Lucubrations: thursday tracks: valentunes

These should be working again now, but if not, let me know and I'll hire these bands to play your birthday party. Though that might be kind of tricky since some of them are dead.

Yesterday I was recalling the Valentine's Day a few years ago when Jacob kept playing the Palace Brothers song "Valentine's Day" on his radio show as an introductory tune before he announced what songs he was going to play next. I thought maybe I would provide a link to that tune and add a few others while I was at it. So I did.

Unfortunately, I didn't wind up having enough time to post this love mix yesterday. But love, after all, should not be confined to one calendar day, so just take these tracks as an incentive to keep those loving feelings (including regret, wistfulness and sadness as well as exuberance) flowing all year round.

There are a lot of songs out there about love. This is by no means an authoritative list. Just a bunch of favorites that happened to be on my iTunes yesterday. Enjoy!

I Remember When I Loved Her by The Zombies
It's always best to start Love-themed mixes off on a regretful note.

And I Love Her performed by the Wailers
The Wailers did a hell of a pop number in their early days.

Love You So by King Khan and BBQ Show
From the band whose concert here in October was maybe the best show I saw all year.

Love by Virgin Sleep
This was on somebody's psych mix. It got stuck in my head so bad that I thought I was going to have to buy a sitar to strum it away.

You Don't Love Me Yet by Roky Erickson
For all of you at Kief's.

First Girl I Loved by The Incredible String Band
The Incredible String Band were from Scotland. This is among their most wistful and tragic of numbers. "Well I never slept with you/But we must have made love a thousand times/We we were just young/And we didn't have no place to go." Heartbreaking -- even more so because it's about a redhead.

I Was Made To Love Her performed by Jimi Hendrix
An instrumental with all the fire of Stevie's original.

Sure Know How To Love Me by Darondo
From my favorite album reissued last year. Not a bad song on it.

When Love Comes
by Susan Christie
Another reissue I found at the Love Garden. The whole album is lovely.

Does Anybody Love You? by Todd Rundgren
Who knew the album with the world's ugliest cover could yield so many catchy tunes?

No One's Gonna Love You by Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators
(At least not as much)

I Found A New Love by Magic Sam
The obligatory blues number. They didn't call him Magic for nothing.

Prove Your Love by Fleetwood Mac
Jay put this on a mix for me last Winter. At the time I thought he included it because it's such a good song, but now I realize he might have been trying to tell me something. Jay -- I'm sorry. Please allow me to prove my love by buying you a welcome-back greek salad at the mediterranean restuarant of your choice.

"When I Die" by Motherlode
I'm breaking the "love has to be in the title" rule for this tune because the chorus has an extended "I love you" in it, and also because it's a sadly appropriate number for the man whose music I found this in. This was on a collection of songs J Dilla sampled for his "Donuts" album. Dilla -- also known as Jay Dee -- died February 10, 2006, just a few days after "Donuts" came out. This bittersweet number reflects the excitement I felt upon first hearing J Dilla's music recently, and the sadness at learning the man passed away at such a young age.

Must Have Been Something I Loved by Lee Hazlewood
I'll give Lee the last word on the subject for now. This is from his 1970 breakup album, "Requieum for an almost lady." I love the humor contained in the title. It's like he's saying, "Must have been something I ate." Only it's actually something he loved.