Explain it if you can

Ready for a refreshing grapefruit sorbet between courses, hipsters? I've got more showtunes for you.

I'm compiling a mix. I do this all the time, painting from my limited palette, dipping into the same few artists over and over again. I try to branch out, really I do, but I keep coming back to my favorites.

All right, clearly my favorite songs are the ones you find in musicals. My secret fantasy is to walk down the street and have everyone burst into song around me, magically harmonizing and knowing the next line without having to think about it. This is The Dream.

But showtunes ain't all I listen to. I categorize my music into "showtunes" and "not showtunes". The mix I'm making straddles both of my musical worlds. I'm trying to compile tracks of showtunes sung by, for lack of a better word, "civilians"; people who are not known primarily for being Broadway or theatre singers. I have a few rules:
1. No pop artists that actually starred in the musical in question. So, for example, even if you did, for some reason, want to include a Deborah/Debbie Gibson song, you would not be permitted to have her singing anything from Cabaret, since she starred as Sally Bowles for a spell. But who didn't?
2. Only one song per tribute album. No matter how much I love Wig in a Box, the Hedwig and the Angry Inch tribute album, I have to narrow it down to one track only.
3. Nothing by singers who are known primarily for musical theatre. I may adore Bernadette Peters and the late Jerry Orbach, but they have no place on my civilians list.
4. No crap. That means nothing from Phantom. Actually, most Lloyd-Weber is out, as is anything from any of those ridiculous faux-musicals with titles like "Jekyll and Hyde" or "Footloose: The Musical". Stevie Wonder singing that bonus track from Rent is verboten. I realize this rule is highly subjective, and also, I'm a snob. That's cool, because you're hipsters, so you're not reading this anyway.

Okay. This is what I have so far:

• Never Never Land - Todd Rundgren From Peter Pan. My friend Ade used to play this to wake me up in the morning when I would visit her in Michigan. I don't really know anything about Todd Rundgren except that he's Liv Tyler's Dad, and he produced the XTC album Skylarking, of which I am very fond. I love his strangely sweet and psychedelic take on this song. So very un-Mary Martin, which makes it delicious.
  
• Summertime - The Zombies - I love The Zombies. I love this song. I vacillate back and forth between the Paul Robeson version and this one. I want to sing this song all season long. I've never seen Porgy and Bess, but this song reminds me that I probably should, at some point.
  
• I Guess I'll Miss the Man - Diana Ross - One of my pet musicals is Pippin. Ben Vereen is a hero of mine, based solely on his magical performance in that show. The songs are very early Stephen Schwartz, and this song is one of my least favourites as performed by whatsherface in the Original Cast Recording (OCR), but I think Diana Ross makes it listenable. I was torn between this and her version of Corner of the Sky from said musical, but I'm pretty burned out on that song, and anyway, I like the way John Rubinstein sang it.
  
• Til There Was You - The Beatles. I didn't see The Music Man until I was about 20 (again, my friend Ade) so I never realized this song came from that until then. I think Paul kicks Shirley Jones' ass up and down the street, but I don't really like her voice.
  
• Tear Me Down - Spoon. OK, I don't know who Spoon is, but they do a better job with covering this than Meatloaf did. Anyway, I really do own this album, or at least I thought I did; I think my sister took it to Japan before I could rip it, so I had to make do with what I could find on Limewire. My favorite track is actually Cyndi Lauper's cover of "Midnight Radio, but I can't find that one. Boo. Kirsten, give me that CD back, willya?

So that's all I have so far. Suggestions? Anyone still here?

