1. La javanaise – Jane Birkin
2. You Upset the Grace of Living When You Lie (Live) – Tim Hardin
3. Can’t Take My Eyes off of You – Bobby Darin
4. Le Chanson de Jacky – Jacques Brel
5. What Keeps Mankind Alive – Tom Waits
6. Song of Sexual Slavery – Cathy Berberian
7. Jezebel – Frankie Laine
8. Peter Said – Maher Shalal Hash Baz
9. The Lighthouse – Ana Da Silva
10. Spies in the Wires – Cabaret Voltaire
11. Crazy Beat/Don’t Be Cruel – Sex Mob
12. The Carioca – Caetano Veloso
13. Test de separation des canaux – Chenard Walker
14. Demetrius – Sufjan Stevens
15. Ponomatopées – Bernard Parmegiani
16. In The Ice Madleen – Sahar Belaya Smert
17. Brazil – Geoff Muldaur
18. Jacky – Fake Swedish
19. Kreun Kohrmahn Iss De Hundin – Magma
20. Move in a Little Closer, Baby – Mama Cass Elliot
(Download the audio files here or here.)
Some friends and I used to have a tradition of sending each other music mixes around Christmas time. Some of you were part of it. It’s sort of fallen apart in the past few years, and I’ve been partly to blame.
This mix I started just before Christmas in 2004. Bush had just won reëlection, incredibly, and the future seemed bleak. I started collecting songs from random downloading sessions into a mix. I was going for a world-weary, Weimar cabaret kind of sound. All the songs might be performed on a single night in a little music hall in a town on the border, different troupes of musicians waiting for their exit papers or a guide to take them across through the mountains.
That emotional tone made possible a fusion of ’60s and ’70s music — but music for adults, not kids — with some more current avante-garde stuff. Also, the very idea of decadence conjures for me French more than German; this mix used to have Edith Piaff as well before I decided that was a little much. The Jacques Brel is breathtaking, I think; you’re prepared for it not only by the incomparable Jane Birkin’s a capella number but by the American showmen Tim Hardin and Bobby Darin. Thick clouds of nicotine.
The Weimar mood might be a bit obvious in the two Kurt Weill numbers that follow, but they were too great to leave out. Then once more into classic showmanship with the Frankie Laine before plunging into some weirder shit. The text of “Peter Said” is entirely biblical. The Cabaret Voltaire fit the general air of paranoia of late 2004 — there were, it turns out, spies in the wires. Track 15 is to my ears the freakiest thing on the mix. Magma was a godsend; I don’t think they’re actually singing in German but rather a made-up Germanic apocalyptic tongue, but someone can correct me on that. And Mama Cass offers what I hope is a bit of solace after all that mess.
okay — THIS is a great way to do the Thursday playlists. I used the divshare download. Which do you prefer, Dave? I didn’t even look at the other one.
My only issue so far is that I had to retag the tracks (album name and track number) to make them into an album rather than a playlist. I suppose I could have just used a smart playlist function, but I still would have had to go through and put them in your order. But that really only took 5 minutes or so. And now I have a great set of songs to get me through my day. I love the way the live tracks set the cabaret mood you’re going for.
I think if you drag all the files, including the .m3u file, into a new playlist in iTunes it will order the songs correctly in that playlist. But I’m not totally sure. I kept the old album info on because some people like that. I suspect the divshare download is quicker than the other one.
I downloaded it too. Hooray!
And while this end-of-the-world mix is terrific, I still love the annual end-of-the-year mix, too. It’s fun to exchange the actual object, you know? (Especially Farrell and Trixie’s, so artful that they are not so much compiled as curated.) The homemade CD art is half the fun, as you yourself taught me, Dave.
Let’s all use divshare to upload files. The interactivity rocks.
i didn’t try dragging the m3u — i’ll try that next time, or on my other computer. i did think twice about letting go of the album info, but i also hate having incomplete albums on my ipod — folders that only have one song from a given record. but i’m kind of anal.
I haven’t even gotten to the music yet. I’m just here to bow with reverence to you for the umlaut on reelection.
So New Yorker of him.
I know, I’m sorry. The word just didn’t look right otherwise.
Good save with the Mama Cass at the end. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the looming apocalypse after the Magma track. Wow.
This is a really interesting mix, with more than a few songs and artists I didn’t know. Thanks!
Also, the download was a very good way to provide the songs. Perhaps a tutorial email on how to do this is in order?
Mama Cass is my favorite
Glad you liked it, Tim. In the future, people who do Thursday Playlists will get instructions on posting the songs. The past couple of playlists haven’t lent themselves to this for various reasons, and it’s not required for people with scruples about posting things for others to download.
Any playlist with Jane Birkin, Ana da Silva, and Mama Cass Elliot on it it worthy of praise. Bold combination. And as for Magma:
A remarkable aspect of Magma’s albums is that Vander actually invented a constructed language, Kobaïan, in which most lyrics are sung. Later albums told different stories set in more ancient times; however the Kobaïan language remained an integral part of the music.
(courtesy of Wikipedia)
Maher Shalal Hash Baz ROCKS!!!!!!! Thanks Dave for the mix. I just got the album MSHB did with Bill Wells called “Osaka Bridge” — two amazing songs are ‘Cowtail Calypso’ and ‘On The Beach Boys Bus’…
5-7. Whether or not you use a dieresis, that word looks all wrong next to “Büsh”.
Dave, the title of this playlist reminds me of one of my favorite soundtracks to a Wim Wenders movie, “Until the End of the World”.
I don’t know whether you’ve seen it before, it’s been a long time since I have, but I pop the cd in occasionally just because it’s a good one.
The songs on it have a similar sort of cabaret/music hall vibe as well. I’d recommend checking it out.
Hi this post is stunning.
I will definitely read your diary..
bye