Celebrity Death Match: Simon verses Elvis

Glancing at my marathon playlist (See The Playlist I Literally Sweated Over), most people can't help but notice that tracks from Paul Simon and Elvis Presley dominate—songs from Elvis, Paul Simon, and Simon & Garfunkel account for 17 of the 98 songs on the playlist, and that total creeps to 20 if you include the three tracks from Harper Simon as Paul Simon tracks which I do. I'm all for letting kids of superstars make their own way in this world, but Harper's voice sounds like such a Paul Simon clone I had to check the liner notes to make sure it wasn't Paul Simon singing.

That means that a little more than 20 percent of the music that will carry me along on race day belongs to one of these two men. Who, then, is the King of the playlist? Who is my Mr. Marathon? Paul Simon gets the advantage in number of tracks, but Elvis is the King of Rock. This was a question that would need further investigation. This was a question that would need a death match!

Round # 1—Volume
Elvis' nine songs pale next to the 11 songs I'm attributing to Paul. Unfair because Paul Simon didn't write any of Harper Simon's songs you say? Elvis didn't write any of the music that made him rich, either (not even the few early hits that were credited to him).

Point goes to Paul Simon.

Round # 2—Longevity of My Obsession
I've been a Paul Simon freak since 1992, and though I liked Elvis fine when he came on the radio, I didn't start obsessing until 2001.

Point goes to Paul Simon.

Round # 3—Muse-like Qualities of the Music
I'll fight anyone who tells me that there's a more poetic songwriter than Paul Simon alive today (and I question the existence of your musical soul if you can listen to the live version of "The Cool, Cool River" without getting goosebumps at the end when he repeats the line: "sometimes even music cannot substitute for tears"), but it was an Elvis song that planted the seeds of the novel I'm revising. Sorry, Paul.

Point goes to Elvis.

Round # 4—Gateway
Whose music is a bigger gateway: Paul Simon introducing the world to African tribal music and the rhythms of South African drumming or Elvis blowing through what until that point had been largely segregated musical styles and introducing the world to rock 'n roll so definitively that even though historians will quibble about what was truly the first rock record, few will mount a real contest to Elvis's King of Rock title? Man. Those VH1 pundits make spinning definitive statements from subjective sociology look sooo easy. I don't want to take the clear point-awarded-to-both cop out, but I will defer to the Boss on this. Bruce Springsteen never got escorted from Paul Simon's door, but he did hop the fence at Graceland and get intercepted as he made a break for Elvis's front door.

Because the Boss is, well, the boss, point goes to Elvis.

Round # 5—First-name fame
Paul Simon tried so hard to get the world to call him Al, and while most people know who Paul Simon is (though a depressingly large percentage of my students do NOT know this name), if my husband said he listened to Paul yesterday, I'd tell him it's always good to listen to his boss. If my husband told me he was listening to Elvis, however, I'd ask him who he was and what has he done with the man I married (not such a fan, that one).

Point goes to Elvis.

Round # 6—Sex Appeal
OK, I guess technically Elvis is the shoe in here. The problem is I was born in 1975 which means I basically only know Elvis in retrospective photos. Yes, teenage Elvis exuded sex on stage, and sure Elvis could wear him some black leather pants, but I've also seen him in photos from the seventies where he was sporting a floppy terrycloth fisherman's cap, about 50 extra pounds, and a goofy George-W-esque expression on his face. And Paul Simon? Um.

A grudging point to Elvis, I guess. Because he was sexy at least once in his life.

Round #7—Songwriting
No surprise here. Paul Simon wrote the vast majority of the music he recorded and Elvis, though a master of the arrangement, did not. Given that I'm a writer running to help writers, it should come as no shock that Paul Simon will get the nod here.

3 points to Paul Simon. Just because.

Results
So there you have it:

Paul Simon: 5 points
Elvis Presley: 4 points.

I think it's fair to say that we've proven in a totally non-biased evaluation that Paul Simon has earned the title of Mr. Marathon.

