Monday, March 16, 2020

Wash Your Hands To This Townes Van Zandt Song That Is Still Far Less Depressing Than Reality

The late Texas country singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt knew how to write a depressing song. Few fit the bill better than his classic "Waitin' Round To Die", which despite laying bare a life of pain and suffering with no point or direction before "finding a friend at last" in Opioid dependence, is STILL heaps cheerier than the actual reality around you as major Western governments appear to happily sacrifice vulnerable sections of their populations instead of mobilising the huge resources required to confront an unprecedented crisis.

And that's just the climate situation.

So as you wash your hands in a bid to slow the spread of coronavirus so we can enjoy the last handful of years left before climate change causing civioisation to collapse once and for all, why not cheer yourself up by humming this ditty that is `000 times happier than the real world. Oh to have an empty future of alienation and pain instad of... what is happening and will get worse.

Listen on YouTube / Spotify


Sunday, March 15, 2020

7 Jason Isbell Songs To Wash Your Hands To. Song 6 Might Be Too Dark But What Do You Expect, It's Jason Isbell

It seems these days have to care about personal hygeine, which comes as a shock to a 42-year-old man. But apparently we must do crazy shit like wash our hands thoroughly, and to help sections of various songs have been suggested to sing.

Well we might as well use this terrifying global crisis of uncertain danger to civilisation to highlight the really good lyric writers out there, the highest quality story tellers operating in the singer/songwriter world.

With the help of the auto-generated washyourlyrics.com, I produced my first with the greatest of them all with my post, The 7 Tom Waits Songs To Wash Your Hands To So We Don't All Die In An Apocalypse Like In Song Number 6. It was wildly succesful and is now being used in health promotion right across the globe.

Now it is the turn of Jason Isbell, the greatest lyricsts so far in the 21st century and the way this century is going there might be much time for him to be beaten. (Unless I get too bored with this, next up will be Lucinda Williams.)

The list starts with the first song of Isbell's that was recorded, which was released with the Drive By Truckers. "Decoration Day" is the ultimate song about a surprisingly recent bloody fued in Alabama that is also a true story to which the songwriter has some family connections. It's a tough field to top but Isbell manages it easily with a truly insane, tragic andcomplicated story. Then there's song 6 which is maybe too dark given the potentially deadly virus causing havock around the world, but it is Jason Isbell so what do you expect.

I've included links to listen to the songs so you can pick up the melody. You can buy his music and merch here. Don't thank me, just buy me a beer sometime, maybe when the Apocalypse has passed.
























Saturday, March 14, 2020

The 7 Tom Waits Songs To Wash Your Hands To So We Don't All Die In An Apocalypse Like In Song Number 6

This COVID-19 thing is serious. The stakes are so high, if major sporting events keep getting cancelled, the world's men are going to be left with nothing to talk about but their feelings.

No one is safe, not even leading politicians. Australia's home affairs minister and renowned Dath Vader enthusiast Peter Dutton has tested positive. This has prompted widespread mocking and uncontrollable laughter, so I want to make it absolutely clear that, personally, I would NEVER say anything about Peter Dutton that I wouldn't ALSO say about Adolf Hitler.

Some people have suggested this shows Dutton doesn't wash his hands, which is true is extra unhygenic given all that blood on them from innocent refugees. In his defence, there is just isn't the hand sanitser in the world required to get them clean.

To make things worse, and I hope I am wrong but the signs are worrying, it appears, and this might be alarmist... but it appears that the president of the wealtiest nation on Earth where the virus is spreading rapidly and whose action will help determine the fate of the world ...  and look I could be biased as he isn't in the top 10 of my favourite politicians or even supervillains... but it appears... he might be a bit of a dickhead.

(That at least doesn't appear to be the case with Australia's prime minister, as we already know without a doubt from painful experience that he's a dickhead you'd not want anywhere near anything vaguely resembling power during a crisis.)

Unlike climate change, where you can recycle forever and turn off lights in your overpriced apartment and catch public transport on the rare days it runs properly but we'd still be in the midst of a rapidly evolving ecoholocaust, at least with a virus there is something everyone can do to... if not help at least not actively make things worse.

You can wash your hands.

Now many children and men aren't known for being the best hand cleaners. Many men right now are  just waiting impatiently for the crisis to pass so they can go back to vaguely flicking their hands at a basin after spraying them with urine in the toilets of an unsanitary pub.

That's why there is a great educational poster that offers a guide to washing your hands that comes with suggested song lyrics to sing to yourself to make sure you take 30 seconds.

And if there is a man for apocalyptic times, it's Tom Waits. The greatest living songwriter has been about this shit since forever PLUS he has the best lyrics so it is appropriate to take that "put the song of your choice in and a handwashing poster will be automatically generated with its opening lines" site and some Tom Waits lyrics to it.

Here are 7 great Tom Waits songs to sing while washing your hands, with links to the song so if you don't know the tune. If we all wash our hands we might avoid the total Apocalypse that wipes out humanity depicted in Song 6 until the next bushfire season at least!

The list starts with a happy, upbeat track about new love and features a super catchy melody and running all the way through to "forget it, we are all going to die" at the end. Happy washing!