Spitball Army

When asked – and sometimes, just voluntarily – I have said that I don’t like the flute. This is despite the fact that I have had good friends who are flutists (not “flautists,” mind you, because those are people who make flautas), and they have all been and continue to be stellar people, as far as I can tell. I suppose that there was something in my past that drove me to hold this judgment against flutes, much like my mother’s relationship with the color yellow [upcoming run-on sentence alert!], which she insisted so often throughout my earlier years didn’t look “good” on me that I almost believed her until I wore my favorite yellow long-sleeved dress shirt in her presence once in my later years and stunned her with my handsomeness so much that she was driven to utter “But I thought you hated yellow!” In short – with regard to the flute – I have been a fool, and that is not an insult to my dear mother.

This playlist was springboarded by my recent fascination with the album Kaputt, by Destroyer. The song, “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker,” is a pop mini-symphony that features a terrific lyrical flute melody, one that I first thought was played out live in the studio, but after thirty or so listens have come to believe is an elaborate loop. I still love it. And the repeated hearings of it made me wonder about other uses of the instrument in popular recordings (as opposed to the plethora of classical and jazz recordings that feature a flute). My preparations for this playlist uncovered enough music to fill several playlists, to my surprise.

I do love the fact that a flute part can be just as effective as an accent to the sonic weave of a song (“So Far Away,” for example) as it can when it is the featured instrument (in this case, “Heard It in a Love Song” and “Goin’ Up the Country” are the first to come to my mind). I also feel that this is one of the strongest playlists that I’ve tossed up here, in terms of listenability, and I attribute that to the flute’s versatility and beauty, which I have maligned for decades.

For that, I apologize.

Approximate playing time: 78 minutes.

1. Jethro Tull  “Living in the Past”  (1972)
2. The Guess Who  “Undun”  (1969)
3. Aretha Franklin  “Until You Come Back to Me”  (1973)
4. Seatrain  “Flute Thing”  (1973)
5. Beastie Boys  “Sure Shot”  (2004)
6. Canned Heat  “Goin’ Up the Country”  (1969)
7. Love  “Orange Skies”  (1967)
8. The Association  “Windy”  (1967)
9. Destroyer  “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker”  (2011)
10. Josh Rouse  “James”  (2003)
11. Simon & Garfunkel  “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright”  (1970)
12. Van Morrison  “Everyone”  (1970)
13. Carole King  “So Far Away”  (1971)
14. David Bowie  “Moonage Daydream”  (1972)
15. The Marshall Tucker Band  “Heard It in a Love Song”  (1977)
16. Donovan  “Sunny Goodge Street”  (1965)
17. Cat Stevens  “Katmandu”  (1970)
18. The Beach Boys  “Feel Flows”  (1971)
19. Van McCoy  “The Hustle”  (1975)
20. The 5th Dimension  “Up Up and Away”  (1967)

Some notes on the songs:

• Practically any Jethro Tull song could have been included here, as we all know that the group’s front man Ian Anderson is a flutist. “Thick as a Brick” would have been my second choice.
• Listening to “The Hustle” while preparing this post, after many years of Disco-free bliss, inspired me to pen the following #CNFtweet: “The Hustle” on MP3: 99 cents. The irreversibly grounded sensation one gets while dancing to a disco song as it fades out: free.
• I don’t usually do this (pointing), but I’d like to point out the snaking tango performed by the electric guitar and the flute in “Feel Flows,” by The Beach Boys. It’s not at all a sound typically expected of that band, and it’s a stunner of a moment.
• Now I’m hungry for some flautas.

You can also listen to this playlist in a slightly different form (Seatrain’s “Flute Thing” is featured there in a 7:53 version, instead of the much shorter 3:21 version that’s featured here) on Spotify. Here is the link.