Random 10 for July 29, 2008

1. The Spongetones, “Every Night Is a Holiday”

2. Death Cab for Cutie, “The Sound of Settling”

Clever video, brilliant band. Never has melancholia and tragic compromise sounded so damned hooky.

3. Toad the Wet Sprocket, “Hey Bulldog”

4. Bruce Springsteen, “Racing in the Street”

If the Boss isn’t the greatest storyteller in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll, he is at least in the top five. One of his more somber ballads, “Racing in the Street” (captured here in a 1980 performance) is familiar Sprinsteen fodder, but that makes it no less heartwrenching. Choice lyric: “She just sits on the porch of her daddy’s house / But all her pretty dreams are torn / She stares off alone into the night / With the eyes of one who hates for just being born.” Raymond Chandler, meet car culture. Car culture, meet Raymond Chandler.