The “The” Song Meme

At the group blog Throwing Things, BobE is going through his digital music collection and writing about songs that begin with the word “the,” based on this slender premise:

Idiosyncratically, iTunes does not ignore the words “the”, “an”, or “a” at the beginning of the title of a song. As it turns out, that means that I have 24 songs on my iTunes list that are grouped together because their titles all start with the word “the.”

(See also So Quoted.) Something about the arbitrariness of this exercise is inexplicably appealing to me. In fact, I was so taken by the concept that, even though I don’t use iTunes, I spent far more time than might be considered normal or healthy searching through my computer’s “My Music” folder for songs that begin with the definite article.

By my count I have around 142 such songs. Below are reviews of four of these songs (which can also be found on the sidebar Radioblog).

Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah – “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth” CYHSY (if I can indulge in an acronym that is almost as long as the band’s name) seems to have reached critical mass as an “it” band, as evidenced by the fact that I picked up their album recently on sale at Target. It’s got to say something good about the current pop-culture zeitgeist because these guys strike me as pretty experimental and cerebral for a band that’s edging into the mainstream. The comparison I most often hear is to Talking Heads, probably because singer Alec Ounsworth has the same nasal and paranoid sounding voice as early era David Byrne. Musically, they remind me more of other avant 80′s guitar bands: The Fall, The Blue Aeroplanes and The Feelies, to name a few. CYHSY are the latest in a string of bands that seem to be building their sounds from the wreckage of my high school record collection. (See also, The Strokes, Bloc Party, Interpol and The Killers.) “Yellow Country Teeth” is a good representative of the quirky and sparkly stuff to be found on a surprisingly consistent debut album.

Centro-Matic – “The Given Geography” This North Texas band draws comparisons to The Flaming Lips, Guided By Voices, and Neil Young. I’m not sure any of those comparisons are particularly apt, but they do reflect the general vibe and difficulty of categorizing Centro-Matic’s work. This particular song, with it’s seemingly random but intriguing lyrics (“Navigate the given geography/And grace the news flash today/Redirect the fate of this humanity/Some kind of hero at large”), it’s rock-poppy hook-filled melody, and its textured instrumentation, is pretty typical of what you’ll find in a Centro-Matic song. Will Johnson, the band’s singer and primary songwriter, in addition to being prolific, seems to enjoy beginning his song titles with the word “the.” I counted ten songs of his that follow this pattern.

Robyn Hitchcock – “The Yip! Song” With a kinetic pop groove and a surrealist/Dadaist attitude, this song is classic Robyn Hitchcock. For a long time, I assumed that was all there was to the song, and enjoying it for its frantic energy and wacky humor. My appreciation for this song deepened after seeing Jonathan Demme’s concert film, Storefront Hitchcock. In the movie, Robyn Hitchcock introduced this song as being about his father dying during surgery. As soon as I heard that, it clicked: that’s exactly what this song is about. It had been there all along, and I had never noticed. I still enjoy the song for its manic energy and wacky humor, but now also for its poignancy. This song both makes me groove and gives me the chills.

Badly Drawn Boy – “The Shining” If for no other reason, this song would be a favorite because it’s got the best cello-and-French-horn-pop-song intro I know. “The Shining” is the first song in Badly Drawn Boy’s debut (and still his most ambitious) album, The Hour of Bewilderbeast. It’s also the best song on the album. Damon Gough’s earthy vocals keep the song from sounding too pretentious or precious, and from veering off into the realm of chamber pop. It’s a very good song, the kind that makes you feel grateful to be alive.

To satisfy those who may share my obsessive-compulsive fascination with the mundane, or those who are merely curious, here’s a more or less complete list of the songs on my home computer with titles that begin with the word “the.”

Songs in my “My Music” folder that begin with “the”:

