R.I.P. Levi Stubbs

Tonight I discovered that Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops has died. However you feel about his lengthy list of Motown hits, he would be worth memorializing, and celebrating, for his role in creating one of the great pop songs of all time -- the Holland-Dozier-Holland hit It's the Same Old Song. Some of the obituaries I've read suggest that, as his songwriters pushed his natural baritone up to a tenor register, his voice gained its characteristic "urgent and pleading" quality. You should listen to it, anyway:

The Four Tops: It's the Same Old Song

And here is a wonderful cover by Iron & Wine: Same Old Song

A funny aside: after his Motown heyday, Levi Stubbs took jobs recording video game voiceovers and starred as the plant in the film version of Little Shop of Horrors. I imagine the conversation about that job going something like this:

Agent: Ever hear of Little Shop of Horrors?
Levi: Uh . . . the movie or the shop?
Agent: The brand-new multimillion-dollar musical. And you are starring . . . as the horror.
Levi: It's the part I was born to play, baby!

Fortune Tellers

I don't know what these are really called, but chances are, you all remember them. Searcy's sent one to Zoe for her birthday and it was so fun I had to make them for Liam and Lydia also. One thing that is so fun about them is you can customize the insides to fit what interests your child has at the time. Instead of telling fortunes ours had actions. Such as: "make a funny face", "hop on one foot", or "try to make someone laugh". They can also include questions: "What is your favorite food"?
To make them (if you don't recall), take a square of paper (8.5X8.5 works, we used 12X12) crease down the middle both ways and unfold. Take the corners and fold each one into the middle, lining them up perfectly. Turn the paper over and fold in each corner to the middle(just like the other side). At this point it is ready for labeling and playing. Let me know if you need instructions from here.

meander

Around a year ago, a popular "meme" on the internets was to post an iPod playlist on shuffle, listing the songs as they appeared. I think that the idea was a sort of masochistic self-baring (it's the internet, remember), since it was important to include guilty pleasures as much as hipster-approved songs. Anyway, it's been several months since I've seen anything of the sort on the blogs, so the trend must be dead.

Accordingly, I'm going to start something similar on the Giant Turnip. Instead of a full-iPod list, though, I'm going to use the kids' playlist, which contains songs they have chosen to listen to (usually while in the car), and songs I've helped them choose. The playlist is currently about 300 songs long, and will continue to grow and shrink as we decide what we like and don't so much.

Here's the first ten to pop up:

1 Guided by Voices -- Drag Days
2 M Ward -- Chinese Translation
3 Built to Spill -- Now and Then
4 Kristin Hersh -- What'll We Do With the Baby-O
5 Voxtrot -- Soft & Warm (the Sophia Song)
6 The Breeders -- Drivin' on 9
7 Bob Hund -- Dusseldorf
8 Beach House -- All the Years
9 Beatles -- She Said She Said
10 Death Cab for Cutie -- I Was a Kaleidoscope

A few notes: yes, I know this is actually my music. But the children also tell me which songs they like, which are the ones which stay on the list. And they've become pretty attached to them: Gwennie often requests the M. Ward song (she's seen the clever video); both children refer to the song by Austin band Voxtrot by the name of their cousin, because of the resemblance of some of the lyrics (what does "so feel alive" sound like to you?).

Also, expect an entire post on the Kristin Hersh selection one of these days.