The Playlist I (literally) Sweated Over

For the last twelve weeks, the Run for Grub blog has focused on all things marathon. I've groused about the slog, documented every skinned knee, and asked (and asked and asked) for donations. But though I may have led you to believe this blog was an all-access behind-the-scenes-pass to my marathon training, I've been sitting on one humdinger of a lie of omission. In addition to being one part personal physical challenge and one part fundraiser for Grub Street, my marathon has also been a freakishly effective vehicle for some serious musical obsessiveness.

It started when I noticed that certain songs—say "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves, for one—had the power to make me grin even while I was running. Grinning while running? But running's supposed to be the epitome of Puritan angst and suffering, isn't it? Or is serious suffering simply incompatible with giggling at the panting wolf thing Duran Duran's got going on during "Hungry Like the Wolf"?

And so begin my quest to create a playlist of every song that had the power to make me forget I was running. In a blind musical mania, I gathered up more than 9 hours of music and proceeded to systematically winnow that list to 5.5 hours (my guess for how long this marathon thing's gonna take me). I was ruthless. During my training runs, if I reached to fast forward through a song twice, it was gone. A bit harsh? Maybe. But as I said, I was obsessed. For the vast majority of my runs to date, I chose songs to audition, ran with my ears wide open, and then made my cuts when I got home. When I wasn't sure about a song, I dumped it into a test playlist until there was enough music to support a run, and then I gave it a do-or-die audition.

And in that way I reduced my list to 100 titles I absolutely loved, or so I thought. During my 20-mile run on Friday, I turned on two songs I thought were totally safe, so the finally list clocks in at 98 songs. I know I cut some great songs, and I know that there are at least a few songs on here that will get the universal what-was-she-thinking response, but I don't care. The way I see it, the equation is simple:

MY MARATHON = MY PLAYLIST!!!!

But in case you like what you see and want to snap up any of these songs, where possible, I've linked song titles to the Amazon mp3 store where you can download them. And watch out next week when I'll have some musical- themed posts up while Run for Grub is taking a much needed pre-marathon vacation.

So without further ado, my marathon playlist, alphabetically by artist (and if you do decide to buy something, let me know in the comment field so I know I gathered all those links for the greater good):


ABBA
Waterloo

ARCTIC MONKEYS
Dancing Shoes

THE BEATLES
The Ballad Of John And Yoko—No mp3 available except for a tribute version, so I'm embedding the real deal from YouTube:


BEYONCE
Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)

RYAN BINGHAM
The Weary Kind

JEFF BRIDGES
Somebody Else
Fallin' & Flyin'

JOHNNY CASH
All Over Again
I Walk The Line
Ring of Fire

NICK DRAKE
Time Has Told Me

DURAN DURAN
Hungry Like The Wolf

THE EELS
Hey Man (Now You're Really Living)
Losing Streak
P.S. You Rock My World

EMINEM
Lose Yourself

FASTBALL
Fire Escape

FOO FIGHTERS
Gimme Stitches
Learn To Fly

THE FRATELLIS
Chelsea Dagger

FRIGHTENED RABBIT
Head Rolls Off
Old Old Fashioned

GREEN DAY
She's A Rebel—This song is one of, like two, that's only available on the album—thank you, Green Day—so I'm embedding the real deal from YouTube:



BILL HALEY AND HIS COMETS
(We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock

IRON & WINE
The Devil Never Sleeps

WANDA JACKSON
Hard Headed Woman

WAYLON JENNINGS
Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way

JET
Are You Gonna Be My Girl
Look What You've Done

JIMMY EAT WORLD
A Praise Chorus
The Middle

BILLY JOEL
It's Still Rock And Roll To Me
Summer, Highland Falls
You May Be Right

JUNE RICH
Sweetthang—Saddest news ever—this band has called it quits. So here's a video of them doing this song live:




KATRINA & THE WAVES
Walking On Sunshine

KEANE
Bend And Break

THE KENNEDYS
Life Is Large




THE KILLERS
I Can't Stay

THE KNACK
My Sharona

LADY GAGA
Bad Romance

LADY SOVEREIGN
Love Me Or Hate Me

BORIS McCUTCHEON
Acequia
Standin' So Still

THE MEAT PUPPETS
Shine

GEORGE MICHAEL
Faith

MIKA
Love Today

ALASTAIR MOOCK
Let It Go
Unwanted Guest

ALEXI MURDOCH
All My Days

MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE
Welcome To The Black Parade

OUTKAST
Hey Ya!

