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Underground > Radio & Music >

Make my mixtape: Day of the Dead

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17:59 / 11.10.07

So, November 2 is fast approaching, and I'll be traveling to a Day of the Dead festival.

Day of the Dead, in case you're unfamiliar, is what happens when Aztec ancestor worship bumps into Catholic All Soul's Day. Instead of being freaked out by the spooky spooky skeletons and sad fact of shuffling off the mortal coil, you're meant to celebrate the memories of your ancestors and generally help the spirits have a good time.

I'd like to make a mix CD that reflects this attitude - songs about death, but not spooky-ooky or o woe is me.

What do I need to have on there? Why?

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

18:22 / 11.10.07

I am (and I'm giving away a Barbemix contribution here, but I never win the music votes so what the hell) inordinately fond of Dock Boggs' "Oh Death" as the ultimate death song. I love the old-timey banjo and the croak that Boggs gets when his voice dips, and the song is not actually THAT depressing -- a conversation with the Reaper and a request for another year.

19:17 / 11.10.07

To reach the the Western Lands is to achieve freedom from fear.
Do you free yourself from fear by cowering in your physical body for eternity?
Your body is a boat to lay aside when you reach the far shore.
Or sell it if you can find a fool.
It's full of holes. It's full of holes.
-----
I want to reach the Western Lands,
Right in front of you across the bubbling brook.
It's a frozen sewer.
It's known as the Duad, remember?
All the filth and horror,
Fear, hate, disease and death of human history
Flows between you and the Western Lands.
-----
How long does it take a man to learn that he does not, cannot, want
What he wants?
You have to be in Hell to see Heaven.
Glimpses from the Land of the Dead.
Images of serene, timeless joy.
A joy as old as suffering and despair.

That, in case you don't know, is a sample of William Burroughs "The Road to the Western Lands". Bill Laswell's Material set it to some creepy, creaky, bloodslick buzz-beats, and I think that it'd be perfect for your mix. It's got a very dark feel to it, but not so dark that it's depressing. Burroughs knows how to use his voice, and this recording is a great example of his skill with his instruments. There's plenty of spook on this track, but it's not so overwhelming that it leaves you feeling down. Quite the opposite, IMO. This song has actually lifted me from sadness a time or two.

I'll put up a YouSendIt link later tonight, if you like.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

19:26 / 11.10.07

Which album? Coincidentally my eMusic just refreshed... dangit, further research shows that the album, Seven Souls, is not on eMusic nor in print. Please YouSendIt!

19:36 / 11.10.07

Same name as the above-mentioned song.

19:41 / 11.10.07

YouSendIt links are definitely encouraged.

Oh, yes.

I've been thinking about that WSB/Tom Waits thing about taking off yer skin and dancing around in your bones from The Black Rider. It's a little spooky-ooky, but about dancing.

21:36 / 11.10.07

Your thread title reminded me of the music in the movie remake of Dawn of the Dead. There was one wonderful swing song, where part of the refrain was "get ready to diiieee!", but I couldn´t find the artist.

But another song from that movie is People Who Died by the Jim Carroll Band. Sounds fun, fast and catchy. Live Youtube Clip

00:58 / 12.10.07

Aw yeah - I have that one on cassette somewhere! Ideal!

02:32 / 12.10.07

I was wrong on my titles there. The album is called "The Road to the Western Lands". The song that I'm recommending is The Western Lands (A Dangerous Road Mix). Which works out rather nicely, I think.

08:18 / 12.10.07

"Wayfaring Stranger", as performed by anyone and everyone, but I like Emmy-Lou Harris' lush, mysterioso, faintly psychedelic version best. V.v. moving, comforting, unearthly song about a gentle acceptance of the afterlife that dates back to the 18th C.

"Death Don't Have No Mercy" - again, a folk standard (it sounds impossibly old, but I think it might have been written by The Rev Blind Gary Davis?). It's like the tormented, despairing flipside of "Wayfaring Stranger". I favour either Young People's bone-dry minimalist pop version or The Grateful Dead's brooding jam-out on "Live Dead".

