November Playlist: Winter's On The Phone

Hey everyone - it's December! But before you break out the Christmas hits, here are 10 non-Yuletide tracks that I really enjoyed listening to in November and that I hope you'll enjoy listening to right now.

1. Holy Hell It's Cold by Quiet Marauder

(from MEN)

I tend to revisit MEN (originally released in 2013 - read my three-year-old review of it here) every year at around this time, and this rib-tickling but also slightly sobering cut seemed like an appropriate choice given the current temperature outside.

2. Treaty by Leonard Cohen

(from You Want it Darker)

You Want it Darker - which it's probably safe to assume was written and recorded by a Leonard Cohen who knew that he would soon be dead - has a certain duality to it. Many of its songs make it sound like Len had made his peace with the world and was ready to go, but a couple of songs (including Seemed the Better Way and this beautiful number) suggest a certain amount of regret, a desire to go back and change something. More thoughts on You Want it Darker here.

Famous Last Lines

As I flicked through my Twitter feed yesterday morning, I spotted this tweet from @fourfoot:

Now listening to Martha by Tom Waits.

Nobody comes close when it comes to crushing final lines in recorded music. Nobody.

— Fourfoot (@fourfoot) November 20, 2016

I too revisited Martha recently (along with the other 13 songs on the excellent Asylum Years compilation), and Fourfoot is totally right about that last line. If you haven't heard it before, do yourself a favour and have a quick listen now:

"And I remember quiet evenings, trembling close to you"

Fourfoot's assertion about Tom Waits and his talent for devastating final lines got me thinking, not just about the last lines of songs but about the last lines of albums. A good last line leaves you reeling long after the song has ended, and that impact is magnified tenfold when there's not another song straight after it.

Tips of Icebergs

I like Bruce Springsteen a lot, but I really ought to make more of an effort with his back catalogue. At time of writing, I only have three Springsteen CDs: Born in the USA, which I picked up at a car boot sale some years ago; Greatest Hits, which I found in a charity shop; and Nebraska, a more recent purchase that I bought after reading about it in this book.

Admittedly, buying three CDs by the same guy does suggest moderate commitment to the artist in question, but Bruce Springsteen's discography spans across four decades; I don't feel like I can call myself a full-blown fan when he's got sixteen studio albums that I haven't even listened to.