{"id":2273,"date":"2004-09-20T16:56:43","date_gmt":"2004-09-20T20:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2004\/09\/20\/2273.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:46:42","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:46:42","slug":"kissoff-mix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2004\/09\/20\/kissoff-mix\/","title":{"rendered":"Kiss-Off mix"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

OK, so YHB has been noodling around with an idea of making a mix CD of Kiss-Off songs. It was almost a year ago when I first talked about<\/a> the kiss-off song. I’m still deciding what songs to put on and what won’t make the cut (not to mention putting them in a good order), so I thought I’d ask for some advice. Or what good is a blog, anyway?\n

I’m looking for about an hour of music, here, which given the length of some of these would make for about fifteen songs. A year ago I talked about two categories: the I’m-leaving-you song, and the I’m-glad-you-left-me song. I’ve tried to mix those up, here. The really obvious gap is songs with female vocals (and viewpoint), which is a result of my collection of music, I’m afraid. Anyway, here are some of the candidates:\n\n

“Lucky” by Jim's Big Ego, was the first song that got me thinking about all this, so I’m not likely to leave it off.\n
“Black Coffee in Bed” by Squeeze was the second song on the list, and it’s one of my favorite songs ever. “From the lips without passion\/To the lips with a kiss\/There's nothing of your love\/That I'll ever miss.” And you can dance to it.\n
“It's All Over Now”, almost certainly in the Dr. John\/Dirty Dozen Brass Band version. Yes, the Rolling Stones version is the classic, but dang. This is unbelievable. And this may be one of the absolute classic kiss-offs of the I’m-leaving-her category. It’s a Bobby (and Shirley) Womack tune, covered by everybody from the Dead to Panic.\n
“Lovable” is, I think, the best Elvis Costello kiss-off song. “It’s going around the town\/You’re so Lovable.” And, of course, it takes EC to call a girlfriend “lifelike”. Ooh, that’s cold.\n
The BoDeans get on the list with “Misery”; I like the touch that he’s called her a taxi. Oh, well, that’s not the only thing he calls her. “I’m gonna give you back the only thing you gave to me\/Misery!”\n
Is it a kiss-off if she hasn’t so much left him as killed him? The Jody Grind’s “Death of Zorba” is going on my list, although it clears the one-per-artist rule only because I’m leaving their cover of the Peter Gunn theme off for technical reasons. Now that’s<\/I> a kiss-off: “Bye...bye\/Bye...baby!\/This is the last time we meet\/on the street\/going your way\/So...long\/I’m...leaving\/Tomorrow I may be splittin’\/to Britain\/or Norway.”\n
“Don't Think Twice, It's All Right” in the Eric Clapton cover at the Bobfest. Nobody can sound as indignant as Clapton’s guitar; if I didn’t make a one-per-artist rule, I’d fill the thing with his blues. “Five Long Years” and “Before You Accuse Me”, at least.\n
“B.J. Don't Cry” by Moxy Früvous has the drawback of being in the third person, but the absolute triumph in the song (of love and illin’) can’t be denied.\n
Writing her name “Upside Down” is the worst insult Scruffy the Cat can ever give someone. At least I think it’s addressed to an ex. “All my friends will move off your side” is a nice touch, too.\n
“Regretting what I Said...” is, in fact, a musical apology, which is the opposite of the kiss-off, but then it’s Christine Lavin, so the song is the opposite of what it says it is anyway. “You thought I didn’t have a temper\/ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha surprise!”\n
I’ve picked the live post-Pogues “Fairy Tale of New York” off Shane MacGowan’s live album for the meta-joke that it’s a kiss-off to the Pogues and, in a drunken ranting sense, to his fans. Whoever is singing the girl’s part doesn’t seem to know all the words, but gets the line “You scumbag\/You maggot\/You cheap lousy faggot\/Merry Christmas your arse\/I pray Gd it’s our last” right.\n
XTC also gets ripped off by the one-per-artist rule. I’m inclining to “Me And The Wind” for its buoyant not to say celebratory spirit, but “Your Dictionary” deserves a spot, as does “Dear Madam Barnum” and “The Man who Murdered Love” just off the top of my head.\n
The beginning of “Fat” qualifies it: “I hope\/You got\/Fat”. It turns out, though, that, you know, he still loves her, the nerd. With the one-per-artist rule, it might be second to “Kiss-Off” even though you could argue the latter isn’t really a kiss-off song at all. But, you know, it’s called Kiss Off, and he forgot what eight was for.\n
“Just Because” is my Paul McCartney choice. I know, I know, the Elvis version is the canonical one. Well, tough. Paul’s is better. On the other hand, Paul is also singing on the Beatles’ “Another Girl”. Hmmm.\n
“Cruel to Be Kind” is a great Nick Lowe tune, although it isn’t quite a kiss-off song. He doesn’t quite leave her. But what a good song ... so, in or out?\n
“No Mercy for Swine” has the great line about getting over someone by getting onto someone else; it’s a deeply psychotic tune, like most of the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies’ best stuff.\n
“Don't Come Around Here No More” might not actually be a kiss-off song, as there are hardly any lyrics to figure out what Tom Petty is on about really.\n
“Don’t Let’s Start” is pretty obscure, like a lot of They Might Be Giants, but the line about how “I don’t get around how you get around” is pretty good.\n
“You Took My Breath Away”, and I want it back again. The Traveling Wilburys song, again, isn’t clearly a kiss-off song (as opposed to, say, a lovelorn song, a torch song, or a take-me-back song).\n
“Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Cryin’” might be better on a Jazz mix of these (more on this later) but that’s the whole Louis Jordan thing, isn’t it?\n
“Fountain of Youth” is a bit wistful for a kiss-off, and even the immortal line “I was your fountain of youth\/And you were my mountain of truth\/But you have drunk me dry and I'm afraid of heights” may not make up for the fact that whichever Nield is singing at the moment hasn’t left him yet<\/I>. Gi-irl!\n
“Everybody Loves Me, Baby” is another one where Don McLean’s contempt is mixed with the clear sense that he’d take her back in a minute. Which is, of course, perfectly traditional.\n\n

Well, that’s a start. All advice welcome. Oh, and I’ve restricted myself to rock songs to make it easier to mix them; an hour of jazz would start off with “Goody Goody” and have “I Cried for You” (now it’s your turn), “Meet Me at No Special Place” (and I’ll be there at no particular time), and probably “Most Gentlemen Don’t Like Love”. Lots of others to choose from, particularly if I am willing to include showtunes. Does the “Cell Block Tango” from Chicago count as a kiss-off?\n

                            ,
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK, so YHB has been noodling around with an idea of making a mix CD of Kiss-Off songs. It was almost a year ago when I first talked about the kiss-off song. I\u2019m still deciding what songs to put on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[200],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-music-music"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17127,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273\/revisions\/17127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}