LE FEEL INTERNACIONALE, or, HOW TO SAVE THE YOUTH OF AMERICA
Bubbles, Inc. put this tape together in late October, 2007. Don't turn away from the benevolent specters of sweets and sunshine tapping you towards the light. If you feel afraid: love one another; binge on this. Below are his retrospective December thoughts.
Download LE FEEL INTERNACIONALE mixtape
1. The Silvertones - Smile (alt mix)
I once spent most Sunday mornings semiconscious listening to WLIB 1190 AM in New York. They would play so many beautiful songs. 1190 AM is no longer the voice of Liberia and is now a positve rap and gospel station. Chris and I drove around Chelsea recently in a rented minivan listening to a dude beatbox about god and we weren't feeling it.
2. Neil Young and The Shocking Pinks - Wondering
In a short span of days I saw the video for this song and saw the record used at
Philadelphia Record Exchange. That was so many years ago yet I haven't ever forgot this song. I love that Neil Young has songs like this one and those off of Trans to counterbalance all of the freedom rock.
3. The Carpenters - Please Mr. Postman
Will doesn't like this song but I do. It reminds me of rollerskating except I dont know how to rollerskate. so it reminds me of watching pretty girls rollerskate, and fountain soda.
4. Sandie Shaw - Today
As beautiful as Sandie Shaw is in photos she is even more striking on film. The way her arms rise and fall and the tilt of her head with the lilt of her voice is one of the greatest British treasures.
5. Laura Nyro - Save The Country
I discovered Laura Nyro with friends trying to drive from 16th and Walnut to the bus station at 10th and Filbert at rush hour in less than five minutes - we failed. However I got to hear more than one song and got a free record later. Further research revealed that I had known Laura all along as one of my favorite childhood groups was the Fifth Dimension and she wrote their best known songs. This song is of the type she would write for them. How to make the world right in song.
6. Todd Rundgren - Love is the Answer
If any American Idol contestant knew anything about music they would cover this song. This song is flawless.
7. The Dells - I Can Sing a Rainbow (Love is Blue)
The Dells recorded for the late great Philly label Cameo Parkway and I get a special
thrill when this song begins because 'I Can Sing a Rainbow' was the Captain Noah theme. Captain Noah was a local children's show I enjoyed quite a bit in my youth. In my 20's I dated a young lady who collected every version of 'Love is Blue' which apparently gives 'Yesterday' a run in the number of covers ever recorded.
8. Shocking Blue - Rock In The Sea
This song should be be taught in schools and sung by generations. This song is how I feel and how many people I love feel. It is possibly the best song by one of the most
underrated bands in rock music history. Shocking Blue is in my top 5 of all-time bands. The others are The Fall, Television Personalities, The Bee Gees, and Blondie. 'Rock In The Sea' is the reason this mix is on this website.
9. The Bangles - Going Down to Liverpool
The video for this song is great, Leonard Nimoy directed it and also appears in it as the Bangles' driver. at one point he turns off the car stereo that is playing this song and the Bangles give him a dirty look in the mirror, reach over the seat, and click the song back on. They eventually get out of the car in a tunnel. Susanna Hoffs puts lipstick on in the car's reflection and then they skip over a puddle to a bath of red light. As they walk to it Leonard Nimoy is watching from the driver's seat tapping his hand on the steering wheel. The film cuts to the Bangles playing their instruments in the red light and it's a Liverpool twist and shout to the end.
10. Shop Assistants - All That Ever Mattered
When I first heard Shop Assistants I finally understood all of those DC bands like Velocity Girl and Black Tambourine. It all comes from somewhere else and takes
time to form again after record swaps, drugs, alcohol and the swapping of lovers.
11. Psychic TV - Godstar
Their only real hit and my favorite song of theirs. It makes sense though, I love songs that run up the charts. TV Personalities covered it on the 'Don't Cry Baby It's Only a Movie' EP.
12. Siousxie and The Banshees - Christine
Madonna stole her look first, then Courtney Love and now Karen O. When I was around 13 I got to the front of the stage and ran my hand up her leg. I should have
been beat up by many for doing that - probably foremost by her, but I was absolutely enthralled and so in love. It also helped that I was so short I didn't really get to far up her leg.
