1) Leaving Trunk - Taj Mahal
And first up on the Moving House Compilation 2014 (which I actually made and burnt to CD, for the car journey) is this rollicking, jolloping sauce bottle of a track from veteran blues holler-er and noted Indian building Taj Mahal. It's sprightly, it's raunchy, it's slightly nonsensical, it was probably made up as the band went along, but to my mind there's no other song that better encapsulates the feeling of having enough, packing while blind drunk and heading off to Memphis in a huff and on a whim. "Cakewalk Into Town" provides a fitting soundtrack to the arrival at the other end too, not to mention an arresting visual image.
2) Moving - Suede
Picking up the pace is this jaunty little number from Suede's eponymous debut, which probably has nothing to do with moving house but fizzes with some of the same dynamism and momentum involved in moving everything you own from one place to another. Plus, "we'll stick like sick on the stars" is one of Brett Anderson's less nauseating couplets, ironically enough. Full of beans and possibility, "Suede" is the exciting road trip to new digs that would eventually lead to the dead-eyed, dead-end squat of "Dog Man Star" - arguably the better album, but that's another story for another mix (one about heroin, probably).
3) I Was Young When I Left Home - Antony w/ Bryce Dessner
Taken from the superlative, indier-than-thou "Dark Was The Night" charity compilation, this Dylan cover is one of the better takes on the Bobmeister General's oeuvre. For a start, Antony's take is much more fragile than the original, leaving the listener genuinely fearing for the narrator's wellbeing - without his Johnsons, Antony sounds like he could barely handle a day away from his opulent four-poster bed, let alone a week roughing it on the run from his folks, with his worldly possessions in a napsack. But the winning combination of his wide-eyed warbling (later used to great affect on "Knocking on Heaven's Door", obviously) and Bryce Dessner's thrumming acoustic guitar makes this a fine addition to the canon, and a quintessential "doing a runner" song along the lines of "She's Leaving Home" or "By the Time I Get To Phoenix".
4) You Gotta Move - Rolling Stones
I first heard this song when I was just getting into music, had only really heard of Queen and the Rolling Stones, and even then didn't want to know if the song in question didn't have a stadium-filling riff or guitar solo. So "You Gotta Move" was temporarily and foolhardily consigned to the scrap heap along with stuff like "Sister Morphine" and the weirder parts of of "Exile on Main Street". Now, of course, I've gone off the more bombastic side of the Stones completely, but still have a lot of time for their more rootsy, sarky material - for the same reason that I've always liked Van Morrison but never got into Aerosmith (case in point).
Anyway, this is a low-key, drawling cover of a Mississippi Fred McDowell song, which basically repeats the main refrain over and over again over mosquito-buzz slide guitar and sepulchral Deep South harmonies, and is pretty great even without the stadium-filling riffs. Interesting how a lot of these tracks are either covers or have been covered extensively themselves; maybe songs about transience and impermanence lend themselves to impermanent cover versions more readily than, say, songs about steadfastness and pension plans. Well, I say "interesting"...
5) Hold On We're Going Home - Drake
Distinguished trend-setter that I am, I'm only just getting into Drake and his smooth rap stylings, but there's no denying this is a stone cold classic tune, and one that has not left my head alone to deal with important stuff like admin and security deposits since I first heard it. On a personal note, the refrain of "It's hard to these things alone" carries extra poignancy because at the time of writing, I'm waiting for my wife to be let into the country following a protracted visa saga, and our new house - while undeniably pretty cool - feels rather empty without her at the moment. So there's that.
6) Slip Inside This House - Primal Scream
Primal Scream's brilliant, E'd-up reworking of the 13th Floor Elevators track, which appears on the seminal Screamadelica album, also unwittingly doubles a house-moving anthem - the jangling psychedelic rhythms and breathless exhortations subtly implying the fevered hoarding of cardboard boxes, the ferrying of delicate belongings and fretting about phone-line installations and estate agency fees. It's all there if you read between the lines.
7) Give A Man A Home - Ben Harper
This song was on heavy rotation in 2008-9, when I somehow conspired to move house something like nine times in as many months due to overambitious travel plans (Paris and Val d'Isere among them - long story) and general restlessness. At which point I grew understandably fed up of carting my belongings around and chanced upon a fantastic shared house in North London, where I dug in determinedly for four years, until everyone else had left and I was politely but firmly kicked out by the landlord, who was looking to sell the place.
It was at that point that this lovely, world-weary ballad (also covered rousingly by Ben's mates, the Blind Boys of Alabama) made a comeback, and I'm very grateful if only for the loveliness and world-weariness of it - probably Ben Harper's optimal factory setting, now I think about it. Wouldn't mind staying put for a while now though.
8) Leaving Here - Pearl Jam
A throwaway Motown cover that only surfaced on the "Lost Dogs" rarities compilation, "Leavin' Here" works fantastically not only as a moving-house-themed rabble-rouser (albeit one that's more about women leaving a town because of no-good men, from what I gather) but as a rare example of Pearl Jam having what sounds like genuine fun on record, and not in a weird in-jokey way which just makes everyone who isn't a member of Pearl Jam roll their eyes a bit (I'm looking at you, "Dirty Frank" and "Bugs"). In fact, I'd wager this version is even more of a blast than the original thanks to some raucous backing vocals and a very silly guitar solo. And it played a part in making the six hours spent driving back and forth across London last weekend a bit more bearable, for which I am eternally thankful.
9) Moving Further Away - The Horrors
I'm now living in South London; not only is it the first time I've lived there, it's one of the first times I've even ventured south of the Thames full stop, so it's all a bit new and strange. Entering Dulwich was like finding myself in a strange alternative universe where everyone does the same things as "up north" (please excuse the blindingly London-centric geography on show here) but in a slightly different setting.
I just assumed that in South London everyone shuffled around in string vests, from betting shop to Wetherspoons, mumbling incoherently, in the rain. But it's actually a pretty cool, vibrant kind of place. I'm told there's a bar on top of a car park somewhere. It does mean that none of my friends will ever come and visit me though, hence this oddly wistful yet euphoric motorik workout from Southend's prodigal sons.
10) Does Not Suffice - Joanna Newsom
Coming at the end of a ridiculously long, intricate triple-album, it's easy to overlook the resigned sighs of "Does Not Suffice" at first, but it'll soon have its hooks in you and is now one of my favourite J-New songs. "The tap of hangers swaying in the closet / Unburdened hooks and empty drawers / And everywhere I tried to love you / Is yours again and only yours" - subtly devastating reminders that moving house may be exciting, but can also be brought on by separation, loss, restlessness and general misery.
Anyway, Joanna explains it better than I ever could, so just press play and enjoy. At this point, normally I would wrap things up with Tom Waits' "Anywhere I Lay My Head" - a raucous paean to the rootless nomad and rudderless hippies of this world - but he got the last slot on the fruit mixtape, and it's someone else's turn. I'm off to enjoy my new house some more, if you don't mind.
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