That Friday Music Thing

put a damp cloth on my forehead …

Green Day, "American Idiot"

Radiohead, "Creep" (live)
Squeeze, "Pulling Mussels from a Shell"
The Von Bondies, "The Fever"
Sting, "All This Time"
Paul Simon, "American Tune"
Cracker, "Take Me Down to the Infirmary"
Pete Yorn, "Just Another"
The Replacements, "I'll Be You"
Beck, "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime"

"American Tune" is a gorgeous thing. It's not really an American tune, though, more of a German one. I first heard that tune via, of all things, Amy Grant's second album, My Father's Eyes, which included a lovely a cappella version of "O Sacred Head Now Wounded."

Simon's lyrics seem particularly appropriate these days with torture — for the love of God, torture — being the official policy of our government and there not seeming to be much of anything we can do about it. I can't help it, I wonder what's gone wrong.

And we come on the ship they call the Mayflower.

We come on the ship that sailed the moon.

We come in the age's most uncertain hours,

and sing an American tune.

Oh, and it's all right, it's all right, it's all right.

You can't be forever blessed.

Still tomorrow's gonna be another working day

and I'm trying to get some rest;

that's all — I'm trying to get some rest.