Mother’s Day Playlist: To Mom, Your Present is on a “Blog”

Yeah, I was gonna do something more original like write a poem. But how could I write a tribute poem, nevertheless an honest, sucking-up self explanatory manifesto without it overflowing with sentiment (actually that’s a good idea if I had the brains, maybe she’d let me get away with things for a few days). A Mother’s Day Playlist is the idea that worked better for me. It’s twelve songs, a mixture of songs with the word “mother” and songs about feminism, that are quite bad ass, if you ask me. It ranges from folk songs about motherhood to antsy feminist grooves and hardcore female empowerment and rage (most common in soul). NPR Music had the idea, and while a few of the songs I chose overlapped with NPR’s catalog, it’s still an original effort. It’s not about the song having the words “mother” and “woman” always. It’s also about giving your mother a preview of how feminism and motherhood are integrated in your musical tastes. Maybe she won’t be a cynic about modern music? Maybe she won’t roll her eyes and smirk when you have a desperate look on your face to play a song she may or may not like? If it’s Mother’s Day, she’ll like it all, nevertheless, pretend to. At least in your eyes she’ll like it, but chances are she’ll stir it in amongst the gossip she has with her other motherly friends about how awful her children have been treating her.

In the meantime, give back to your mother’s generosity by torturing her with hedonistic thrash and glitch computer music, Bjork’s warbles, or in my case, an Antony Hegarty sung lament about trans sexuality before she smacks you on the forehead.

1. “Crash and Burn Girl”–Robyn

If your mother is over 50, like mine, this might invigorate some young out of her, or she may applaud at how “retro” or “funky” this sounds, and will change her mind about the time she yelled to you that music was ultimately pronounced dead.

2.”Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth”–Neko Case

Your mother will like this woolly, jangly, and sunny folk song by Patsy Cline reminiscent alternative country vocalist Neko Case, and musically there are 99.9% chances that she won’t complain about the arrangements in this song. But she may be astonished by the lyrics, and if she doesn’t think you are an introspective child, she’ll lecture you about the message of this song and see if you can connect the dots between morale and your naughty behavior.

3. “Mama You’ve Been On My Mind”–Bob Dylan

The bootlegged version of this song is rare and involves too much work for a child to donate to their mother, so you instead find a cover of it by Jack Johnson, whom you normally can’t stand but your mother likes to seat dance to in an obnoxious way. She is amused by this gesture, although she already raves about it’s place on the diverse I’m Not There soundtrack, one of her favorite albums in recent years. Your mother likes all the artists on this album, although if you played a song by them in their own element chances are she’ll just nod a begrudging “fine.” You can tolerate this song, but if she asks why you didn’t put “Banana Pancakes” on the list you’ll desperately refrain from telling her to STFU.

4. “Good Woman”–Cat Power

You’ve only convinced your mother to wholeheartedly like one artist of your finding: Cat Power. She’s teared up on her cover of “Amazing Grace” and nudges you every five seconds when you went together last summer to hear Cat Power open for the Pretenders (don’t forget the first time you saw Cat Power: she asked why you didn’t answer your phone the whole time). She likes Cat Power now, even more so that it’s almost all she wants to hear of your choosing. This only slightly erodes your love for the artist, but whatever makes your mother happy.

5. “Master Teacher”-Erykah Badu

Your mother is a teacher. A professor, excuse me. Even if she wasn’t by credential, every mother is a teacher, and yes, they are running out of pupils to give hard headed advice to (hence the subject of this song). If your mother wasn’t an expert in African American culture and sometimes has her quote on quote “black” moments, she may not appreciate the “what if there were no niggas only Master Teachers.” If she knows the colloquialisms and hip-hop/soul aesthetics by heart she will definitely not hate this song, although she may be slightly confused why you added it. She might want to use it when she writes her next academia book on racial transgression, thereby dubbing the listen as a “chore.”

6. “She’s Lost Control”–Joy Division

Your mother and you watched “Control”, a biopic about edgy post punk Joy Division front man Ian Curtis, a film that your mother liked but gasped at during certain scenes. Your mother surprisingly likes Joy Division, and doesn’t mind Curtis’s robot monotone voice, or his rowdy stage antics (one of the few times your mother likes something affiliated with “punk superficiality”, or that she takes seriously). Your mother is crazy, and she admits it, so it’s no harm to say the subject of losing control is the very thing your mother does every single day.

7. “Absolutely Cuckoo”–Magnetic Fields

You love your mother, although you like to make perverted and suggestive jokes in a mocking and satirical voice that she’ll roll her eyes at (which is probably the best signal of approval your mother ever gives you) or she’ll think it’s excess and won’t think it’s funny. She doesn’t ever get tired of the 69 jokes, and the 69 jokes transcend “sex”, they are more about pointing out “69″ as a number and not as a position (ex: “look, there’s a club called club 69!). When you try to find 69 in popular media, you joke and tell your mother that your favorite album ever is 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields. By title and concept it is, and music wise, it’s definitely one of your favorites. You put this song on the playlist as more of a contextual gesture when you explain to your mother about where it comes from, but you also add it to go along with the “crazy” theme that your mother jokes about almost every hour. You’ll recommend this album to your mother, thinking that it’s sarcasm and wry humor throughout will make her laugh. It’s subtle and it’s playful, and the least bit annoying.

