Waking Up and Getting Growing

There are a few snow showers still falling around here, so that means it has been snowing here continuously since Tuesday morning. We have a little less than 4 feet of snow on the ground. Which makes it hard for me to remember that spring is nearly here - in fact it has been warm through the whole storm, which makes everything heavier and wetter, but is a sign of hope (soon we'll be rid of this white stuff and get floods and six inch mud...woohoo.)

In the face of this, I need some inspiring music for spring. One of my favorite goof-off games is the combining of good music on related themes into arrangements that have a particular synesthesia - so along with my Long Emergency Mix (I'm particularly fond of the way Macy Gray's ""It Ain't the Money" merges seamlessly into Dolly Parton's "Nine to Five" - I like a good ironic musical effect), I need a good agrarian mix with lots of energizing songs about food, gardens and farms. I have some ideas, listed below, but I'm inviting my readership to help put together a really good album.

The rules. 1. Not too much hippy music. No offense to them that like it, but painfully sincere folkie stuff is permissable in very small doses, but only surrounded by things that are less sincere. 2. Symmetry and synthesis is the name of the game, and it is most fun if you can put things side by side that don't ordinarily go together. 3. Country music is fine, but it can't be all country. 4. Points if it is lovely or funny.

Here's a couple of songs to start you off - I'll list the final combinations when I get around to it, and those whose songs are included will be credited and get to be momentarily famous, or as famous as anyone gets around here ;-).

Ok, some starter stuff:

First, Genesis, back when it was musically interesting, had Peter Gabriel and before you had to look at the reflections off of Phil Collins' head. Gotta love "The Return of the Giant Hogweed":

On a very different musical note, Hank Williams Jr singing about the Farm. It sounds just like all Hank Williams Jr. songs, but hey, gotta enjoy that!

For a more traditional and old fashioned form of country music, I found this "Green Beans in the Garden" by The West Girls, who are just getting started - it is very sweet:

Finally, from the amazing album "Red Hot and Blue" David Byrne performs Cole Porter's "Don't Fence Me In"

More to come as I think 'em up. Please leave your suggestions!

Sharon