It's fall y'all (out of season offerings)
Morning Mixtape, Vol. 7 (Belated Fall Mix!)
Here is a mixtape with a fall vibe even though now it’s winter. If you want a seasonally appropriate winter vibe, I’ve got you covered—here’s my wintry mix from last year. Other mixtapes can be found here (Little Richard! Incandescent women! Lots more!).
It’s fall y’all! Okay, not really. Not at all. In fact, we’re in the middle of an ice storm here in Kentucky.
But I made most of this mix for fall around ten weeks ago. Now, today, if you go outside with your hair wet, you’ll get frozen hair. But the songs, the songs are still good.
A lot’s been going on. We moved to a new state with two small children (contraindicated, if you want to get anything done, see). I started an additional part-time job, teaching creative writing to undergraduates as an adjunct. The overall impact on my income is probably net negative (less time for freelance work that pays better), but it has been fun. But, you know, the thing is... I am just not the type of person to adjust my workload downward for low pay. My students are sweet, I care about what I’m teaching, and so on. So I put way too much time into it. And other stuff, the way there is always other stuff. Just life.
What I’m saying is I’m in a period of falling behind, of turning things in late, of struggling to keep up.
So here is a mix out of season, for fall, or for falling behind, or both. Autumnal vibrations and suchlike.
Technically the first day of winter was Dec. 20, but I’m even tardier than that, by my lights. Though wrong, I delegate seasons to three month stretches: Sept.-Nov., Dec.-Feb., March-May, June-July. So by that measurement, this mix is more than a month behind. Also it is very, very cold outside.
But perhaps you are not ready to let go of autumn just yet. Perhaps you would like to rewind for a spell, the leaves falling backwards up into the trees. Perhaps like me there have been things you have been meaning to do and you have not done. And perhaps like me, you would not mind returning your sense and your set and your setting to a different time. When it was still almost winter—when it was almost winter but not winter yet. Perhaps you’d like to listen some songs. Here’s a mix from a cooler air before the nip, from the colors in the trees before they departed to the piles below. Here’s a mix from me to you.
Track list and liner notes
F.J. McMahon – “Early Blue”
Penny & The Quarters – “You And Me”
The Durutti Column – “Sketch for Summer”
Okay the title says summer, but I know what I mean.
Allen Toussaint – “Southern Nights”
Moondog – “Do Your Thing”
Stars of St. Petersburg – “Poliouchka Polie”
Bulgarian State Television Female Choir – “Pilentze Pee”
From the excellent 1975 album Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, recorded by Swiss ethnomusicologist Marcel Cellier. I recommended the album to a friend a little while back and he told me, “Davey, you’ve been pushing this album for more than a decade.” But the funny thing is I’d kind of forgotten about it, or at least forgotten I was in to it. May this happen more often. What a second act, to freshly fall for the old tunes once again.
Björk, Rosalía – “Oral”
Joshua Asante – “Thas Me”
Little Rock treasure who deserves a national following.
Etta James – “I’d Rather Go Blind”
Yasuaki Shimizu – “Asate”
Wikipedia informs me that among the places Shimizu has recorded: an underground quarry, a mine in Japan, a palazzo in Italy.
Space Art – “Love Machine”
The Trammps – “Stop and Think”
Reb Allen – “That Poor Fool Makes Three”
Ronnie Hawkins – “Lonely Hours”
This song is mislabeled on Spotify, which has it as a different Hawkins recording, “The Ballad of Caryl Chessman,” which is also excellent. The Chessman tune is a true crime murder ballad of sorts, though Caryl Chessman was never accused of murder. He was on death row in San Quentin after being convicted of robbery, rape, and kidnapping for a crime spree in Los Angeles in January 1948. He maintained his innocence and published four books to make his case to the public, along with an endless series of appeals acting his own attorney. An international movement developed to lobby state officials to spare his life, including luminaries like Eleanor Roosevelt, Marlon Brando, Billy Graham, Aldous Huxley, Ray Bradbury, Norman Mailer, and Robert Frost. After nearly twelve months on death row, Chessman was sent to the gas chamber in April of 1960 (supposedly after a California Supreme Court justice called the wrong number to try to issue a last-minute stay, only getting routed to the execution chamber after it was too late). Chessman had arranged with reporters ahead of time to signal if he was in pain by nodding his head. As he died, he emphatically nodded. According to Merle Haggard, he met Chessman when there were both in solitary confinement and communicated through a ventilation shaft. Chessman and another executed inmate inspired Haggard’s “Sing Me Back Home.” That’s one of many references to Chessman in popular culture then and in the ensuing years, including “The Ballad of Caryl Chessman,” with its haunting refrain— “let him live, let him live, let him live.” Hawkins released the single around two months before Chessman was killed.
Sol K. Bright’s Hollywaiians – “Hawaiian Cowboy”
Karol G – “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido”
My daughter loves Karol G, and I can’t disagree.
Dwight Yoakam, Maria McKee – “Bury Me”
Yes, please.
Bob Dylan – “Main Title Theme (Billy)
Listening to this soundtrack with my morning coffee as I warm up the old typing fingers is my among my most Dad moves. And I’ve got a lot of Dad moves.
Lead Belly – “Out on the Western Plains”
Chet Atkins – “Boo Boo Stick Beat”
Johnny Clarke, Hotense Ellis – “Dearest”
If things are not all right at the moment, they will be all right later on; such is the way of things.
Rory Danger and the Danger Dangers – “Call of the Wild”
My genius idea is for Miley Cyrus to cover this song.
Adrianne Lenker – “Once a Bunch”
Pleasant John Prine vibe on this one.
amiina – “Glámur”
Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Tim O’Brien – “Our Home”
The Allen Brothers – “Ain’t That Skippin’ and Flyin’”
Abelardo Carbonó y su Conjunto – Palenque
Manu Dibango – “The Panther”
Sneaks – “True Killer”
Misfits – “Hybrid Moments”
Another Ramsey fam favorite. It’s very fallish, IMO. Just sit with it, you’ll see.
Mdou Moctar – “Taliat”
Sun City Girls – “Esoterica of Abyssynia”
Hat tip to Tropical Depression reader Mikey Powell.
Lizzy Mercier Descloux – “Wawa”
Waxahatchee – “Much Ado About Nothing”
William Tyler – “Highway Anxiety”
When I was in high school, I went to summer writing camp in Sewanee with William Tyler, as well as Cary Ann Hearst, who now plays with Shovels & Rope. Heady times. Back then, William had a very funny song about herpes. Later he played in David Berman’s backing band and owned a wonderful bar in Nashville called the Stone Fox (RIP; RIP). I dig his spacey-Western solo music very much.
Tyler Childers – “Shake the Frost” (live)
Skip James – “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues”
Sun Ra – “Tapestry from an Asteroid”
Yusuf (Cat Stevens) – “Don’t Be Shy”
No better feeling than when Cosmo requests this one. The boy gets it.
When I was in high school, I went to summer writing camp with a future Pulitzer Prize winner who I fell in love with. But going to summer writing camp with William Tyler is even better.