After last week's topic, you may have seen this one coming. With our annual trip to Wisconsin now less than a week away, today's topic is also about things that are moving far too slowly.

As always, please play along...



Five "Day" Songs

1. The The, "This is the Day." The ol' shuffle conveniently dealt this song up in the car yesterday reminding that this week's topic was ready-made. Matt Johnson's chilly, electronic-tinged pop never sounded as good as it does in this song. The song is grounded in nostalgic longing and even has a hint of regret to it, but it manages to be so triumphant with that simple chorus: "This is the day/Your life will surely change/This is the day/When things fall into place." On those momentous days, this is inevitably the song going through my head.

2. The Baroques, "Purple Day." Hardcore psychedelic wonderment straight out of Beer City, U.S.A.. A slow, quiet song perfectly suited for a relaxing float upstream. I'd intended to make their reissued debut one of my inevitable record store purchases next week, but I fear my opportunity to orchestrate that has passed.

3. Sir Douglas Quintet, "Sunday Sunny Mill Valley Groove Day." If "Purple Day" isn't a hippie-dippy enough title for you, check out that one from Doug Sahm's outfit. Was there any time other than the late 60's when a song such as this could have been recorded with complete sincerity?

4. Lambchop, "Your Fucking Sunny Day." Here's the counter-argument to the previous song, I guess.

5. U2, "Some Days Are Better Than Others." This was a fairly popular song at the college radio station back in the day. It's a nice little tune, but I think the main appeal came from the lyric "Some days you're quick, but most days you're speedy." On its own, it's actually kinda stupid, but we have a dedicated station volunteer whose nickname was "Speedy" so it worked for us in a little different way. As opposed to almost all of my other college radio cohorts, Speedy still works in radio.