I continue what I started in December: Making a home made CD to listen to while on the bus, in the car, or when I’m out walking. I also follow up a kind of dogma I thought up while burning December’s CD: That I won’t use the same band twice. I doubt that that dogma is gonna last for much longer than two or three months, but it’s fun to try, anyway.

Anyway, this month I went for a semi-slow theme, and although I with some songs failed miserably, I’m relatively happy with the result. I just wish I didn’t spend like 90 % of my favourites on the first one.

1. Morrissey - Irish Blood, English Heart
Not very slow; this is perhaps the least slow song from his “You Are The Quarry” album. None the less, a good song, of course. (If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be here, would it?) It’s always fun to hear people diss Oliver Cromwell, Tories and Labour, the poor old buggers.

2. The White Stripes - I Want To Be The Boy To Warm Your Mother’s Heart
Apparently, Jack White has some trouble with his girlfriend’s mother. She doesn’t like him, you see.

3. Kyuss - Catamaran
Kyuss is the kind of band I would have loved 8-12 years ago. They play hard, they play fast, and there’s not much about them that’s cheesy. This, however, is a slower song. It still has some rather hard parts, especially around the refrain, but for the most part, it’s unusually mellow.

4. Ane Brun - Rubber & Soul
My favourite singer/songwriter at the moment. This is Ane’s beautiful voice, accompanied by nothing else than her Morgan guitar. A song about doing what one must to keep things together, symbolised by the image “wearing ruber bands around my soul to keep it from breaking”.

5. Pixies - Debaser
There are so many Pixies songs that would have fitted this CD much better, but hey, this one’s good, too, despite being somewhat too fast paced. Anyway, it seems as if Frank Black wants to debase some girl, and that this has been his dream since he was a little boy. Weirdo.

6. Garbage - Milk
Basically, this is the first and best Garbage song I found. And sure, it goes along with the program, but it has some annoying parts in the middle. All in all a good song, though.

7. Beastie Boys - Alive
I’ve been a Beastie Boys fan since I was eleven, and this is probably my favourite of their songs. Neat message, too, what with all the “if you learn to love you’re in for a surprise, it could be nice to be alive”.

8. Led Zeppelin - Tangerine
I needed an appropriately easy-going Zeppelin song, and this one was the first one I stumbled into, seeing as “Stairway to Heaven” was a little too long. Beautiful song, though; I’m glad I chose it. Besides, my knowledge of what the Zeppelin songs I’ve ripped are called, is still fragmented, so this is a nice opportunity to get to know at least one of their songs a little better.

9. Nirvana - Heart-Shaped Box
My first choice here was originally “Something In The Way”, but the “Nevermind” version of that song is ruined by fifteen minutes of silence, followed by ten minutes of noise, while the “Unplugged” version is rendered unrippable by a minute of uninteresting babbling. “Heart-Shaped Box” is still a good song, though, with a decent mix of hard and slow parts.

10. Pink Floyd - Hey You
This is another second choice. My first preference here was “Comfortably Numb”, but it, like “Stairway To Heaven”, is a bit too long. And “Hey You” is in no way a bad song; it is after all the second best on “The Wall”.

11. Smashing Pumpkins - Plume
I’ve understood that Pumpkins are kinda “out” these days, but I don’t give a fuck about that. I’ve been more or less a fan since the first time I heard “1979″, and this Emo band from the age before “Emo” was even a word, at least in the mainstream, is still good. My favourite part of this song is Billy Corgan’s words “My boredom has outshone the sun”, as well as the heavily fuzzed rythm guitars playing slowly in the background and the lead guitar’s almost constant presence.

12. Sigur Rós - Flugufrelsarinn
For a long time I thought “Sigur Rós” was a man’s name, but then I learned that it’s Icelandic for “Victory Rose”. Anyway, Sigur Rós is perhaps the world’s most famous indie band (one of them, anyway), which is kinda neat, seeing as they sing in Icelandic. The title of this song sounds like the Norwegian words for “fly saviour”, and although I’m sure that’s a huge misunderstanding from my part, it’s none the less fun to imagine a tiny Saviour of Flies when listening to this haunting, eight minutes long song.

13. Robert Johnson - Cross Roads Blues
Robert Johnson was an American blues artist who died in 1938, apparently after having been poisoned by a barman whose girl he was flirting with. Or so the legend claims, anyway. Another legend claims that Johnson sold his soul to the Devil at a crossroads, in exchange for his musical talents. That’s why I chose this song. Also, Robert Johnson is one of the inspirations for the character “Tommy Johnson” in the Coen brothers’ “O Brother Where Art Thou”.

14. Janis Joplin - Kozmic Blues
The Kozmic Blues Band was one of the bands with which Janis recorded music, and I guess that this is “their song” or something like that. And a wonderful song it is. Janis’ extraordinary voice dominates it all, of course, but the accompanying instrumental stuff is also bloody awesome, especially the piano, the guitar and the brass.

15. Draumir - Frozen Moments
A Norwegian band who plays weird pop music. This is perhaos their most beautiful song, at least the best one I’ve heard. Fun trivia: I listened so much to this album while reading “The Riftwar Saga” this summer, that when I hear songs off the album, I can’t help but imagine scenes from the books. Which is prety cool.

16. Jimi Hendrix - The Wind Cries Mary
Another member of “The 27 Club” (famous musicians who died when they were 27; Janis Joplin and Robert Johnson were other members), and another song I associate with a fantasy series, this time Robin Hobb’s “The Farseer Trilogy”. Whenever I hear this song, I can see Fitz before my inner eye, walking along the shores of the Seven Duchies, thinking about his lost love, even though her name wasn’t Mary. Most of the song’s lyrics is nonsense, though.

17. Kings of Leon - Day Old Blues
The first and best slow KoL song I came across. And a quite nice one, too. Almost makes me sleepy.

18. Meiko Kaji - The Flower Of Carnage
One of the best songs off the “Kill Bill Vol. 1″ soundtrack. I’m guessing that the original title is Japanese, though.

19. Johnny Cash - Desperado
I think this is a cover song, like so many of the songs on his “American” albums. I also think that the original is sung by Don Henly. I think I prefer Cash, though. It’s a kinda sad song that fits his dark voice.

20. Portishead - Over
I thought that using “Glory Box” would have been a little too safe, so I chose this one instead. Dark, brooding trip hop.

It’ll be fun to see if I can find enough useable tracks in my MP3 collection, or if I have to but new CDs in order to fill a couple more CDs with these kinda of things. But hey, I still haven’t used bands like Queens of the Stone Age, Kings of Convenience and Weezer, just to name a few.