Song of the Day: Roxy Music - Love Is the Drug

I have no idea how certain songs get stuck in my head - the subconscious is a weird and wonderful place. Obviously you sometimes hear a song in the grocery store or some other place where your mind is elsewhere, and you don't realize it, but later you're whistling the song and wondering where it came from.

This morning I woke up with two songs in my head - "Where the Saints Go Marching" (is that what it's called?) and "Love Is the Drug." The former was actually the version sung by none other than Homer Simpson, and I haven't heard it in years (you can listen here). The latter I also haven't heard in years, but I can guess how I arrived at it.

A few weeks ago, Chuck Klosterman wrote a "second-by-second analysis of Edgar Winter's finest nine minutes" on Grantland.com. The clip was a favorite of mine, as it was from The Old Grey Whistle Test, one of the finest music DVDs in my collection. And though I've never been a huge fan of the band, Roxy Music is also featured in the DVD, and it's a weird and inspired performance (watch it here).

So that's how I somehow arrived at "Love Is the Drug," probably one of their better known songs. In looking for it, I noticed a song called "2HB," which I featured on the blog before. However, the version I played is from the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack, with an all-star band featuring Thom Yorke on vocals, and I had no idea it was a Roxy Music song. I have Siren on vinyl, but I've listened to it maybe once - perhaps it's time to go back and see what I've been missing.

Song of the Day: Venus in Furs - 2HB

The Velvet Goldmine was a fictionalized look at glam rock in the '70s, with a soundtrack that mixed current (in 1998) artists with those who were on the scene (it also includes two actors singing classic songs, but let's skip that part). Despite a few duds, the soundtrack is surprisingly solid, particularly from the very un-glam Grant Lee Buffalo. But perhaps the most intriguing band on the soundtrack was Venus in Furs, which consisted of Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead. Considering this song was probably completed around the same time or right after OK Computer (and with members of other bands), it's surprising that there are actually quite a few Kid A/Amnesiac elements to it.

Song of the Day: Brian Eno - Needles in the Camel's Eye

Brian Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets was recently being mentioned by a number of bloggers that I read (@aquadrunkard, @mattpicasso, @daverawkblog), which made me realize that "Needles in the Camel's Eye" would be an excellent song of the day. I first heard this song on the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack and had no idea who it was, but I didn't think it would turn out to be Brian Eno.

Brian Eno's done everything - solo work and Roxy Music, plus producing '80s U2 and Talking Heads albums - and while he's often called an "ambient" artist, this song is about as glam rock as it gets.  Interestingly, his other contribution to the VG soundtrack is also a song from this album, except that the soundtrack version is sung by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. 

Needles In The Camel's Eye - B...