Spitball Army

This week I planted my first vegetable garden ever and, while doing so, took several precautions against the native fauna – squirrels, chipmunks, birds, a few feral cats – that use my backyard for their playground: chicken wire under the raised beds, marigolds planted alongside the tomatoes, red pepper flakes scattered atop the soil.  So, naturally, I’ve been thinking about critters.  Hence, this topical playlist.  I stopped short of adding any songs by Alvin, Simon & Theodore, but I was undoubtedly feeling a touch of the whimsy when I put this program together.

Approximate playing time: 78 minutes.

1. Noel Coward  “Any Little Fish”  (1932)
2. Ry Cooder  “Cat and Mouse”  (2007)
3. Grandaddy  “What Happened…”  (2006)
4. The Fratellis  “Doginabag”  (2007)
5. The Beatles  “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey”  (1968)
6. Ed Harcourt  “Alligator Boy”  (2005)
7. Jack Scott  “Grizzly Bear”  (1962)
8. Elvis Costello  “The Monkey”  (2004)
9. Sid King & the Five Strings  “Purr Kitty Purr”  (1955)
10. The Monkees  “Peter Percival Patterson’s Pet Pig Porky”  (1967)
11. Honk  “Dog at Your Door”  (1974)
12. Catie Curtis  “The Wolf”  (1996)
13. Elton John  “Skyline Pigeon”  (1973)
14. The Magnetic Fields  “A Chicken with Its Head Cut Off”  (1999)
15. Jon Rauhouse  “Cartoon Chicken”  (2002)
16. Coyle and Sharpe  “Musical Animals”  (1965)
17. Laurie Anderson with Peter Gabriel  “Excellent Birds”  (1983)
18. Simon & Garfunkel  “At the Zoo”  (1968)
19. April Stevens  “Teach Me Tiger”  (1959)
20. “Baa Ram Ewe”  from the Babe soundtrack  (1995)
21. Ella Fitzgerald  “Someone to Watch Over Me”  (1959)
22. Laura Nyro  “Animal Grace”  (1995)
23. Dan Fogelberg  “Changing Horses”  (1974)
24. Linda Ronstadt  “The Dolphins”  (1969)
25. Donovan  “The Tinker and the Crab”  (1967)
26. Bill Callahan  “The Wind and the Dove”  (2009)
27. Ella Mae Morse  “Cow-Cow Boogie”  (1942)

[audio:Fred_FM_playlist_042510.mp3]
Fred FM playlist (25 April 2010)

Some notes on the songs:

• I am fully aware that the titular monkey in the Beatles song isn’t necessarily an animal (it certainly isn’t in my interpretation of the lyrics), but, hey.
• Quite a tough decision it was, choosing Linda Ronstadt’s version of “The Dolphins” over the one by Fred Neil, who wrote it.  But, in deference to what I interpreted as a request from Mr. Pinto last week, I went with the Linda version.  Fred Neil’s is really great, and I highly recommend searching it out, if you like the song.  There will definitely be some Fred Neil music in a future playlist.
• Ry Cooder’s “Cat and Mouse” is part of a song cycle about a Proletariat cat who befriends a Wobbly Mouse.  The song is a heartwarming tale of friendship and inter-species tolerance.  It is some of Ry’s most imaginative work.
• “Someone to Watch Over Me” = “I’m a little lamb who’s lost in the wood.”
• What happened to the fambly cat?

And here’s a post I scribbled a little while back about another dog song: “Jenny” by the band Chicago: click here to read it.