What’s your favorite track one on a debut album?

Astounding opening track on a debut album.

Though I don’t live in Los Angeles, this is the song that wedges into my brain every time I observe that it’s a little rainy out. Everything about this song is a lovely small hook.

Describe your favorite summer as a kid using a single song.

Does the summer after I graduated from college count? I spent a lot of time driving YMCA kids between Orcas Island and Squamish, BC, in a big van. This song was everywhere on the radio that summer. That summer still has so many of my favorite experiences, teaching climbing to kids and living in a little campground not far from Squamish’s stunning bluffs.

If today were a genre, what would it be? Pick a matching song.

I used to get up at ten to four on Wednesday, for years, to have a quick breakfast and coffee and then get to my ritual 5am spin class. Bike church. So early Wednesday mornings are still a time for energy — or should be, and maybe this is a great prompt to remind me of this.

Frail Talk opened for Darlingside this weekend, and I enjoyed their set a lot. They introduced this song as being either about sports or friendship, but only one. Fun song from a talented, really engaging duo.

I saw Darlingside in Phoenix at the Musical Instrument Museum six years and a different lifetime ago. It was a joy to see them again last night. They played this song — one of my favorites — with no mics, standing in the aisle just ahead of where I was sitting. What a special show.

~

And I wonder Whether our days are unnumbered If one is the same

As another Whether we mistook the colors For the real thing

If we’ll ring out Brimming and broken and somehow Truer than blue

And then come to Pulled from the wreck in the daybreak All equal and safe

We're a long way, long way From the best of the best of times A long way, long way From the best of the best of times

What is a song that instantly energizes you?

But Anyway is a perfect opening song to a great album.

One of the first songs from Josh Ritter where I registered, “oh, this is speaking to me.”

The melody shift at “a man is only half himself” grabs me every time. The original on Hello Starling is lovely, but I really like the energy of live recordings. (Find the 2011 Louisville show!)