseek
Easy. Tonio K. H-A-T-R-E-D.
Cassidy
Damn I missed a lot today. While you all were celebrating some progressive awesomeness, I was taking the pt test for a fire/ rescue department and smoked it. Today was good.
Yatsuno
@scav: Anything by Blossom Dearie is pure gold. Unpack your adjectives dammit!
Howard Beale IV
Outsourced to Ceello Green.
Violet
“You Oughta Know”–Alanis Morissette.
Dolly Llama
No Sympathy.
Ksmiami
Are you reeling in the years….?
Haydnseek
@Cassidy: I’m glad to hear it. Sounds like an excellent day! Reward yourself, you deserve it.
Howard Beale IV
Scalia’s thoughts, courtesy King Crimson.
Botsplainer, fka Todd
Wang Dang Sweet Poontang, by Ted Nugent.
Roy G.
Nice juxtaposition with your usual visual content, Levenson. MIT Prof by day, headbanger by night – I love it!
Dolly Llama
@Baud: And you could do what you WAAAAH-nted/Girls were girls and men were men/Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again …
Didn’t need no welfare state/Everybody pulled his weight …
John O
@Violet:
That’s a good one, and has to be a finalist for best Rage Compilation of all time.
Howard Beale IV
Outsourced to Paul Robeson.
Yatsuno
@Cassidy: WOOT!!! You’d better have a massive beer thirty planned tonight!
gogol's wife
OT, but I just turned on my TV and saw Elvis doing a scene with Barbara Stanwyck. It blew my mind. I didn’t know they made a movie together.
burnspbesq
There is no breakup song but “The Breakup Song.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8ePSJ44Fiw
Howard Beale IV
Outsourced to Duncan Sheik.
MikeJ
Daisy Glaze
Violet
@Cassidy: Congratulations! That’s awesome. That Fire PT test is hard. You have to be in good shape to pass it.
Howard Beale IV
Outsourced to KBC Band.
GxB
@Felinious Wench: Shit – ya beat me to it. At the other end of the spectrum but still apropos “Take on me” by those Scandinavian hell raising anarchists Aha.
dance around in your bones
Oh Gawd, this is easy – Why’d Ya Do It? by Marianne Faithfull
P.S. Not suitable for playing out loud at work :)
Tom Levenson
@Roy G.: I had help from a friend to find this particular number. But I like it loud and ferrous.
Haydnseek
@burnspbesq: Great choice. One of my all-time faves. Don’t know how long you’ve been in SoCal, but Tonio K is an institution, and might be right up your alley.
MikeJ
Song for the Dumped
Petorado
Nine Inch Nails- “Head Like A Hole”
You can’t get any more Scalia then the opening lines, “bow down before the one you serve. You’re going to get what you deserve.”
WereBear
@Cassidy: Happy days, dude! Congratulations.
Howard Beale IV
Against All Odds.
Laertes
@Dolly Llama:
The line you’ve rendered as “You could do what you wanted” always sounded to me like “And you knew where you were then”
Botsplainer, fka Todd
So have the Raiders extended an offer to Hernandez yet?
dmsilev
I’ll go old-school. I think Scalia is hearing this, with his colleagues as the Devil dragging a morally-depraved America down into Hell.
quannlace
“Blossom Dearie”
***********
Blossom Dearie Sings Songs For The Leery.
Howard Beale IV
You Get What You Give
Haydnseek
@quannlace: I love Blossom Dearie. She and Dave Frischberg are a marriage made in heaven.
TaMara (BHF)
@Cassidy: Ah, now all that hard training makes sense. Congrats.
Howard Beale IV
And for the classically-themed-Hector Berlioz. or Pitor Tchaikovsky
Omnes Omnibus
@dance around in your bones: Love the song. Love the lady.
Yatsuno
@Botsplainer, fka Todd: Too soon. He has to be convicted first.
JGabriel
How Do You Sleep At Nigh? — John Lennon
Smile — Lily Allen
I Believe — Buzzcocks
Omnes Omnibus
Ben Folds Five, Song for the Dumped.