08:35 / 12.10.07

"Ghost Dance" by Prince Buster

"How's things down there in boneyard?
I hear they have a soundsystem,
and Maya Keefe is disc jockey,
but you c'yaaan't get no red stripe..."

08:37 / 12.10.07

Oh, and how could I forget:

(DON'T FEAR) THE REAPER.

Preferably the album version with all the extended guitar bits. Still one of the most indredible sounding records ever made IMHO, and I don't care how corny / over-used it's become.

Closed for Business Time

09:34 / 12.10.07

I walked with a zombie by Roky Erickson and the Aliens(?)! I think I have to go to Norway just to see him live again.

09:45 / 12.10.07

Mightily seconded!

09:46 / 12.10.07

There are a bunch of songs about death, but for the more half-full side of it, bluegrass is a pretty rich vein. Here's a couple of files, Bill Monroe's Mother's only sleeping and Ralph Stanley's When I wake up to sleep no more. (for 7 days, anyway)
There's also the Pixies "Dead", not exactly upbeat, but not a downer, either.

09:54 / 12.10.07

Is Jeffrey Lewis' "If You Shoot The Head You Kill The Ghoul" too unfriendly towards your dead chums?

This is the state of national emergency
Mind-blowing massacre at the cemetery
When the groundskeeper came to check out the place
They knocked him down and they ate his face
Little Billy Baker said he saw it first
A thousand rotten carcasses
Climbed out of the earth
Now we're holding a crisis information meeting at the high school
And we say if you shoot the head you kill the ghoul
If you shoot the head you kill the ghoul

Come on, this is the state of national emergency
It's happening in Texas and in Idaho and in Tennessee
Hideous hordes of crumbling undead men
Are slaughtering and eating the population
We've just received word from washington DC
It's every man for himself against the zombies
They say a high-powered, short-range weapon is a man's best tool
And they say if you shoot the head you kill the ghoul

Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot,
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill,
Aahhhhhh....This is a state of national emergency
Why is this happening? What are the dead returning?
Have we gone too far, do we deserve this fate?
Is Hell too full, have they opened up the gate?
It's earth last stand against our final death
They'll eat and eat till there's no one left
We don't know if it's radiation or if it's something biblical
But we know if you shoot the head you kill the ghoul
If you shoot the head you kill the ghoul

10:12 / 12.10.07

I really should have written that song. Jeff Lewis is super-me.

Anyway, seeing as how I mentioned him earlier, Blind Gary Davis did an absolutely terrific number called "The Little Black Train of Death is Coming".

Pretty self-explanatory; a weirdly joyful tune with a raucous gospel choir singing "you'd better get ready!" etc. whilst Davis carries on about the precise details of said train in his best Blind Willie Johnson / Howlin' Wolf scaaaary preachin' voice.

I suppose they mean you'd better repent your sins, sort out your earthly dealings etc, but from a modern secular POV it's hard not to picture this groovy gothic ghost-train pulling into town and everybody jumping on board.

Closed for Business Time

10:16 / 12.10.07

Does that mean you're coming to Norway with me, rizla? He's playing in Oslo December 20th...

uncle retrospective

11:37 / 12.10.07

M1 A1 by Gorilliaz. Fantastic punk pop song that should have been on the last Blur record but starts with a sample from Day of the Dead.

11:55 / 12.10.07

The Mountain Goats - Song For Dennis Brown

On the day that dennis brown's lung collapsed
spring rain was misting down on kingston
and down at the harbour local
cops were intercepting an inbound shipment

and for a while there it was chaos
as they handcuffed and then roughed up some sailors
on the day my lung collapses
it's not gonna be much different

On the day that dennis brown's habits caught up with him
school children sang in choirs
and out behind the chinese restaurant
guys were jumping into dumpsters

and the stench was overbearing
but they were past the point of caring
on the day my habits catch up with me
i'll be down among the jumpers

and when the birds come home in spring
we will fill them full of buckshot
and jets of contaminated blood
will cloud the rivers and the lakes

it took all the coke in town
to bring down dennis brown
on the day my lung collapses
we'll see just how much it takes

Closed for Business Time

12:02 / 12.10.07

Death of an Heir of Sorrows

I wish I lived in the Power and the Light
I wish it wasn't Saturday night
Cause I can't raise hell,
no I can't raise hell for two.

