miko2

kehf tagged me for this livejournal meme thingy. List your six favorite songs. Hmmm. You would think it would be easy for me to list a few songs that I like, I have so much music. But no, it's quite hard. I like a lot of songs, but ultimately the songs I really really love stick with me for a long time. So my current favorites include songs that have been favorites of mine for 2-3 years. ^_^

1. Trains by Porcupine Tree, from In Absentia. I fell in love with two other songs on this cd first, but eventually the soft, wistful, melancholy tune Trains is what I came to love the most. (I discovered Porcupine Tree when

skyrigdon lent me a copy, which he got from

berbalang.)

2. Girl On A Wing by The Shins, from Oh Inverted World. I love their recent cd Chutes Too Narrow, just great alternative pop music, but when I picked up their first cd I found this mesmerizing shimmer pop tune that I have been unable to get out of my head. (I discovered The Shins from hearing a review on NPR.)

3. Forked Height by Battlelore, from Sword's Song. Battlelore is a Finnish metal band that has three vocalists and writes only songs about The Lord Of The Rings. They're not bad, but only a few of their songs really rise above the rest of the lot. This tune is about Saruman the White and his tower, and how he gambled on a union with Sauron and lost. It's actually a very pretty tune for a metal song. (I discovered Battlelore just by clicking around on Amazon.com and reading people's reviews of things.)

4. Back Room Window by Charlatans, from Songs From The Other Side. This song is from a cd collecting their b-sides and misc stuff not found elsewhere, but I think it's my favorite song of theirs period. Very bouncy upbeat song. (Charlatans has been a favorite of mine since their first cd -- I think I first saw them on MTV's 120 Minutes over 15 years ago.)

5. The Beekeeper by Tori Amos, from The Beekeeper. Very spooky song. I'm not sure what it's about but I really really like it a lot. This would be my most recent "favorite song" so it may not last as long as the others. (I've been a Tori fan since Little Earthquakes, but hadn't picked up her last several cds until

kehf loaned The Beekeeper to me.)

6. Shake 'Em On Down by R L Burnside, from Burnside On Burnside. This is a standard blues song that I've got several versions of by several different bluesmen. It was a favorite song of Mississippi Fred McDowell, so much so that his friends just called him "Shake 'Em". It appears on every cd I have of his, each version a bit different. I think it might have been written by Fred, but with blues songs it's always hard to say for certain. Burnside is from the same part of the country as Fred McDowell, and they were friends, so it's natural he has this song in his reptiore too. It's also on my Kenny Brown cd, but this also makes sense when you realize that Kenny Brown is essentially R L Burnside's adoptive son, and the other guitarist in his band. This version, recorded live in Portland OR, is my favorite of all of them. They rock on this song. (I think I discovered R L Burnside just from doing research on the web on various blues musicians, and trying stuff out. But

bluesmancd also highly reccomended him.)

The last part of this, I'm supposed to "tag" six other people. Presumably people who actually read my livejournal, so they know they've been tagged. I'm not really big on these sort of chain letter type things, and I noticed

genebreshears didn't bother with this part, but actually that makes it easier for me to do, since both he and

kehf are mostly picking from the same circle of friends as I am. ^_^ Anyway, tag:

bluesmancd

brombear

dolphinchatter

berbalang

jl_anderson

mika_vumner

Feel free to ignore this if you like. ^_^