Besides, I read all your iPod list thingies

Spooney made me some awesome mix CDs for our anniversary full of songs I like. Yay!

Disc One: Vikki Likes!

1. Won’t Be Home – The Old 97s (A great shit-kickin’ opening song featuring the great line “You're a bottle cap away from pushing me too far. Well the problem's getting big, and it's a compact car.”)
2. Rockin’ the Suburbs – Ben Folds (Ben’s send-up of bad white rappers everywhere is hilarious, and it also just happens to rock.)
3. Take Me Out – Franz Ferdinand (Ah, Franz. Wha hoppen? Oh, well, enjoy it when it was good.)
4. Common People – William Shatner with Joe Jackson (Ben Folds produced a music and spoken word album with William Shatner called “Has Been,” and it’s one of the best things, ever, and I am not fucking kidding. And this song fucking kicks ass.)
5. Hey Ya! – OutKast/Andre 3000 (Contrary to popular belief, the Polaroid Corporation does NOT recommend that you shake a Polaroid picture.)
6. Would I Lie to You? – The Eurythmics (Motorcycles revving. Annie Lennox singing. ‘Nuf said.)
7. Carparts – The Long Winters (The first song I ever heard from the best band you’ve never heard of.)
8. Help Me Mary – Liz Phair (I saw Liz perform in Chicago before she released Exile In Guyville. No one knew who she was, she was just this tiny girl with a guitar and an amp. Most of the audience left because she was too loud. I was transfixed. Exile in Guyville was fucking brilliant. Everything that followed fell very, very short. Oh well.)
9. Public Pervert – Interpol (I. Love. Interpol.)
10. China Grove – The Doobie Brothers (The quintessential pre-McDonald, pre-suck, pre-soft rock Doobies.)
11. Rosalita – Bruce Springsteen (The most infectious song ever written.)
12. White City Fighting – Pete Townsend (Most people, if they’re gonna love a Townsend solo album, love All the Best Cowboys. I love White City. The bass line on this song makes me shiver.)
13. Rise Up with Fists!! Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins (The twins’ intense harmonies are the perfect and essential counterpart to Lewis’s anti-melody vocals.)
14. Positively Fourth Street – Bob Dylan (Bob’s fuck you to Joan Baez, or not. “I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes - you'd know what a drag it is to see you.”)
15. Fuck and Run – Liz Phair (Again, from Exile in Guyville)
16. PDA – Interpol (Lovity-love-love me some Interpol.)
17. Crazy – Gnarls Barkley (Come on people, I am not made of stone.)
18. Cinnamon – The Long Winters (These guys are also amazing live.)
19. Soul Meets Body – Death Cab for Cutie (I know. Overexposed. But still good.)

Disc Two: Vikki Likes! The Mellow Collection

1. Seven – The Long Winters (Can you tell yet that they are my current musical obsession?)
2. Little Sparrow – Dolly Parton (Dolly’s voice, a banjo, and a fiddle. What else do you need? That’s right, nothing.)
3. Tiny Dancer – Elton John (Still holds up. Cheers, you crazy old queen.)
4. To Sir with Love – Lulu (I saw the movie at the drive-in when I was seven years old, and I still have a soft spot for this song about a mile wide.)
5. The Flowers of Guatemala – R.E.M. (Do you remember the guitar solo in this song? Simple, but oh, so good.)
6. Do You Realize?? – The Flaming Lips (The pub song meets the bunny-suit-wearing ethereum of the Lips.)
7. That’s Me Trying – William Shatner with Ben Folds and Aimee Man (Again, from Has Been, a song about familial reconciliation that is wry and sad and funny, brilliantly produced by Folds.)
8. Shoot the Lights Out – The Watson Twins (One of the top ten ballads ever.)
9. Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere? – Nick Cave (The Australian Leonard Cohen, from The Boatman’s Call. It’s awesome.)
10. Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometimes – Beck (From the soundtrack to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Oh, the futility. Ah, the beauty.)
11. Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd (Their tribute to a former band member who lost his mind, and the apex of their own brand of cynical wistfulness.)
12. While My Guitar Gently Weeps – The Beatles (I love the George songs, and this is the best one.)
13. Don’t You Love a Singer – The Long Winters (Okay, okay. You get it.)
14. Thousands Are Sailing – The Pogues (Sometimes, the Pogues just break your heart, know what I mean?)
15. The Ghost of Tom Joad – Bruce Springsteen (Or, Nebraska, part 2. Mean harmonica.)
16. Mad World – Michael Andrews and Gary Jules (Honestly, I’m not sure why this song gets to me. Just does.)
17. Wise Up – Aimee Mann (The sequence in the movie Magnolia where all the characters take turns singing this song is one of the best things ever done in a movie, really.)
18. America – Simon & Garfunkel (My fav S&G song, and a wonderfully sly political statement to boot, this song seldom fails to make me cry.)
19. Bring Me the Disco King - David Bowie (Spooney said he lost this song due to space constraints, but I have added it to this list because it's seldom you encounter a song as evocative of a place and time as this ode to the 70s. It's haunting and beautiful and spare, with only piano, brush percussion, and Bowie's amazing voice.)