The Brains, Money Changes Everything
ETA: Lily Allen, Fuck You.
Haydnseek
@Omnes Omnibus: I met her in a club in London when I was 29 years old. We chatted briefly. That was over thirty years ago. I’m still in love with her.
dance around in your bones
@Omnes Omnibus: For someone who started out singing sweet lady folk songs, she got REAL later on. I liked her better in her smokey-ruined voice and truth-telling rage.
If that song doesn’t personify rage-gasm, I don’t know what does. It just drips anger and betrayal.
wmd
Not so much rage, but there’s a bit of break up in this song.
Yatsuno
@dance around in your bones: I’m gonna speculate this was released post-Mick.
Haydnseek
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks for this. Money Changes Everything isn’t Cyndi Lauper, it’s the Brains. And Raeline was a centerpiece of our set back in my bar band days. The whole album is great.
Omnes Omnibus
@dance around in your bones: My favorite of hers is this. It doesn’t fit the thread theme, but It’s wow.
@Haydnseek: I am envious.
ffredpalakon
I’ll go with the classics. “Hand in Hand” by Elvis Costello. “Play With Fire” by the Stones. And, this seems especially apt for Scalia’s attitude today, “Extreme Ways” by Moby.
Omnes Omnibus
@ffredpalakon: Unfair to use Costello. It’s too easy.
The prophet Nostradumbass
I was going to mention the Ben Folds Five one, but I see it’s been done twice already.
Talk To Ya Later – The Tubes
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
I’m going to go with Richard Thompson:
Why must I plead
and When the Spell is Broken.
And a thousand lovesick tunes won’t wash away the wounds from my mind.
A Ghost To Most
@Cassidy:
Congratulations; I hope there isn’t a (long) wait list.
My day was similar; two interviews for jobs yesterday, both resulting in quick offers today.
The best part will be tendering my resignation, and telling the Christian bullies I work with now to go fuck themselves.
Haydnseek
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): To use Omnes’s line, it’s too easy. Write down all the songs on butcher paper. Tape to wall. Throw darts while wearing blindfold. You win. This coming from the biggest Thompson fan on earth. If I could play guitar like that, I would do nothing else, but I would die happy.
Caliph Garrett
I am the cosmos, I am the wind. But that don’t get you back again.
CarolDuhart2
Its a Little Too Late
Litlebritdifrnt
@Omnes Omnibus:
I love that Lily Allen song, it has been our anthem for the anti-birthers for years.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Haydnseek: Well, I had to at least represent the Thompson afficionados! And those weren’t even the best versions of either of those songs. He’s much better with them on acoustic.
And yeah, if I could play like him, I’d be the same.
Shana
@dance around in your bones: Or on the radio, which a dear friend of mine did in solidarity with me after a nasty breakup, risking the station’s license, although it WAS a college radio station…
FlipYrWhig
@Laertes:
Or “And you knew who you were then.”
Pooh
Creep. (Radiohead not tlc)
beltane
I really hate to be OT on such a fine thread, but this picture of Paula Deen’s fans waiting outside of one of her restaurants yesterday made me laugh because I am a liberal meanie http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/06/23/us/DEEN-2/DEEN-2-articleLarge.jpg
beltane
Scalia’s America has a running loop of the Lawrence Welk show as its soundtrack.
Haydnseek
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Speaking of Thompson on acoustic, in 1985 he recorded an LP titled Across A Crowded Room. It was recorded live in a small club in New York City. You probably already know about it, but if not, it’s brilliant. I found a pristine copy at a used record store for 2.00. The girl behind the counter said “wow, a hippie in a window with a guitar. Hope he falls out.” I didn’t say anything, because if you’re going to price albums like this so low, call us whatever you want.
MikeJ
@Caliph Garrett: Great song. The Posies do an excellent cover, as you would expect.
piratedan
@ffredpalakon: gotta give you props for the EC call out, that song just drips loathing….
but I’ll go down with this Nick Lowe classic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2xfxQPYImc – Stick it where the sun don’t shine
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Cassidy: late to the party (quelle surprise) but way to go, man. I’m not the least bit surprised.
