Hangnail Phillips - "Lillian"

I wanted to post Hangnail Phillips' "Post Cold War World" instead, but I couldn't do it. "Lillian" is just better. So you get no party song today. This song: it's so friendly! These are familiar streets, paved with mandolin cobblestones, soprano sax streetlights, and clarinets doing a softshoe down the middle, no traffic. Phillips' big grandfather voice, sounding almost Burl Ives-y, is another clearly worn path, but in a comforting kind of way; the way the houses and shortcuts seem worn when you walk home today. It's the best kind of slow-dance: you can dance with your crush or your babysitter to this song and it would still feel right.

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*****

Tompaulin - "Three In The Morning"

Tompaulin's Into the Black is actually composed entirely of last songs of the night, but this is my favourite. It's not the lyrics - I'm not sure they even really care about those too much - and it's definitely not the bongo drums (too 'dorm room') that make me grin, it's the sheer mood that it forces on me and whatever I'm doing at that moment. I'm like transported to someone's cottage, it's just after midnight, and I'm playing some stupid game (cards, maybe scrabble) that is suddenly the most important thing in the world (more important than the song, too, it merely plays in the background, but is the perfect low background hum to this setting), and I'm immensely glad that something so trivial is so important. Which maybe does tie into the lyrics; something meaningless endowed with meaning. Okay, bye.

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*****

tomorrow: Jordan Himelfarb posts. Maybe he can answer us all this question (we don't talk): when are we going to get to hear more Cay?