It’s hard to believe that this will be the eleventh Play Playlist List. Or the twelfth. I’m not sure, really, which makes it even harder to believe. When last we met, I was musing on the choices for the Noises Off Mix; I was toying with the structural link: half a dozen songs are Act One, covers of those same songs in the second Act One, and different covers of the same songs in the third Act One. That seemed like a good idea, but not terribly helpful in picking the half-dozen songs, was it?
Then, in screwing around trying to come up with a mix worth of songs about sardines or songs about bags, one of my favorite lines came to mind. This is near the beginning, when Garry is complaining about the incredibly complicated blocking and prop handling. It’s not in the earlier version of the play, where Garry just says something like: “We’re busting our guts up here, Lloyd, and, I mean, you know, Christ!” In this one, Lloyd is pressing Garry to articulate his complaint and he says: “I’m just saying. Words. Doors. Bags. Boxes. Sardines. Us. I’ve made my point?”
So. Words. Doors. Bags. Boxes. Sardines. Us. Six songs. That’s half a dozen songs, right? And enough for Act One of the mix.
- Words: The BeeGees, of course, “Words”. I could go with the Beatles’ “The Word”, but that doesn’t seem as funny to me. Also, BeeGees! On the other hand, I’m open for suggestions.
- Doors: This is the tough one. I could of course do “Light My Fire” by the Doors. Or I could try to find two covers of “Open the Door, Richard” by Louis Jordan. There are certainly plenty of covers of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”, which makes it attractive, but on the other hand, it’s a song about dying, innit? Not sure I want a song about dying on this playlist.
- Bags: I’m going with the Hardest Working Man in Show Business and “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”. Aren’t I? I mean, what, P.I.L.’s “Bags”? You think there are two covers of that somewhere worth finding?
- Boxes: Well, we were talking about the late Pete Seeger the other day, which leads me of course to “Little Boxes”, which of course has a million billion covers. So we’re probably OK there.
- Sardines: Radiohead and “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box”. Seriously. There’s a brilliant Punch Brothers cover, and a jazz band version and I have barely started looking. Plus, how many songs are there about sardines?
- Us: This turned out to be the hard one. There’s a Sixpence None the Richer song. There’s a Regina Spektor song. There’s a Drake song. I don’t particularly like any of them. And the other us songs that come to mind (“Spies Like Us” “Just the Two of Us”) don’t really work. Sir Paul McCartney has a new song called “Save Us”, but nobody will have covered it yet.
Oops! Update: I asked some old high-school buddies about Us and they came up with Stevie Wonder’s “Heaven Help Us All”. I’m still looking at covers, but this one has a strong case. Yeah, that’s Mama Cass. And there’s The Housemartins, for the third act. Or maybe Tom Jones doing a medley with the completely appropriate “I Can’t Stand Up (for falling down)”. So that’s all right, d’y’see?
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
Well, for doors, there’s Pete Townshend’s “Let My Love Open the Door,” which is cheery enough (though pure pop) and has been covered quite a bit, though I don’t know how many of the covers have been recorded.
Peter Gabriel has a whole album called Us, if you like that sort of thing.
Doors: I keep hearing “I hear you knocking but you can’t come in.” Don’t know if that helps any, mind.
Nao–Are you talking about this Smiley Lewish song? Which is covered by Dave Edmunds and Wynonna and evidently Clifton Chenier, although I can’t find it.
Yep. That’s the one. Wikipedia says there’s a bunch of covers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Hear_You_Knocking).