A few people have been asking me, “Who are you?” ever since DougJ tossed me the keys and I started posting this “Song of the week” thing myself a couple months ago. I was OK with everybody thinking I was secretly DougJ, but I probably should have just introduced myself earlier. I’m a long-time lurker/faithful follower of Balloon Juice—I used to come here via those Atrios links years ago and gawp at the freakshow. I even happened to be on hand the day of the showdown with Hamsher, and I laughed a lot following that comments thread. But Cole back then basically affected me the way Atrios affected him. I got too mad and couldn’t hang around long. I can’t remember why I came back in the summer of ’08 but I did and I couldn’t believe it was the same place. It’s ridiculous but Cole’s conversion somehow continues to inspire me and I have spent a lot of time here since. On the spectrum, since this is a politics blog, I’m probably closer to being a firebagger than an Obot—but to a lot of my friends I’m probably more of an Obot, and that doesn’t even include my lunatic neighbor who still literally worships Glenn Beck. I have the mixed blessing of coming from a 98% homogenous Democratic family, so I learn a lot talking to him. It truly is a visit to a Bizarro world. But I’m no good arguing politics, it’s bad for my blood pressure and general outlook, which puts a damper on making my case, so I just listen to people mostly.
I used to be a music journalist. Now I’m a freelance copy editor. Like approximately every human being on the planet I love music and listen to it every day. I love to talk about it and swap opinions and information. Like approximately every human being on the planet I also hate a lot of music so I know where you all are coming from when you hate my picks. I hate a lot of yours too. No hard feelings (or anyway I’ll keep them to myself). To me, that’s the give and take of it. As they say, there’s no accounting for taste and there’s certainly no accounting for mine. I have a blog, Can’t Explain, which is how DougJ found and eventually invited me to chip in picks for this weekly Friday afternoon thing.
So that’s who I am. The song picks are things I’m listening to, things I heard that week that surprised me, sometimes old favorites, or types of music I’m interested in knowing more about—all kinds of things. Stuff to talk about. For example, this last week I happened to notice that Robert Cray is playing casino dates now (maybe he has been for years?) and that reminded me how much I liked him once (and still do), and how long it’s been. So wondering what anyone might think of Cray nowadays, or back then.
Or, as always, share your own favorites of the week, or treat as an open thread.
Robert Cray, “Right Next Door (Because of Me)” (1986)