Sunday, May 13, 2007

No, I would not give you false hope.

Happy Mother's Day to all you crazy moms reading. As promised, here are a few mom-themed tracks. I barely managed to post this in a timely fashion, but am proud that I have. Now if I can get it completed before the Survivor finale, we'll all win! That means I can only give comments on a few tracks—which, let's face it, are always more about me than the songs anyhow—so I'm sure you'll live.

Sadly, most songs about or referencing mothers or mamas or moms are not always the most sentimental or forgiving, and I apologize for that. Still, I think I managed to find a decent balance. Sure, it was difficult to narrow it down so that only one track mentions a desire to kill a mother and have sex with her corpse, but somehow I did.

  • Dana & Karen Kletter "Your Mother Wants to Know" (Scrawl cover)
    I've previously mentioned my former Scrawl obsession, and this song is the one that really sealed the deal for me. I was so excited to learn that it's been covered, and I think this version adds a new dimension to it. The original, obviously, delivers the same message lyrically, but does so with a jaded tone I so related to at the time I first heard it. Not that the delivery can't be bitter AND sentimental, of course, but this cover makes me feel sadder for the mother than the protagonist, and the original does the opposite.

  • Bongwater "Julia" (Beatles cover)
    John Lennon loved his mom. When he wrote this, anyhow.

  • Neutral Milk Hotel feat. Chris Knox "Mother" (John Lennon cover)
    As you might imagine, it gets pretty screamy at the end. Be prepared to turn the volume down a bit unless you're into that.

  • Old 97's "Mama Tried" (Merle Haggard cover)
    Speaking of mothers and Merle Haggard, when I was about 8-10 years old, my mother took me to a Merle Haggard concert at the Holiday Star Plaza. During the intermission (weird that there was an intermission at a concert), an old woman passed out on the floor and started vomiting, which mildly traumatized me. I could think of nothing else for the duration of the show. Not even during "Okie from Muskogee."

  • Pioneers "Mother and Child Reunion" (Paul Simon cover)
    I'm not a big reggae fan, which is a shame considering the multitudes of reggae covers that exist. This track, however, makes me very happy.

  • The Section Quartet "I Wanna Get A Mohawk (But Mom Won't Let Me Get One)" (AFI cover)
    Sometimes mothers are right, kid.

  • Stone 588 "Dream for Mother" (Christian Death cover)
    The aforementioned sexist, matricidal, necrophiliac Mother's Day classic.

  • The Hydes "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby (Standing in the Shadow)?" (Rolling Stones cover)

  • Satirine "Mama's Boy" (Ramones cover)

  • Bouncing Souls "Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight?" (Misfits cover)

  • Glen Meadmore "There's No One Like Mother to Me" (Carter Family cover)

  • Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen "Your Mother Should Know" (Beatles cover)
     
  • 2 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    What, no Japanese/Swedish/ska version of "Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys"? I'm brokenhearted....

    Divinyl said...

    Mother and Child Reunion isn't actually anything to do with mothers you know...its about a Chinese meal that contains both chicken and egg! Just thought I'd let you know :o)