I owe about a hundred phone calls and even more apologies, a Norman Mailer obituary, and a proper encapsulation of how much I adore these three girls named Alex, Sarah, and Chantelle, but I'm throwing three songs your way that I currently am physically unable to live without. Since when was this a music blog? It's not, but there's so much fucking happening right now in the hustle and bustle of my current location of Hipstertown, USA that it's all I can really manage. I pinkie swear that I'll have something interesting coming up soon (because God knows that I've got enough material).

Here you are. You definitely need that first one. Actually, the second one too. You know, really, you should probably just take all three of them and judge for yourself.

James Taylor - Carolina In My Mind
You know it. You love it. Simplistic and sweet. I have nothing to say, the song speaks for itself.

Loudon Wainwright III - Motel Blues (2004)
This song floats. Well, Loudon himself just kind of floats. He's one of those musicians who'd rather perform live than to record himself. This version is nice because it was originally written in 1971 and performed sometime in 2004, when Wainwright was in his late fifties. Yeah, he's married with four kids and a family that's dysfunctional as hell, but you still believe that he's just this lonely rock and roll star who's just searching for some kind of intimacy. "Never mind those desk clerk scowls, I'll buy you breakfast, they'll think you're my wife." It sounds sleazy out of context (especially when he mentions at the beginning of the song that the girl is nineteen years old), but I think it's sweet. (Surprise, surprise. Anniemosity never changes.) "Save my life. Come up to my motel room. Save my life." I almost want to.

Tom Waits - Alice
Atmospheric and haunting, it's been my favorite Waits song for about six months now, and I just can't get over it. Referring to Alice from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll, it's unbelievably dark, and yet, somehow romantic. Waits at his best. In the right mood, you will cry. You will cry a lot. Sometimes you may just sit there and bawl into the emptiness and feel like whatever is behind this song understands. It's not emo -- it's Waits.


When you stay up late into the night thinking about job offers, schooling that walks that fine line of amazing and horrendous, wonderful people in your life that you really don't deserve, fuck ups, good choices, and the overall awesome state of things, you need a soundtrack. This is mine.