13. Shocking Blue - Seven is a Number in Magic
14. Shocking Blue - Hello Darkness
15. The beautiful Miss Marianne Faithfull - I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
My dreamgirl of the 1960's. This is a Dylan cover I believe. Mick Jagger reportedly left her because she attempted suicide after Brian Jones died. If she had been my girlfriend I would have picked her up in my arms and softly sung her back to health.
16. The Poppy Family - I Want You To Love Me
I like a lot of the Poppy Family but I like this song in particular because it has this
public broadcasting sound to it. In the beginning the horns sound like they are followed by streaming lines of colored animation. The hook in this song is so good.
17. The Pogues with Cait O'Riordan - I'm a Man You Don't Meet Everyday
I have liked the Pogues for a long time; a neighbor of mine had a brother who worked for Island so I got a stack of records one year - included was the Pogues' 'Peace and Love' LP. In art school Trevor and I used to listen to 'Rum, Sodomy and the Lash' and this was my favorite song on it. When I read the liner notes I realized I had met Cait O'Riordan at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I was working at the
Cézanne exhibit and I saw Elvis Costello standing in a houndstooth jacket, black glasses and hat all by himself leaning against the wall. He had played the night before at the Mann Music Center which I knew because my coworker Bethany had asked if I wanted to go but I declined. She had called out the next day so I asked Elvis for an autograph for myself and my friend. I explained why she wasn't there.
I bashfully admitted I hadn't gone to the show. Elvis was waiting for his wife at the time (Cait O'Riordan) who was still in the exhibit. We smalltalked a bit, she came out, she smiled briefly, then they held hands and bade me farewell.
18. Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want - Dream Academy
This is the song from the part of Ferris Bueller's Day Off where they go to the Art Institute of Chicago.
19. Help Save The Youth of America - Billy Bragg
(what he said)
Help save the youth of America
Help save them from themselves
Help save the suntanned surfer boys
And the Californian girls
When the lights go out in the rest of the World
What do our cousins say
They're playing in the sun and having fun, fun, fun
Till Daddy takes the gun away
From the Big Church to the Big River
And out to the Shining Sea
This is the Land of Opportunity
And there's a Monkey Trial on TV
A nation with their freezers full
Are dancing in their seats
While outside another nation
Is sleeping in the streets
Don't tell me the old, old story
Tell me the truth this time
Is the Man in the Mask or the Indian
An enemy or a friend of mine
Help save the youth of America
Help save the youth of the world
Help save the boys in uniform
Their mothers and their faithful girls
Listen to the voice of the soldier
Down in the killing zone
Talking about the cost of living
And the price of bringing him home
They're already shipping the body bags
Down below the Rio Grande
But you can fight for democracy at home
And not in some foreign land
And the fate of the great United States
Is entwined in the fate of us all
And the incident at Chernobyl proves
The world we live in is very small
And the cities of Europe have burned before
And they may yet burn again
And if they do I hope you understand
That Washington will burn with them
Omaha will burn with them
Los Alamos will burn with them
20. Boomtown Rats - Joey's on The Street Again
As much as I love miming and dancing to it, this is the song that Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band were born to play. I'm sure Bob Geldof was ripping them off when he wrote this song. This song has three great parts and if the Boss and the E Street Band recorded this right now they would have a top ten hit.
21. Todd Rundgren - Le Feel Internacionale
BONUS TRACK Guided By Voices - A Salty Salute
I was always more of a Pavement fan but then one year on my birthday Guided By Voices played the TLA. They were billed as the opening act and Pavement was the
headliner. GBV came out and played a close to three hour set including a song where current chart topper Kim Deal came out to sing a song with them. They had the cooler full of Bud bottles on stage, Bob did windmills, Mitch Mitchell wore a pirate shirt. I was up in the balcony to the right of the stage cheering and loving it all. Pavement came on later and whimpered and sighed and I never listened to them
again.
BONUS TRACK Guided By Voices - The Best of Jill Hives
BONUS TRACK The Who - Baba O'Riley
When you are younger you can't help but get in these impossible arguments about canceling bands out and justifying the obsession you have with your current favorite. I have tried to tone that aspect of my personality down as I have gotten older. That being said I still have my special favorites and I still think a lot of other people have no idea what is good music. I never really understood what made people say Led Zeppelin was better than The Who. I will always stand with a band that writes a song as powerful as 'Baba O'Riley', which is about real people, real kids, real chords, real stomping, and real streets, not the mythical ramparts of Mordor.