Happy Birthday, Megan! Today's just about giving her songs that will make her happy. It's super difficult to just limit this to five songs, for the record.
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, "Orange"
From one of the albums that we played the most after we first met, it's difficult to pick just one song from the record. It's really best enjoyed as an entire album, but I went with the title track mostly because I love the breakdown in the middle of the song so much. This marks the first appearance of the JSBX in this thing, but I'll talk more about them during a non-special blog. Also, the version of this song I picked is not great quality, but fuck it, it's still plenty filthy.
Shudder to Think, "X-French Tee Shirt"
From Shudder to Think's best album, Pony Express Record. I'm including it here because we decided that our first real date was to a Shudder to Think concert. It didn't really start out that way, but we decided to retroactively call it that, and that concert has as a consequence always been a favorite. Also, Shudder to Think ruled.
Built To Spill, "Randy Described Eternity"
From Perfect From Now On, from what I consider to be a flawless album and still one of my favorites. I introduced it to Megan during one of her visits out to Seattle during our long (four year) long-distance relationship, and it was instant love. For the record, I mean. I suspect she could give or take me, a fair bit of the time.
The Wedding Present, "Suck"
"Darling can't you keep / your head next to my head / Oh just stay here / Because I can't fall asleep / even in my own bed / Until you're near" I can't count the number of times I listened to this, during said long-distance relationship. I think I wasn't alone. I mean in listening to the record. I was otherwise along. Anyway, Seamonsters is such a tremendous album.
Sicko, "Little"
One of the things I did to try and keep us both sane was to send Megan albums that I loved and that I hoped she would love while she was still living in Pittsburgh. And so this song, with Sicko doing their level best Superchunk impression, always stuck with me, with its opening appreciation of the joy of finding records on your doorstep. And yes, I'm pretty sure I sent this album as one of those care packages.