Ye Olde Hit Parade: Senator

Editor's note: Ye Olde Hit Parade takes a look back at my favorite songs year by year (starting in 1978, when I really started paying attention to music).

2011: Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Senator

It was a year like many others, with plenty of big moments: The deaths of Osama Bin Laden and Moammar Gadaffi, uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Syria, the controversial trials of Casey Anthony and Amanda Knox. And Charlie Sheen went off the deep end.

For me, things were good. My company moved in December 2010 from Marblehead to Danvers, which cut my commute down by about 70%. It was an easy 10-minute drive, which was nice. No marathons for me; I decided I'd done plenty of them (13 to be exact) and had nothing left to prove. I still liked running, just not distances that long.

I had a work trip to Seattle, my first visit to that city since I moved from Washington state in 1983. While I was there, I met up with a couple of friends from my short stint in high school. It was good to see those guys after so long. A few weeks later, we did a big road trip down to Orlando to his Disney World again. Unlike the first trip, we broke up the drive, stopping in New Jersey at Deb's brother's place before continuing on in the morning. Made a huge difference. It was a fun and tiring week. While we were there, I found out that I was moving over to a new division of my company to work on electronic products. I had spent the previous 10 years working on print products, so this was a big move, or so I thought (a little foreshadowing for future posts).

Musically, I was still digging on the indie rock, although that genre covered a lot of ground. There were your alt-rock stalwarts like PJ Harvey, Sloan, Wilco, Foo Fighters, the Twilight Singers; older acts like the Feelies and R.E.M. (who released their final studio album); hip hop acts like the Beastie Boys and the Roots; younger artists like Yuck, Johnny Foreigner, Los Campesinos!, Soccer Mom and Fucked Up; and the beastly roar of metal gods Mastodon. For concerts, I saw Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven, Robert Plant, Queens of the Stone Age, Jason Isbell, Ted Leo, Dinosaur Jr., Sloan, Young Adults/Ringo Deathstarr, Big Audio Dynamite and Buffalo Tom.


My favorite song was "Senator" by Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, off the album Mirror Traffic. It was primo Malkmus, a sardonic look at shady politicians and pretty timely, given Anthony Weiner's, uh, problems. "I know what the senator wants/What the senator wants is a blow job," sang Malkmus cheerily. Supposedly he even recorded a radio-friendly version substituting "corn dog" for "blow job," although by 2011 there weren't many radio stations left playing Malkmus songs. Whatever, the song kicks ass.


Honorable mentions: PJ Harvey - "The Words That Maketh Murder"; Mastodon - "The Curl of the Burl"; Foo Fighters - "Rope"; Yuck - "Get Away"; Mighty Fine - "Ready to Roar"; Drive-By Truckers - "The Thanksgiving Filter"; J. Mascis - "Is It Done"; Beastie Boys - "Make Some Noise"; Buffalo Tom - "Guilty Girls"; The Twilight Singers - "On the Corner"; Wild Flag - "Romance"; Deer Tick - "Main Street"; Sloan - "Follow the Leader"; Sloan - "Unkind"; Fucked Up - "Ship of Fools"; Fucked Up - "Queen of Hearts"; Destroyer - "Chinatown"; The Dears - "Blood"; Radiohead - "Lotus Flower"; R.E.M. - "Discoverer"; TV On the Radio - "Caffeinated Consciousness"; Arctic Monkeys - "Brick by Brick"; St. Vincent - "Cheerleader"; Wilco - "Art of Almost"; The Roots - "Make My"; The Black Keys - "Lonely Boy"; Soccer Mom - "It's Probably Not Your Fault"; Johnny Foreigner - "(Don't) Show Us Your Fangs"; The Feelies - "When You Know"; Los Campesinos! - "By Your Hand"; Telekinesis - "Car Crash"; Jason Isbell - "Go It Alone"