I get high*

Dear friends,

1. As a member of the DraculaZombieUSA East Coast Annex, I get to prance like a pony in front of an audience every now and again. One of my favorite parts of the DZUSA experience is hearing the outro blaring out from Travis Business's iPod at the end of every set. It's a man singing, "Oooh yeah, aaaah-ah-I!" He does this a few times, and then he's sped up Alvin and The Chipmunks stylee; a bright chirping affirmation. It gets stuck in my head, that bit. I always mean to ask the man where it's from but forget. On Saturday, Travis and his lovely lady, Rebecca, jumped the broomstick. After their beautiful ceremony, after the kiss, after they clasped hands and started making their way out, the processional music kicked in. "Ooooh yeah, aaaah-ah-I! ...'ll tell you something! I think you'll understand." OH MY GOD. DUUUUUUH. Of course! I Want to Hold Your Hand! But done by...Al Green? What the? Anyway, I can't believe I didn't recognize those notes, those words, as recognizable as ABC if you grew up on The Beatles. I am slow.

Congratulations Travecca! It was a memorable evening truly befitting a wonderful pair.

Travis and Reverend Al, separated at birth?
Song to seek:

(Consider this a place saver for the Al Green mp3, which I will post tomorrow)
I Want To Hold Your Hand/Al Green (mp3)

Buy The Supreme Al Green: The Greatest Hits by Al Green.

2. Speaking of Beatles-related covers, I rather love this one even if it's a tad cracked. Claudine Longet whispers her way through Jealous Guy and generally sounds like fluffy kitten looking at you with sad, feeeed me eyes. It's almost cute that she's jealous. Of course, the knowledge that in real life this adorable creature took a gun and shot her lover in the back colors things a bit. Le scandale aside, when the song segues nicely into Don't Let Me Down, it makes complete sense. Both are songs of desperation and need, slightly off-putting in their emotional nakedness.

Claudine Longet, femme dangereuse
Song to seek:

Jealous Guy/Don't Let Me Down/Claudine Longet (mp3)

Buy We've Only Just Begun/Let's Spend The Night Together by Claudine Longet.

Love, D

* Yes, I know the lyric is "I can't hide" but Al Green opted for this line instead.

A crowd of people stood and stared

Dear friends,

I wish I could hang up a "Gone Fishing" sign 'cause in a sense, that's what I'm doing right now. Please bear with me and enjoy these covers.

1. The elegant Captain commands from the dunes.

Mojo magazine decided to get a bunch of bands to cover Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in its entirety and Captain had the nerve to do A Day in the Life. We heard it in the car on the way to New Paltz. J drove the long way just so I could look out the window at the Hudson. As the song came on over a stretch of barren turnpike, I wondered just how it would work on a shoestring. It's lovely really. Like the original in matchbox form. No strings but still shimmering somehow. When the last chord rang out, cutting off sooner than the original, The Monkey said "Lame." I don't agree. Not everyone has simultaneous access to multiple pianos. One does what one can.

Song to seek:

A Day in the Life/Captain (mp3)

Befriend Captain on My Space.

Buy This Is Hazelville by Captain

2. Bryan Ferry has been playing the soulful lounge lizard for years now. I like this crackadoodle cover because I can almost picture the prancing, bored with the Beguine-ing, winking Ferry of Roxy singing it. He gives you a tiny, menacing smile and goes back to his martini without a hair out of place.

Song to seek:

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue/Bryan Ferry (mp3)

Buy Frantic by Bryan Ferry

3. I'll never forget reading an article on Serge Gainsbourg's passing in The Voice and asking my moms what "provocateur" meant. Because of that word, I HAD to find out about this guy and his music. Mick Harvey knows provocation, just give a listen to the sleazy neon cabaret of Crime and the City Solution and of course, his work as a Bad Seed. Harvey recorded a couple of Gainsbourg cover albums sung in English. In theory, they should have been lousy* but weren't. I loved the original paean to Brigitte Bardot that much more once I understood the voyeuristic urgency of the lyric. The way the strings correspond with the movement; the fluttering hair on a beautiful woman as she runs through the street. Both cover albums are fantastic, though I'm partial to the first for this song and also for the seasick carnival swirl of Harvey's Intoxicated Man cover.

Song to seek:

Initials B.B./Mick Harvey (mp3)

Buy Intoxicated Man by Mick Harvey

Love, D

* I'm not opposed, generally, to French to English song translation, but Gainsbourg in English seemed like an especially bad idea.