It says nothing to me about my life.

I'm trying three new experiments today. Firstly, I'm using bandwidth from my crusty ol' Geocities account to host today's songs. I pay extra for remote linking purposes, so in theory it should work. However, I know that Geocities overloads quickly and downloads tend to be a little slow, so you've been warned. Hopefully things will go smoothly, although I do have my doubts. I mean, stupid Yahoo rolled out its new 100 MB e-mail accounts today, and it's annoyingly slow and only seems to work intermittently. Who knows how that's going to affect its other services? Seriously, I'm GMail all the way, yo. Note to Yahoo: Beta tests are worthwhile.

Secondly, I'm updating from work. Actually, I've done that once or twice before, but today it's extra dead so I'm doing it again. This is worth mentioning only because I have no way of checking to test the links from here to see how quick or slow or dead they might be.

Thirdly, I'm posting a couple of reader requests. I'm not certain that's something I want to commit to doing long-term, but it just so happens that these songs happened to already be on my hard drive when requested, and I figure you can fight kismet such as that.

So, let's do it already.

Sardina "Me and My Arrow" (Harry Nilsson cover)
I'm not certain whether this is sad or cool, but I had never heard this song until Sardina covered it. (Who is Sardina?) The only Nilsson song of which I was aware in my childhood was "Coconut," which longtime readers heard Dannii Minogue mutilate back in March back before my blog was a blog. Aaaanyway, Father Tom wanted to hear it and I was happy to oblige.

The Business "Panic" (Smiths cover)
Reader Charlie says this is bar none his favorite cover, and he can't find it. Until now. This track comes from The World Still Won't Listen, a hardcore punk tribute to the Smiths that is pretty expertly described right here. (Sorry, it's so slow here that it's made me inexcusably lazy about writing.) I should defend this track, though, by saying that, at the very least, this band seems to actually like the Smiths enough to have included this cover on one of their own EPs, unlike many of the "yeah, I'd like to be on a tribute album for exposure" bands on this disc. Well, perhaps, more accurately, they like the message that DJs should be hanged. Whatever. The Business are definitely giving you some hardcore Oi! on this track. Guttural gutter punks indeed.

Related: Feel like hunting out a list of nearly all available covers of Smiths songs? Here's a little one-stop shopping for you. Sheesh. These crazy people on the Internet with their crazy obsessions. They're all sick in the head. Um, except me.

Supergrass "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition my Condition is In)" (Mickey Newbury cover—although most people are probably more familiar with The version by Willie Nelson or with Kenny Rogers' version, which was in The Big Lebowski)
This is my own request. I just got a hold of the long out-of-print, 1992 three-disc wonder, Ruby Trax: The NME's Roaring Forty. Okay, okay ... my computer just got a hold of the MP3s. Anyhow, if you can get past the fact that half of the covers on it are most probably on a continual loop as part of whatever psychological torture takes place at facilities like Guantanamo, the rest are pretty damned good. (Laze alert: See this spot-on review for an accurate summation.) This country-cum-psychedelic-garage take by the oft-effervescent Supergrass is my new "get ready for work in the morning" jam. Tip: Don't overanalyze the lyrics. Some things are so much better when they make absolutely no sense.

EDIT: I'm on crack. That Supergrass song isn't on that compilation at all. I knew as I was typing that up that the timeline seemed off. And I totally knew that it was a B-side to one of their singles. I was thinking of some other song that I meant to post. My apologies. My brain was erased by work boredom.

Love, Liza