8 & 9. “See Line Woman”-Nina Simone/”Sea Lion”-Feist

Your mother loves Feist. She calls Cat Power “the power” and Feist “the little Feist” because of her songbird voice. Feist is not a simple songbird on “Sea Lion”, whose chorus she borrows from Nina Simone’s beloved foot stomping anthem “See Line Woman.” Both contrast and juxtapose two things she loves: African American soul and jazz music and Feist. “See Line Woman” is an epitomizing introduction to the eccentric character of Nina Simone, it channels her outspoken feminist message and musical presence, a rare find in a world of female jazz and soul vocalists who shared the same underlying rhetorical question of “when the fuck is this guy gonna marry me?” Your mother will surely like these two songs, they’re safe bets. And she may even give you clever points about how you put these two songs together, if you’re fishing for compliments.

10. “Here Before” by Vashti Bunyan

A week ago in the car we are playing an album that you bought that your mother again likes, full of indie juggernauts performing old spooky songs, in and out of their element. Your mother likes this compilation (Dark Was The Night) and remarks at how pretty the melody and composition of the song “Train Song”, performed on the album by Ben Gibbard and Feist. You mention to your mother that this is an old Vashti Bunyan song. She doesn’t know who Vashti Bunyan is, even if she’s twelve years older than your mother. You explain that Vashti Bunyan had a short lived career playing guitar and singing soprano in Britain in the seventies, before embarking on a thirty year hiatus before being revived by the likes of freak folk musicians Devendra Banhart (your mother thinks he’s weird–how could you play Laurel Canyon-esque folk music and date Lindsay Lohan?) and Animal Collective (your mother likes the name, and that’s it). This song is from Vashti Bunyan’s latest effort Lookaftering, her first record in thirty years. This song has motherhood in the subject, and is a very lighthearted, pretty, and aurally comforting with a rich pallette of folk texture. It’s the type of simple song your mother will like, and she will again notice that you are thinking of her when you put this song on the playlist (you may have to freshen her memory about who Vashti Bunyan is, just say the key words Feist and that AIDS compilation). Your mother may or may not connect with your saying that Vashti Bunyan was way ahead of her time, making freak folk when the term didn’t even exist (Don’t tell her it’s freak folk until the song is over).

11. “Queen Bitch”–David Bowie

Your mother is not a bitch, although your trans gender dog is, so she may deflect the “Queen Bitch” song to be a tribute to our dog Deirdre and not her. “Bitch” in David Bowie’s usage of the word is bad ass rock n’ roll, and it may up your mother’s status and feelings about herself, as she has said in the past “I like being a bitch” (this will only work if you haven’t ever called your mother a bitch). Either way, there is one familiar face on the playlist, and that is David Bowie. She may or may not feel neutral about David Bowie being on her playlist.

12. “Travelling Woman”–Bat For Lashes

When you were going through your tumblr phase your showed your mother a picture of Natasha Khan (AKA Bat For Lashes) dressed in faux tribal and hippie chic attire holding two bells, her face looking down. Your mother thought she was beautiful, so did you. You know that Natasha Khan writes through her alter ego, that she is an example of feminine integrity and beauty (also in “What’s A Girl to Do”). “Travelling Woman” is another song that honor’s your mothers virtues. Let’s hope she doesn’t recognize the deliberate added “l” in traveling, the grammar Nazi.

13. “Confessions of a MILF”-Viv Albertine

What’s even more of a “STFU” moment about a certain annoyance that your mother has a tendency of doing is when she suggests that you admit that she’s a MILF. “I’m a MILF” or “everybody thinks I’m a MILF” or “I’m a MILF, right? That’s why your friends like you.” When your mother says this so bluntly and obnoxiously you really want to tell her to STFU. But it’s her day, so let her say to you whatever she likes. Let her abuse you in return. But if you are tired, just turn on this song and you’ll silence her out. You choose this song as a recommendation from the lovely Carrie Brownstein, the bad ass herself. Viv Albertine, member of the Slits, talks about motherhood dread, and it’s a black comedy, but it’s also painstakingly sincere and intense, so your mother may not want this song to interfere with her happy day. She doesn’t want to think that baking a pie is considered “self-destruction” in her case, but she’ll appreciate the song title, that is, if she says ever so self aware of it’s implications that people think she’s a MILF. Viv Albertine’s fusion of feminism and homage to mothers is exactly how this playlist should end, tying together the two main threads and giving your mother something to meditate on. Chances are she’ll run away and become a gypsy. In my mother’s case, she’ll want to be a black panther.

Note: Your mother does not like it when you jump from song to song. Listen to the playlist in entirety or she’ll complain and tell you that you ruined it for her by choosing which song you are excited to show off. Let the compliments, the hugs, and the kisses come naturally. Or not.

After hearing this playlist your mother may become ferocious and angry and try to break the CD with her bare hands. She succeeds and throws it at you and calls you a “little piece of shit” for the umpteenth time.

When you are typing this entry about what to play your mother, your mother arrives from a half-hour drive pick you up, to find that you are not ready to leave and still in your pajamas. She yells “unfuckingbelievable! this is how you celebrate mother’s day!” You know your mother loves you.

P.S:She’s happy because you got her this handpicked complilation, which she knows she will like if the playlist ends up sucking.