When It All Goes Wrong, Vol. 1
Posted on April 20th, 2007 by Josh Hathaway
Misery loves company, but what do you do when the reason you’re miserable is because you’re alone? In my case, I turned to my CD collection.
These days, I’m happily married but still occasionally miserable. Now I commiserate with my iPod. We all have those days where we want to wallow in self-pity. Some of us might be a bit more prone to it than others. Should you find yourself in that condition, here’s some company.
| Song Title | Artist | Buy it on iTunes |
| "Everyone Else is Evolving" | Chappaquiddick Skyline |  |
| "These Four Walls" | Shawn Colvin | |
| "When Your Number Isn’t Up" | Mark Lanegan | |
| "Waltz #1" | Elliott Smith | |
| "Going Nowhere" | Oasis | |
| "A Long December" | Counting Crows | |
| "Dear Someone" | Gillian Welch | |
| "Empire State" | Guster | |
| "Wonderwall" | Ryan Adams | |
| "Prince Valium" | Joe Pernice | |
A few liner notes for these songs:
- “Everyone Else is Evolving”: Can you think of a better way to start a pity party playlist than with the opening line, “I hate my life?” I couldn’t either. This is a great song with an aching vocal and beautiful melody.
- “These Four Walls”: From “I hate my life” to “I’m gonna die in these four walls.” Shawn Colvin flies under the radar, but she’s consistently excellent.
- “When Your Number Isn’t Up”: I could blockquote the lyrics to the entire song because they are fantastically morbid and morose, delivered by one of the great voices in rock.
- “Waltz #1″: Some people would say you could pick just about any Elliott Smith song for a list like this. There’s some truth in that, and you should probably expect to see him on Volume 2. “I wish I’d never seen your face…” has never been delivered with a more delicate touch, but it’s still the same sentiment.
- “Going Nowhere”: You Oasis-bashers can just shut up. TWTWIM and I love this song. It’s a great song for daydreaming about a different life. It’s a bit of a Bacharach homage from an instrumental perspective and features an interesting guitar lead from Noel, which is rare.
- “A Long December”: There may be reason to believe this year will be better than the last, but it’s still a lot of oyster but no pearls. Perhaps the last great song Adam Duritz wrote.
- “Dear Someone”: I’ve written about this song before, and don’t have much to add other than to say it is timeless and will continue to devastate listeners for all time.
- “Empire State”: You didn’t really think there wouldn’t be any Guster, did you? A lovely little slice of melancholy.
- “Wonderwall”: I’m cheating with these next two. This is another Oasis song, but presented instead by Ryan Adams. Adams has some contenders for this kind of list in his own right, but here he took a sad song and made it better. Sort of. I love this performance.
- “Prince Valium”: It’s Joe Pernice again, but under a different name. “Guess a little was a little too much to ask you for” is one of the greatest, loveliest middle finger extensions in pop music history.
Filed under: Tags: Elliott Smith, Gillian Welch, Guster, Joe Pernice, Let's Talk About My iPod, Mark Lanegan, Oasis, The Concept Album Mix Tape