Haydnseek
@beltane: I’ll bet everyone of these people absolutely despise the idea of Obamacare, because when I need a life-saving butt-cheek transplant when I’m only 30 years old and don’t have health insurance, the baby cheeses will provide……….
ffredpalakon
@Omnes Omnibus: Some musicians have a songbook. Costello has an arsenal.
piratedan
@Omnes Omnibus: hey, there’s a lot to choose from, love his choice, Might have gone Big Boys, but Hand in Hand is solid.
Haydnseek
@efgoldman: No. The Raiders would love to, but they’re still in the process of negotiation a settlement with Santa Anita with regard to Jamarcus Russell’s feed bill. This puts them at a decided financial disadvantage during contract talks.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Haydnseek:
Ain’t that the truth. Richard Thompson is kind of an English TVZ who’s a (far) better singer and player, but with similar sad songwriting sensibilities.
amused
Femmes – Kiss Off
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Haydnseek: What a steal! I was thinking Celtschmertz, of course. There’s an iPad app that has him teaching how to play guitar. A couple of the videos are on YT now. I learned to play Beeswing from it, but I haven’t had the courage to attempt 52 Vincent Black Lightning yet.
Laertes
@FlipYrWhig:
Could definitely have been “who” instead of “where.” Ms. Stapleton invented a memorable singing voice for Edith, and it favored vigor over clarity.
burnspbesq
@Haydnseek:
I’ll bet Scalia wanted to do the Funky Western Civilization all day today.
Omnes Omnibus
@ffredpalakon: @piratedan: Hey, I am down with EC. He is, perhaps, second only to the Clash in my book.
dance around in your bones
@Yatsuno: Oh yeah. some 10 years later (1979) I believe.
If you haven’t ever listened to her album Broken English, give it a spin. It’s – ah, riveting.
eta: Oh, I see! You think it’s about Mick! Well, it could be, I don’t know. She’s just pissed as hell at somebody.
burnspbesq
@Haydnseek:
I was in law school at SC when the hot unsigned local bands were X, the Plimsouls, the Blasters, and Los Lobos.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
And, fortunately for us, with none of TVZ’s proclivities toward self-destruction.
He really does seem like a person comfortable in his own skin.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Omnes Omnibus: Did you hear the hilarious interview he did on wait, wait, don’t tell me?
Omnes Omnibus
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
I credit Allah.
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Unfortunately not.
Haydnseek
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): @Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Wow. I’m really impressed. Those aren’t easy to play. I have a good friend who can play 52 Vincent, but can’t sing a lick. I can’t play it, but can sing it well enough to get a few high-fives at the bar that will be gone by the time you read this.
Cassidy
@A Ghost To Most: Very cool. Congratulations.
Thank you everyone. I think I have a really good chance to be hired as a full time firefighter with these guys so I’m very excited. And they’re all so damn nice and friendly.
burnspbesq
@Haydnseek:
It’s fun taking hipsters in used record stores to the cleaners on stuff they either don’t know or don’t care about. I recently got a mint (unopened) copy of the Rubinstein/Boston Symphony recording of the Beethoven “Emperor” concerto for $1.99.
dance around in your bones
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s good.
I have a soft spot for The Ballad of Lucy Jordan, not just because of Thelma and Louise (I’d heard it before on Broken English but the pairing of that song in that movie was stellar. In fact, I’mma gonna watch it again right now!
Omnes Omnibus
@Cassidy: Congrats and break a leg.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Omnes Omnibus: you should check their website. He discusses his lovely bride, and his child, who interrupts the phone interview.
@Haydnseek: Oh, I’ve only got it 3/4 of the way figured out. Watching him play it in slow motion is really a treat.
RT has a vocal range that’s difficult to capture, but Beeswing isn’t too rangy.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Cassidy: Congrats and best wishes!
burnspbesq
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
Favorite RT story: I went to see him in a club in Hollywood in about 1987, and by sheer random chance ended up standing next to Cesar Rosas from Los Lobos. Watching Cesar’s reaction to the ridiculous stuff RT was doing on guitar was almost as much fun as watching him do it (I was also trying to figure out some of the fingerings). At one point we looked at each other and just shook our heads.
