Bishop Allen - "The News From Your Bed"

This audience, this StG readership, this is probably old news to you by now. Bishop Allen is making an EP per month for twelve months, ending in an album. And this isn't even from a new EP, it's from February. But this song is so much better than anything else I could tell you about today, just hold my hands and listen for a second. I just bought Mutual Appreciation (which apparently you can't do anymore, until later) and now, despite thinking it impossible, I've gained even more affection and interest and rosy-cheeked, almost embarrassed, love, for Bishop Allen's songs. This song is as simple as a door opening and closing, as tidy as your first homework assignment for the year, as Eleanor Rigby as it can get today without just crying all day. We tried that first kind, that was so dark it was cold to touch. This is a warm back, spiny bumps under your fingers. [Buy]

Leo Kottke - "The Train and the Gate: From Terry's Movie"

I kind of look at these posts as little singles. Like mini releases that we are putting out every day. I think it's an easy transition to make, I mean, look at the catbirdseat. So yeah, my point is this second song always feels like a b-side, and this is the kind of b-side that you ignore at first but keep coming back to. Leo Kottke performing his song from Days of Heaven (not the original, though if you have it, I would love it) with eight hands and one giant thirty-stringed guitar. He's singing as well, only all his energy is focused into his hands, so his vocal chords aren't able to vibrate. It's for the best, the lyrics are only reiterating what the guitar is jumping up and down and yelling.
[Buy The Essential Leo Kottke, or Days of Heaven]