Badly Drawn Boy – “The Shining,” “The Blossoms”
Beck – “The Golden Age”
Barenaked Ladies – “The King of Bedside Nature,” “The Old Apartment,” “The Flag”
Belly – “The Bees”
Big Star – “The India Song,” “The Ballad of El Goodo”
Camper Van Beethoven – “The Fool”
The Cassettes – “The Improbable Solution”
Centro-Matic: “The Pilot’s On the Wall,” “The Panacea Tonight,” “The Massacre Went Well,” “The Given Geography,” “The Execution of Some Sixty-Odd Drummers,” “The Connection’s Not So Civilized,” “The Cannonball Shot,” “The Beautiful Ones,” “The Ballad of Private Fifle Sound,” “The Mighty Midshipman”
The Clash – “The Guns of Brixton,” “The Magnificent Seven”
The Connells – “The Leper”
The Cure – “The Same Deep Water as You,” “The Kiss,” “The Perfect Girl,” “The Snake Pit”
Crime and the City Solution – “The Adversary”
Cowboy Junkies – “The Post”
Death Cab for Cutie – “The New Year,” “The Sound of Settling”
The Deathray Davies – “The Deathray Davies Set the Original Tone,” “The Experts,” “The Last Train to Deathville,” “The strongest Man in the World,” “The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower,” “The Staring Contest,” “The Aztec God,” “The Medication’s Gone,” “The Fall Fashions,” “The Bitter Old Man Blues,” “The Quiet Game”
The Dukes of Stratosphere – “The Affiliated,” “The Mole from the Ministry”
Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah – “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth”
Ben Folds – “The Luckiest,” “The Ascent of Stan”
Ben Folds Five – “The Last Polka”
The Foxymorons – “The Duke of Gloucester,” “The Lazy Librarian’s Son”
Franz Ferdinand – “The Dark of the Matinee”
The Happiness Factor – “The Bastard Song”
The Hives – “The Hives Declare Guerre Nucleaire,” “The Hives Introduce the Metric System in Time”
The Housemartins – “The Mighty Ship,” “The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death,” “The Light is Always Green,” “The World’s On Fire”
Chris Isaac – “The End of Everything”
The Jazz Butcher – “The Basement,” “The Onion Field,” “The Human Jungle,” “The Jazz Butcher Meets Count Dracula”
Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians – “The Black Crow Knows,” “The Can Opener,” “The President,” “The Leopard,” “The Yip Song!”
David J – “The National Anthem of Nowhere,” “The Moon in the Man”
Norah Jones – “The Long Day is Over,” “The Nearness of You”
Gordon Lightfoot – “The Pony Man”
Guided By Voices – “The Best of Jill Hives,” “The Official Ironmen Rally Song”
Jimmy Eat World – “The Middle,” “The Authority Song”
Jump, Little Children – “The House Our Father Knew”
The Lemonheads – “The Turnpike Down”
The Libertines – “The Boy Looked at Johnny,” “The Good Old Days”
Rhett Miller – “The El”
Mission of Burma – “The Setup,” “The Enthusiast”
Modest Mouse – “The World at Large,” “The View,” “The Good Times are Killing Me”
New Pornographers – “The Laws Have Changed”
The New Year – “The Block That Doesn’t Exist”
Nirvana – “The Man Who Sold the World”
The Nourallah Brothers – “The Lost Resort”
Salim Nourallah – “The Beautiful Noise,” “The World is Full of People Who Want to Hurt You,” “The Apartment,” “The Ones Who Hurt Us”
The Old 97′s – “The New Kid,” “The Other Shoe”
Pernice Brothers – “The Weakest Shade of Blue”
Pleasant Grove – “The Lovers, The Drunk, The Mother,” “The Arrival,” “The Plaque at 16 ft.”
Poi Dog Pondering – “The Anciet Egyptians,” “The Me That Was Your Son”
The Postal Service – “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight”
R.E.M. – “The One I Love”
The Replacements – “The Edge”
Simon & Garfunkel – “The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy),” “The Sound of Silence,” “The Boxer,” “The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine”
The Soft Boys – “The Queen of Eyes”
Soul Asylum – “The Break”
Soundtrack of Our Lives – “The Flood”
South San Gabriel – “The Dark of the Garage,” “The Splinter Angelic”
Spoon – “The Way We Get By”
Squirrel Nut Zippers – “The Interlocutor,” “The Kraken”
The Strokes – “The Modern Age”
Sufjan Stevens – “The Blackhawk War,” “The Man from Metropolis Steals Our Hearts,” “The Predatory Wasp of Palisades,” “The Seer’s Tower,” “The Tallest Man, Broadest Shoulders”
Sugar – “The Act We Act,” “The Slim,”
Sunny Day Real Estate – “The Blankets Were the Stars”
Talking Heads – “The Big Country”
They Might Be Giants – “The Guitar,” “The End of the Tour,” “The Day,” “The Biggest One,” “The World’s Address,” “The Lady’s a Tramp,” “The Big Big Whoredom”
Uncle Tupelo – “The Long Cut”
Velocity Girl – “The All-Consumer”
White Stripes – “The Union Forever,” “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known”
XTC – “The Meeting Place,” “The Man Who Sailed Around the World”
The Undertones – “The Positive Touch”