There are some guitarists who make you crabby because you know that you could practice 16 hours a day for the rest of your life and still not be able to do what they do without breaking a sweat. Tony Rice is that guy for me.
Haydnseek
@burnspbesq: Thank you, Mr. Burns. I’ll bet we were at a lot of the same shows. Los Lobos played at the wedding reception of one of my closest friends. They set up in front of the detached one-car garage of the bride’s mother in Torrance. Played for two hours, then it was off to play a gig downtown. Great guys. I used to run into David Hidalgo at Lovell’s Records in uptown Whittier. Scalia will have to get in line behind Newt “Mars Needs Women” Gingrich.
Anoniminous
Jonathan Coulton – Skullcrusher Mountain
burnspbesq
@Haydnseek:
X are playing the OC Fair again this year, opening for the B-52s. I’ll be there. Billy Zoom’s amp-repair and customization shop is about ten minutes from my house, on North Main in Orange.
Haydnseek
@burnspbesq: Tony Rice is so good it’s scary, but Leo Kottke is that guy for me. Some might say it’s an easy choice, but once I saw him live in the shitty Long Beach State gym opening for Emmylou Harris in the mid-70’s it was all over. I had the first album on Tacoma, blah blah blah, but seeing him live….he’s also very funny in that flat, low key Minnesota/Garrison Keiller way.
muddy
@Omnes Omnibus: Speaking of talented women, I saw that you liked Dessa that I recommended to you before, she just had a new album out (or wev the kids say now) yesterday.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@burnspbesq: I got to see Tony Rice at Merlefest a few years back. The bluegrass pickers and the English folkies have a lot in common.
And as much as I love RT, I would kill to play like Nic Jones on Canadee-I-O. What a tragic waste of talent.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Haydnseek: Shit, Leo Kottke is also scary good.
A Ghost To Most
The only thing that would make this day better is if Fat Tony suffered such a fit of apoplexy that both his head and heart exploded.
Can I add I hope the court case that buries DOMA comes from Colorado (Utah works too)?
Haydnseek
@burnspbesq: I used to work in Orange, but it was a long time ago. Our place was fairly close to Anaheim Stadium, not far from th 57 freeway on Batavia Ave. Our little strip-mall industrial hardware outlet was right next door to a shop owned by a guy who restored/repaired guitars. He was in a surf band that played street fairs, etc. You might know him….
burnspbesq
I got to see Della Mae a couple of weekends ago, and their guitarist, Courtney Hartman, is another one of those ridiculously talented Berklee kids. She’s got the whole Tony Rice toolkit. There are clips on youtube of a concert that Mark O’Connor played with the students in the American Roots program at Berklee a few years ago (search “Mark O’Connor Berklee”), and she got into it with Julian Lage, Sierra Hull, and Jacob Joliff from Joy Kills Sorrow and more than held her own.
Nikolita
– “Hater” by Everclear
– “Passive” by A Perfect Circle
– “Veteran” by Ignite
– “Since You’ve Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson
MomSense
You’ve Changed
It’s a sin
The dream I built for us has tumbled
Each promise broken — like my heart
burnspbesq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F9j39xcQWo
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Semi OT: POTUS plays drums
Those were some great unsigned bands during your law school days, burnsie. I only got to see Adrian Belew a couple of times while I was in grad school. Of course my buddy was his guitar player at the time, so there was that.
When a friend of mine had a stroke, I read him Dave Alvin’s poetry daily. And watched whatever movies I wanted in his room, since he didn’t know. When he came to, he loved the Alvin poems.
And can we in good conscience talk about great guitar players (and ridiculously talented Berklee kids) without a mention of Dave Rawlings?
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): No, we cannot.
Time, the Revelator.
burnspbesq
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Nope.
