My Pandemic Playlist

[dreamshark]

 mdlbear this is for you. My philosophy is "Depressed? Then you need to listen to music by someone that is even more depressed than you are!"  Having seen your music recommendations I suspect you can relate.

Pandemic Playlist March 2020

21 songs, Time 1:24

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Eve of Destruction               Barry McGuire

St. James Infirmary               Eric Burdon & The Animals

Sailor Cut Down in His Prime        Hight Stra...

Death Don't Have No Mercy         Hot Tuna

Hard Times Of Old England         Steeleye Span

Time's A-Getting Hard         Pete Seeger

All Alone By Myself                 They Might Be Giants

The Only Living Boy In New York Simon & Garfunkel

Lonely Room                Oklahoma Soundtrack

Flowers On the Wall       The Statler Brothers

Stuck In the Middle With You        Stealers Wheel

Strange Days               The Doors

The Drinking Song               Moxy Früvous

Hang Me, Oh Hang Me       Oscar Isaac

The Plagues                Prince of Egypt Soundtrack

Oh Death                      Dock Boggs

My Name Is Death            Incredible String Band

Song of Many Deaths  The Foremen

Brokedown Palace         Grateful Dead

The Captain         Leonard Cohen

Desolation Row Bob Dylan

Comments

[pameladean]

Wow. Just reading this made me burst out laughing, it's so perfect.

[dreamshark]

Thanks.

Finding enough songs that are literally about plague was a challenge even for me, but I figured branching out into social isolation, death, and economic disaster was still appropriate.

[pameladean]

Yes, those are plagues' natural companions.

[spiderplanet]

This is an excellent list! Thanks for posting it. :)

[mdlbear]

A most excellent list. Some things I need to look up. (Not familiar with all -- maybe most -- of it, but yeah; that's the right kind of stuff.)

[maruad]

Let me recommend, to suit your system, the following:

Mining for gold - Cowboys junkies
4+20 - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Cautionary Song - The Decemberist's
Leslie Anne Levine - The Decemberist's
Suicide - Dust
He's nobody's Mogey Now - Eric Bogle
Little Gomez - Eric Bogle
Kill for Peace - The Fugs
Oh, the wind and rain - Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band
The ocean doesn't want me - Tom Waits

...............

For myself I might listen to somethings like:

Winter Wheat - John K Sampson
Estimated Prophet - Burning Spear
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence - Ryuichi Sakamoto (piano version)
Lingus - Snarky Puppy

but most especially... Plea from a cat named virtute - The Weakerthans

[maruad]

Although I know many of those songs, there are several I have never heard. I will try to give them a listen over the next few days.

[maruad]

So I had time on my hands, go figure, and I have gone through the list more thoroughly and I offer these comments.

I was immediately stuck by how familiar the tune was for Sailor Cut Down In His Prime. I am not certain but I think it is the same tune Eric Bogle used for Safe In The Harbour (not all of his songs are silly tunes about pets getting squished).

I have no recollection of listening to Hot Tuna (though I had heard the name) and I really enjoyed the song. I will have to listen to the rest of that lp.

Is All Alone By Myself really only 5 seconds long? It is hardly enough time to be remorseful.

I have found, over the decades, that I just bounce off of some books. There is something about the book/author that just doesn't work for me, no matter how much I wish it could. Incredible String Band is a band that has the same effect. I don't know why that is.

My google-fu failed me when it came to The Foremen.

I had never heard Leonard Cohen's The Captain but I enjoyed it. For a jolly, remorseful song from Cohen I would go for Closing Time or Dance Me To The End Of Love though they are not quite as dire.

Another song that would fit your list would be In Hell I'll Be In Good Company by The Dead South.

Two other tunes that don't quite fit the criteria but are close:

- Soldier's Waltz by Olenka & The Autumn Lovers
- Uja by Tanya Tagaq

[maruad]

Oh, oh and Nil Si I nGra by Andy M. Stewart (actually the entire Fire In The Glen cd is a good fit).

[dreamshark]

Sailor Cut Down in His Prime, St. James Infirmary, and Streets of Laredo are all part of a family of closely related songs descended from an 18th century broadside called "The Unfortunate Rake." They are in fact about a plague - the plague of syphilis. The version of "Sailor" that I had on hand is sung to the tune usually used for "Streets of Laredo," which may be the reason I didn't include "Laredo" itself. I recommend the whole family, if you like that sort of thing.

"All Alone by Myself" is really just that long. They Might Be Giants is quirky that way. I included it as kind of an introduction to the section of the collection that was about social isolation. Order is important in my compilations. ;-)

I think the Foremen are an obscure filk group of some kind. I acquired that song in one of Dave Romm's weird compilations, so who knows?

No compilation of depressing songs is complete without at least one Leonard Cohen, but I had a hard time finding one that was actually about the end of the world. I think I picked this one for this exquisitely Cohenesque exchange:

"Take these silver bars, he said, I'm giving you command.
Command of what? There's no one left, there's only you and me.
The rest are dead or in retreat or with the enemy.
Complain complain, that's all you do, ever since we lost.
If it's not the crucifixion, then it's the Holocaust..."

If you like one Hot Tuna song, you will probably like them all. Buy any Hot Tuna album you can find.

Thanks so much for taking the time to explore my musical selections! I'll check out some of your recommendations.

[minnehaha]

I bounce away from Bonnie Raitt the way you react to Incredible String Band.

K.

[mdlbear]

So naturally I fell down this rabbit hole again, and started thinking about my own playlist. I think maybe Lookingglass Folk at Conflikt 2012 might be a good start.

(It was linked from this s4s post; there's some discussion of it in this one posted shortly after the concert.)

Doesn't include Desolation Row, though.

[jesse_the_k]

What a lovely selection, from all contributors.

(I've just started paying for Spotify and it's great for stuff like this!)