I wish I had a thousand bucks
I wish I was the Royal Trux
But mostly I wish, I wish I was with you.

When I was summoned to the phone
I knew in my bones that you had died alone.

We've never been promised there will be a tomorrow
So let's just call it "the death of an heir of sorrows"
The death of an heir of sorrows.

I have not avoided certainty
It has always just eluded me
I wish I knew I wish I knew for true.

I wish I had a rhinestone suit
I wish I had a new pair of boots
But mostly I wish, I wish I was with you.

We've never been promised there will be a tomorrow
So let's just call it "the death of an heir of sorrows"
The death of an heir of sorrows.

From the Silver Jews album Bright Flight.

12:07 / 12.10.07

Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Death To Everyone

So strap me on and raise me high
Cause buddy I'm not afraid to die
But life is long and it's tremendous
And we're glad that you're here with us
And since we know an end will come
It makes our living fun

Death to everyone is gonna come
And it makes hosing much more fun
Death to everyone is gonna come
And it makes hosing much more fun

Death to me and death to you
Tell me what else can we do-da-do
Death to all and death to each
Our own god-bottle s'within reach

Mon Oncle Ignatius

14:50 / 12.10.07

I'd suggest "Grim Reaper Blues" by Entrance, which does a really great line in lurching psychedelic mortality-annotating, and the album it's from - Prayer Of Death - is a scuzzy psych freakout based loosely on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Oh, and taking acid, oddly enough.

15:53 / 12.10.07

You people are making my week worthwhile.

I'm deeply in love with Lydia Lunch/Clint Ruin cover of "Don't Fear the Reaper"

Here, if you want to hear everyone from them to Belle & Sebastian doing that song:

Check this out. It's an amazing collection. (The "Nick Cave & Enya" is actually a Finnish band named HIM.)

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

16:02 / 12.10.07

I am, at this moment, listening to A3's "Too Sick to Pray" and I think it fits the bill admirably. Acoustic version from "Last Train to Mashville".

Mon Oncle Ignatius

16:24 / 12.10.07

Another very suitable song is Einstürzende Neubauten's "Dead Friends (Around The Corner)" from Perpetuum Mobile, which is laden with sadness and mourning as the title indicates, but in a very EN kinda way. Not one of their noisy metal-bashing numbers, but excellent nonetheless.

18:02 / 12.10.07

It's probably a little corny and/or a little tacky, but A Place Called Home by Kim Richey strikes me as a meditative stance on the whole, y'know, dying thing.

18:11 / 12.10.07

I don't know Kim Richey. Tell me more!

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

18:45 / 12.10.07

Oooh! Oooh! Jacques Brel's "Le Moribond"!

16:55 / 13.10.07

Why?

And thanks for the YouSendIts, folks! I'm still processing, but this is great!

(BTW, Matt, I've always been partial to Camper Van Beethoven's "Oh, Death," but the more versions the merrier.)

Closed for Business Time

17:43 / 13.10.07

Oh Comely by Neutral Milk Hotel.

Oh comely
I will be with you when you lose your breath
Chasing the only meaningful memory you thought you had left
With some pretty bright and bubbly terrible scene
That was doing her thing on your chest
But oh comely
It isn't as pretty as you'd like to guess
Oh comely
All of your friends are letting you blow
Bristling and ugly
Bursting with fruits falling out from the holes
Of some pretty bright and bubbly friend
You could need to say comforting things in your ear
But oh comely
There isn't such one friend that you could find here
Standing next to me
He's only my enemy
I'll crush him with everything I own