As long as we’re throwing around names of players with chops to burn, how about a little Frank Vignola?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELXtZmFpvPk
PIGL
A last compliment to five upstanding jurists, from Canada.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@burnspbesq: Since we’re talking players, I have to say I’ve always admired Ani’s style.
gogol's wife
@beltane:
When I saw that, I thought, “Somebody has to post this to Balloon Juice.”
PIGL
Also, too, from Britain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bv7WIygitU
SmallAxe
Dinosaur Jr. – Out There
and lacks the rage but
Grateful Dead – Looks like rain
Honus
@John O: That one’s good, but Idiot Wind has more pure rage.
Honus
Then there’s Paul Simon’s Red Rubber Ball.
the first verse says it all. The best revenge is indifference:
I should have known you’d bid me farewell
There’s a lesson to be learned from this and I learned it very well
Now, I know you’re not the only starfish in the sea
If I never hear your name again, it’s all the same to me
SmallAxe
@Honus:
Great call, how could I forget that one, Idiot Wind has been playing in my head for the past week for some reason.
You’re and Idiot babe, it’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.
Honus
@Haydnseek: I have a cigarette foil framed in my office that Danny Gatton wrote his name, address and the phone number of his guitar shop on it that he gave me in 1974. Some people ask me what it is, other people look at it and nod.
Bobby Thomson
Also, too, Wild World by Yusuf Islam.
And picking just one from Rumors, I’d have to with The Chain.
Honus
@SmallAxe:
So many great rage-filled lines:
Someday you’ll be in the ditch, flies buzzing around your eyes
Blood on your saddle
Honus
@Bobby Thomson: I think you mean Go Your Own Way. We’re talking breakup songs here, and even though I’m not fond of that album, “Pack it up, shackin’ up’s all you wanna do” is one of the great rock and roll lines.
joel hanes
@FlipYrWhig:
And you knew who you were then
That’s how I’ve always parsed it: nostalgia for strong gender roles and local and ethnic ties, seldom publicly transgressed.
And now the evidence: you are correct!
mclaren
Bravo! Hey, I’d go with Slayer’s “Seasons in the Abyss,” but this one works too.
joel hanes
@burnspbesq:
Splendid. Thank you.
? Martin
@joel hanes:
Meh. Just manifestations of power. Look, I’m a straight white male, and it’s pretty fucking clear that straight white males have it good, and why should we put up with anyone coming along and taking our party away?
There are some transitional issues that sometimes make this non-trivial to do. The ‘husband is responsible for a steady paycheck’ ethic that gets knocked into us somewhere before high school is a real bitch when you have a shit job you don’t want to deal with any more, and it makes you want some kind of payoff for going through it, but that’s on us to work though as that’s changing in various ways. And it doesn’t mean we need to be douchebags while we go through it.
So, I don’t think it’s nostalgia at all. Sure as fuck women aren’t particularly nostalgic for those traditional roles. Minorities aren’t. Gays aren’t. Seems only the folks at the top of the ladder seems to be suffering from this ‘nostalgia’, like Paula Deen ‘nostalgic’ for the days when a bunch of slaves could feed her. I’ve thought pretty hard about this and none of my black friends have ever expressed a ‘nostalgic’ desire to put on servant attire and cater to a bunch of fat white fucks, except possibly if they could also prepare the food and be immune from prosecution.
Citizen_X
On June 27th, I pick the obvious one: X, Fourth of July.
munsell10yr
ben folds five “song for the dumped” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxaYgIhjsFs
Steve M.
Going to go contrarian here and pick the best (only?) non-acrimonious breakup song ever: “Ain’t Understanding Mellow” by Jerry Butler and Brenda Lee Eager, just because (as they used to say forty years ago) it’s got so much soul.
Joe
Of course Dylan is the master. Like a rolling stone, positively 4th street, idiot wind just to name a few.
centerfieldj
It’s not Scalia-centric, but it does document bitterness in a particularly delicious way:
“Thin Line Between Love and Hate”, The Persuaders
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULuHJgCos7A
With many, many extra points for the vintage Soul Train fashions and choreography.