song of the day

Today, how about Queen’s “’39”?

Here’s another song that goes quickly from the silly to the serious, Ani DiFranco’s “Fuel.”

Maybe I should put a bucket over my head
And a marshmallow in each ear
And stumble around for another dumb numb week
For another humdrum hit song to appear

DiFranco’s a much more electrifying presence live than on her recorded albums — I saw her at Penn State in 1998, and I still think her live double album Living in Clip, released the year before, is some of the best work she’s ever done. I like her more recent music, and some of it quite a lot, but maybe not as much as the earlier songs. I only just bought her 2003 album Evolve, and she’s released four other albums since then. (To say nothing of bootlegs and compilation packages.)

It’s with this song, and the rest of ’98’s Little Plastic Castle, that I first discovered DiFranco’s music. There’s definitely a spoken-word feel to it, and I still listen to it all the time.

The thing I love about this song, “The Quiz” by Hello Saferide, is how quickly it jumps from silly romantic insecurities — “Do you talk in the middle of Seinfeld? Do you read more than two books a month?” — to the really poignant and important question that underlies all those other questions: “And if I’d fall, would you pick me up?”

How about a little change of pace? This marks one whole month of these “Song of the Day” posts, so why not “Movin’ Right Along” by that great duo, Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear?

I was going to go with “Sun Comes Up, It’s Tuesday Morning” by Cowboy Junkies because, well, it’s Tuesday. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I simply like this song better. It’s “This Street, That Man, This Life.” And while it’s not exactly cheery, I happen to think it’s beautiful.

Not so sure about the video, but it’s the only one I could find.