Your father made fetuses
With flesh licking ladies
While you and your mother
Were asleep in the trailer park
Thunderous sparks from the dark of the stadiums
The music and medicine you needed for comforting
So make all your fat fleshy fingers to moving
And pluck all your silly strings
And bend all your notes for me
Soft silly music is meaningful magical
The movements were beautiful
All in your ovaries
All of them milking with green fleshy flowers
While powerful pistons were sugary sweet machines
Smelling of semen all under the garden
Was all you were needing when you still believed in me

And I know they buried her body with others
Her sister and mother and 500 families
And will she remember me 50 years later
I wished I could save her in some sort of time machine
Know all your enemies
We know who are enemies are

Goldaline my dear
We will fold and freeze together
Far away from here
There is sun and spring and green forever
But now we move to feel
For ourselves inside some stranger's stomach
Place your body here
Let your skin begin to blend itself with mine

PM if ya wanna me Yousendit to ya, grant. It's a killer song, if ya haven't heard it.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

18:52 / 13.10.07

Why "Le Moribond?"

(a)Jacques Brel was, for millions, sex on legs. He epitomized the "French people can be as photo-ugly as hell but still tear-your-clothes-off awesome." And he was Belgian, to boot!

(b)The song is brilliantly written; a sarcastic farewell from a dying man to the friend who betrayed him, the priest who scorned him, and the lover who spurned him. All couched in acid pleasantries.

(c)Terry Jacks totally boosted it for "Seasons in the Sun," but turned the scathing sentiment into mawkish pandering. The song, though, freaks people out because it's an awesome French guy singing something instead of a weird man-child squeaking at you.

Live the Brel. Love the Brel.

There are also subtitled versions but this is a better performance.

If you're a huge Seasons in the Sun fan, this is possibly the best version of the song known to man. It has the most upbeat ending, at any rate. Listen to it all the way through. It's very rewarding.

22:04 / 13.10.07

Ah, about Kim Richey; I wanted to post a youtube link, but by god the song seems to get overlaid in every 'emotional' mashup of tv shows. It's uncanny. You can blame Joss Whedon - should you be partial to doing so - for using it over the end of, I believe, "Shells", towards the end of Angel's fifth season. Lyrics;

Well, it's not hard to see
Anyone who looks at me
Knows I am just a rolling stone
Never landing anyplace to call my own
To call my own

Well, it seems like so long ago
But it really ain't you know
I started out a crazy kid
Miracle I made it through the things I did
The things I did

Someday I'll go where there ain't no rain or snow
‘Til then, I travel alone
And I make my bed with the stars above my head
And dream of a place called home

I had a chance to settle down
Get a job and live in town
Work in some old factory
I never liked the foreman standing over me
Over me

Oh I’d rather walk a winding road
Rather know the things I know
See the world with my own eyes
No regrets, no looking back, no goodbyes
No goodbyes

Someday I'll go where there ain't no rain or snow
‘Til then, I travel alone
And I make my bed with the stars above my head
And I dream of a place called home

It's as much a travelling song as anything, but the chorus is one of the best folk/pop references to death I can think of. (I know others, but they're not coming to mind right now.) I'll try and set up a yousendit link soonest.

22:05 / 13.10.07

P.s. Have you considered collating the responses, zipping them up into a teenytiny file and sharing the result?

Just a thought, like.

22:48 / 13.10.07

Check this out. It's an amazing collection. (The "Nick Cave & Enya" is actually a Finnish band named HIM.

It's always the original for me I'm afraid; you can't improve on perfection. BOC forever!

Anyway, a few yousendits of tracks I mentioned earlier on;

Emmy-Lou Harris - Wayfaring Stranger: link

And by way of comparison, here's my old band Free Witch stumbling through it: link

And, slightly more joyfully, here's H.P. Lovecraft (the psyche band, not the writer, obviously) jamming the hell out of it in 1968: link

Here's Young People doing "Death Don't Have No Mercy": link

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Death To Everyone: link

n.b.: yousendit doesn't seem to be working out at the moment, so these are actually bigmailfile and thus only available for three days, annoyingly.

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