After a little more than a month away from doing one of these posts, it’s been interesting to think about what I might want to put in my next one.  If you hadn’t noticed, we tend to shy away from posting tracks from, say, The Beatles.  This isn’t because we don’t love The Beatles, but more that their music isn’t personally defining.  But maybe I’m just speaking for me.  Let’s get back into it.  It’s probably going to be another month before I do another one of these.

121. Badly Drawn Boy – Disillusion (mp3) from The Hour of Bewilderbeast (4:07) [Time Remaining: 448:39]

I haven’t been much of a fan of Damon Gough’s work after his Mercury Prize-winning The Hour of Bewilderbeast.  But my appreciation for his first album is so complete that I could include at least two more songs from it on my particular list.  That’s in addition to this one and “Once Around the Block,” which I talked about previously.  ”Disillusion” is just such a flat out great feeling song that it is impossible to ignore.  It ends with a rollicking minute and a half jam session that defines what I love so much about it.  It’s like he sings in the lyrics: “Why’d you have to make it so complicated? Can’t it just be beautiful?”  Sometimes, that’s all any of us need to hear.

122. Ben Folds Five – Selfless, Cold and Composed (mp3) from Whatever & Ever Amen (6:10) [Time Remaining: 442:29]

On the opposite end of the spectrum from Badly Drawn Boy is Ben Folds Five’s “Selfless, Cold and Composed.”  I play this song often when it gets into fall around here.  With the falling leaves and the autumn rains, it becomes much more apropos.  It’s a sweeping, sad song about the end of a relationship. (Ben Folds has been married four times, so he has plenty of experience on that subject from which to draw.)  And while my own relationships might not end with such gorgeous music, I can certainly identify with the sentiment of wanting the other person to display some kind of emotion over the end of a relationship.  Thankfully, it’s been a while since I’ve had to feel that way.

Ben Folds was the coolest fucking guy to me right after I started college.  Whatever and Ever Amen‘s piano-rock barely left my CD player after I bought it.  Then I saw Ben Folds Five in 1998 with the bands Train and Fleming & John opening after The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner was released.  I still have the ticket stub to this day, preserved in the back of the jewel case of my copy of Whatever.  About a year after that concert, the band broke up (although it was not, as “Army” might lead you to believe, in May.)

And then, as a solo artist, my love has waned with each subsequent release.  Rockin’ the Suburbs was still kind of cool, but something was off about it.  I have seen him live a couple times since then, and while he’s undeniably talented, it’s my opinion that he’s lost that raw energy that was evident on his earlier albums.  Songs for Silverman was almost unlistenable for me.

But before Silverman was released, he put out three EPs (Speed Graphic, Super D, and Sunny 16) in rapid succession – each one only four or five songs – and they contained everything I used to love about seeing Ben play live, combined with less production.  Unexpected covers, goofy lyrics, rousing piano.  They were released in a package form on Supersunnyspeedgraphic, The LP, but not in the same versions that endeared themselves to me, and those who simply bought that album missed out on a couple of tracks.  So here, my friends are two of the best songs off of those EPs.  One was released in a bastard form on Silverman and the other can only be found on the EP as far as I know.

“Give Judy My Notice” has this one part that kills me every single time; it’s right at the end of the song – about 30 seconds to go – after he sings “Judy” a couple of times.  When he sings the word “notice” the last two times he tweaks the note a little bit.  (You people who know music technically can maybe tell me what this is actually called.)  And it’s the prettiest and saddest part of a song that actually feels like a break-up.  It’s honest about the emotion and heartbreak that comes with the end of a relationship.

And “Protection” just rolls right on through you.

Both of the songs happen to be from the Speed Graphic EP.  Enjoy them because they may be the last vestige of the old Ben – the one that defined our late teens/early twenties.

Ben Folds – Give Judy My Notice (mp3) from Speed Graphic EP

Ben Folds – Protection (mp3) from Speed Graphic EP

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