Dinner Music 54: The weekly lineup

southern blues road songs, lofi 80s indie rock, french glam country

This week we’re taking Dinner Music on the road. The albums are meant to mirror the unfolding of the open road: adventurous, cerebral, nostalgic, a little unhinged. Each is deeply contemplative in it’s own way. Each will make you listen even if you’re not listening. The songs are big — with heavy guitar riffs, plunging vocals and hotfooted melodies.

We begin with Nancy Sinatra, a call-back to the very first edition of Dinner Music. The album starts with Nancy’s voice floating high above an upright bass riff: tell you babe, I’m not the lovin' kind / So you'd better get it right off of your mind. The songs are both ephemeral and eternal. They criss-cross boundaries, from jazz to lounge to country to pop. Again and again the album asks: How does that grab you?

The same could be said for Alex Chilton, an unapologetic rocker of uncompromising taste. Like Flies on Sherbert sounds like a really great scene in a really great movie. The momentum lies within the digressions, those moments where the guitar fades off into some riff and the bass drops out. And then, there’s another one. And another. It’s so deeply authentic, you can feel the wind in your hair as you drive through the desert.

Dick Stusso takes that uncompromising authenticity and takes it for a modern spin around existensialism’s neighborhood. “This could be heaven, or it could be hell,” Stusso warbles on the album’s opening track. That’s the sound that persists throughout, too, a glamorous ethereal space in the dark, deep southern blues.

If Stusso is looking at heaven and hell equally, you could say that Automatic is looking up at heaven from hell. The songs are minimal, a sort of no-wave, but they are dark and glamorous, like red velvet curtains and a dissatisfaction. The music compels you to escape — with bass like the thrumming of tires on asphalt and synths like flashing stoplights. If you’re doing some night driving soon, considering starting here.

We end with a masterful French 60s rock album. And what trip on the road would be complete without a Parisian crooning? Jacques Dutronc is something of a legend; he’s married to Francoise Hardy (!!) and has been active in his career for nearly sixty years. It’s five o’clock. That means it’s either time to go out or go to sleep. The choice is yours.

Enjoy.

The playlist is here.

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Monday

How Does That Grab You? - Nancy Sinatra (1966)

Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services

Tuesday

Like Flies on Sherbert - Alex Chilton (2005)

Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services

Wednesday

In Heaven - Dick Stusso (2018)

Bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services

Thursday

Signal - Automatic (2019)

Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services

Friday

Il est cinq heures - Jacques Dutronc (1968)

Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services

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Pair with:

• Garlic braised short rib. If it’s cool where you are, please, dear god, make short rib. Don’t miss the opportunity!

• Cherry tomato upside down cornbread. Fall is cornbread season and that is reason enough to celebrate! This is a nice bridge recipe, with a little bit of each season belonging. Maybe make some tarragon butter to slather on top.

• Scribe skin-contact Chardonnay. I am not really a Chardonnay drinker, but it’s a great grape for skin-contact. It’s a little creamy, a like an orangesicle, with a lot of body and a flavor on the tongue that goes perfectly with fall foods.

• The Wall by Marlen Haushofer. The best book I’ve read this year, besides Kairos. It’s gorgeous, one of those books only a woman could write. It’s quiet, somber, real in it’s unreality.

• This 1996 interview with the poet Sharon Olds. “I thought the rhythms of poetry had to do with the rhythms of intense feeling about the most moving mortal experiences: birth, love, sex, death, grief, rage, joy. I thought that every group of people who ever existed have had poetry because passionate human life couldn’t be led without it.”

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“But if time exists only in my head, and I'm the last human being, it will end with my death. The thought cheers me. I may be in a position to murder time. The big net will tear and fall, with its sad contents, into oblivion. I'm owed some gratitude, but no one after my death will know I murdered time. Really these thoughts are quite meaningless. Things happen, and, like millions of people before me, I look for meaning in them, because my vanity will not allow me to admit that the whole meaning of an event lies in the event itself.”

- The Wall, Marlen Haushofer

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