FRIDAY RANDOM TEN

Hooray! It’s Friday, time to see what the Little White Choon Box is spewing forth in its happily randomized manner.

We’re planning on a relatively quiet weekend...quiet, that is, compared to the orgy of Cookin’ ’n’ Eatin’ that will be occupying us for the greater part of next weekend. Activity-wise, the big item will be Sunday afternoon, when we go to see a performance of “Doctor Atomic,” the (sorta) new Modern Opera by John Adams, the twisted genius who brought us “Nixon in China.” Gotta love it: an opera about the first atomic bomb test, an opera that will help immortalize the year 2008 as Elisson’s Year of the Bomb.

Meanwhile, what’s playing today?

1. Flamenco Sketches (Alternate Take) - Miles Davis
   
   
2. The Mikado, Act I: As Some Day It May Happen - D’Oyly Carte Opera Company
   
   
3. Vessels - Philip Glass
   
   
4. And So I Know - Stone Temple Pilots
   
   
5. Taxman - The Beatles
   
   
6. Jackson Cannery - Ben Folds Five
   
   The first piece of Ben Folds music I ever heard. I was browsing in a Borders store in Sweat City, heard this tune, and immediately bought the disc. It was 1995.
   
   
7. Mean Ol’ World - Professor Longhair
   
   
8. Like Spinning Plates - Radiohead
   
   
9. Hallelujah (live acoustic) - Sheryl Crow
   
   
10. God’s Song - Randy Newman
    
    From “Sail Away,” possibly Newman’s finest album, this song is cynical, tragic...and bitterly humorous.
    
    Cain slew Abel, Seth knew not why
    For if the children of Israel were to multiply
    Why must any of the children die?
    So he asked the Lord
    And the Lord said:
    
    “Man means nothing: he means less to me
    Than the lowliest cactus flower
    Or the humblest yucca tree
    He chases round this desert
    ’Cause he thinks that’s where I’ll be
    That's why I love mankind
    
    “I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee
    From the squalor and the filth and the misery
    How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me
    That’s why I love mankind”
    
    The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
    The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
    They picked their four greatest priests
    And they began to speak
    They said, “Lord, a plague is on the world
    Lord, no man is free
    The temples that we built to you
    Have tumbled into the sea
    Lord, if you won’t take care of us
    Won’t you please, please let us be?"
    And the Lord said
    And the Lord said
    
    “I burn down your cities - how blind you must be
    I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
    You all must be crazy to put your faith in me
    That’s why I love mankind
    You really need me
    That’s why I love mankind”
    
    

It’s Friday. What are you listening to?