10 Songs That Start With "G"

Strange day. A weird sense of dread and melancholy has been knocking around my head for most of it. Maybe it's work. Maybe the impending election has got me preoccupied or something. Maybe it’s knowing it’s going to be pitch black when I walk out the door to head home.

I was working later than usual on some dull number/paper pushing that just has to get done, so I popped the mp3 on and the list below somehow started to lift the veil of whatever it is. Here's what came out.... 10 songs starting with the letter G.

1. Phish – “Ghost” (live Halloween 1998) – Short at 8 minutes, but was a cool ending to eerie Vegas third set. Yeah, I was at the show.
2. Sugar – “Gift” – Amps to 11. Crunchy power chords from Bob Mould. Rapid fire drum fills from Malcolm Travis. Saw Sugar for a second time when this song came out back in 1994. Loud and fast.
3. Husker Du – “The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill” (live version, yeah) More Bob Mould power chords, but this song is Grant Hart’s. Man, I’d have loved to have seen these guys when they were still around.
4. Matthew Sweet – “Girlfriend” See below.
5. Beastie Boys – “Girls” Is this song misogynistic? Maybe. But it’s fun as hell.
6. Dave Edmunds – “Girls Talk” (live). Elvis Costello wrote this one, but Edmunds’ version is ten times better.
7. Todd Thibaud – “Give Back My Heart” – A duet with Kathrine Wilhite.
8. Tracy Chapman – “Give Me One Reason” – Tracey’s blues.
9. Sleater-Kinney – “God is a Number” – Rock. And. Roll. Corin Tucker’s shrill tremulous voice is a wonder on this track.
10. Elizabeth Mitchell – “Going Down The Road Feelin’ Bad” And we’re back to melancholy. This track is truly heartbreaking.

By the way, if you ever wondered why “Girlfriend” is such a great song, it’s not the stalker creepy lyrics. The secret ingredient is the maniacal lead guitar of the late great Robert Quine. He’s all over the place in that song stretching and pulling and bending. He plays on much of the rest of the album, as well as on the follow up Altered Beast. Quine just owns the show when he’s playing.

Oh yeah, it’s worth noting that the “Girlfriend” video is so classic. We used to stay up hoping MTV’s 120 Minutes would play it late on Sunday nights back in 1991.





P.S. -- Go Vote tomorrow.