The Obsession

I'm not sure that it has ever occurred to me that it might be fun to learn every song a certain artist ever performed/recorded. Well, maybe I thought it would be fun (ala Poi Dog Pondering or the Indigo Girls back in the day), but I'm sure I never thought it POSSIBLE. Until CJ came along. Now it's the central preoccupation of my life. It reminds me of a John Wesley Harding quote that goes something like "I was afraid of dying and had way too many songs." I'm afraid this will all end before we get through the catalog. And so I/we press on as quickly as possible.

Tonight we are reviewing the songs learned to date (since March 2010)...which I believe to be 43 songs (40 of which we have played live for an audience):

Alec Eiffel
Allison
Bone Machine
Break My Body
Brick Is Red
Broken Face
Cactus
Caribou
Crackity Jones
Dead
Debaser
Dig For Fire
Down To The Well
Ed Is Dead
Gigantic
Gouge Away
Here Comes Your Man
Hey
Holiday Song (The)
I Bleed
I'm Amazed
Into the White
Isla De Encanta
I've Been Tired
La La Love You
Levitate Me
Monkey Gone To Heaven
Mr Grieves
Nimrod's Son
No 13 Baby
Oh My Golly
River Euphrates
Sad Punk
Silver
Something Against You
Subbacultcha
Tame
There Goes My Gun
Tony's Theme
U-Mass
Vamos
Wave Of Mutilation
Where Is My Mind?

And that leaves 45 tunes (8 of which are non-album covers that one could technically argue aren't their songs at all, though recordings exist of them playing the tunes...excluding these leaves 37 tunes...but it's a slippery slope as there are 4 more that are technically covers as well but are either on albums or iconic to the band...further exclusion would leave 33...but I can't see that we can leave out Cecilia Ann, Head On, and In Heaven and call ourselves comprehensive...Theme from NARC being the 4th in this category). We could further restrict by saying we're only going to learn the albums and no b-sides/rarities...but that REALLY seems like cheating and I won't have it:

Ain't That Pretty at All (cover)
All Over The World
Ana
Bailey's Walk
Bam Thwok
Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons
Blown Away
Boom Chicka Boom
Born in Chicago (cover)
Build High
Cecilia Ann (album-based cover)
Dancing The Mantra Ray
Distance Equals Rate Times Time
Evil Hearted You (cover)
Hang on to Your Ego (cover)
Hang Wire
Havalina
Head On (album-based cover)
I Can't Forget (cover)
In Heaven (SORT of a cover)
Is She Weird
I've Been Waiting For You (cover)
Letter to Memphis
Lovely Day
Make Believe
Manta Ray
Motorway to Roswell
Navajo Know
Palace of the Brine
Planet of Sound
Rock A My Soul
Rock Music
Santo
Space
Stormy Weather
The Happening
The Thing
Theme from Narc (SORT of a cover)
Trompe le Monde
Velouria
Velvety Instrumental Version
Wave of Mutilation
Weird At My School
Wild Honey Pie (cover)
Winterlong (cover)