PEARL JAM
Just Breathe - Apparently Eddie doesn't care to play the Amazon game for the Backspacer album, so whatever. Here's a YouTube version:



IGGY POP
Lust For Life

ELVIS PRESLEY
Burning Love
For The Heart
Got A Lot O' Livin' To Do!
I Gotta Know
A Little Less Conversation
Mystery Train
Shake, Rattle and Roll
Suspicious Minds-LIVE VERSION
Washed My Hands in Muddy Water

PUNCH BROTHERS
Rye Whiskey

QUEEN
Seven Seas Of Rhye

R.E.M.
I'm Gonna DJ
Living Well Is The Best Revenge

THE RAMONES
Beat On The Brat
Blitzkrieg Bop
I Wanna Be Sedated

JOSH RITTER
Snow Is Gone

BOB SEGER--Because Bob Seger is apparently a bigger luddite than I am, not a single one of his songs is available on Amazon for mp3 download, so I'm linking to the tribute bands I could find:
C'est La Vie
In Your Time
Old Time Rock & Roll

HARPER SIMON
Cactus Flower Rag
Tennessee
Wishes And Stars

PAUL SIMON
American Tune
Gone At Last
Hurricane Eye
Late In The Evening
Me And Julio Down By The School Yard
The Obvious Child

SIMON & GARFUNKEL
Keep The Customer Satisfied
Baby Driver

THE STROKES
Someday
Last Nite
Reptilia

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
No One Knows My Plan
Destination Moon
The End Of The Tour
Don't Let's Start

THREE DOG NIGHT
Joy To The World

TRAVIS
Flowers In The Windows

VIOLENT FEMMES
Blister in the Sun

ANDREW W. K.
Ready To Die

THE WHITE STRIPES
My Doorbell

DAR WILLIAMS
Mercy Of The Fallen

Catherine Elcik is running her first marathon to raise money for a scholarship fund for Grub Street, Inc, an independent writing center in Boston, MA.

My Top Three Running Anthems

In the book "Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life," Steve Almond (he's reading tonight to introduce songwriter Danya Kurtz at the Oberon on Arrow Street in Cambridge at eight—go, go, go!) writes about how "drooling fanatics" fall for different musical myths: the owner of an Air Supply album is pretty much guaranteed to harbor a different world view then, say, a Nine Inch Nails fanatic, for example.

But because most running playlists are built around a target tempo, it's almost impossible to get a clear sense of musical bias based on the tunes a runner throws together to encourage her feet to keep running around mile twenty. Case in point: no one would ever confuse me for the kind of girl who actually knows how to shake it like a Polaroid picture, and yet I get a goofy grin on my face every time my iPod shuffles around to "Hey Ya." And though I've been known to shake my hands like an idiot when André Benjamin demands I shake my aforementioned "it," no one's gonna confuse me with an Outkast fanboy.

But if you ask a runner for her top three running anthems, you can get a glimpse of that person's inner core, or as Steve would call it, her personal myth. And though I tend to be a handwringer in practice, most of my anthems are about quitting the handwringing already and embracing life. And frankly, it's refreshing to see the childlike optimism in me making a play for it, even if it's just bubbling up through a playlist.

And so without further ado, my top three running anthems:

"Life is Large" by The Kennedy's—A buzzkill once told me this song is the worst kind of saccharin, but I decided that the way this song makes me fly was all I needed to know about it merits. And I'm not ashamed to admit that every time Maura Kennedy sings the lyric—"How do you want to be remembered? A raging fire or a dying ember?"—some little girl voice in my head screams: "Raging Fire! Raging Fire!"



"Gone At Last" by Paul Simon—A Southern-Gospel romp by a Jewish singer-songwriter from New York? Why the hell not?! Although my heart may explode as a direct result of my legs trying to keep up with the rollicking tempo of the piano in this tune, there's nothing quite like a gospel choir insisting that my steak of bad luck is gone, gone, gone at last to put a little pep in my step at the end of a long run.



"Losing Streak" by The Eels—If you're dubious about how a song called "Losing Streak" could possibly qualify as an anthem, you haven't heard the horns that chase the tail end of this chorus. "I said my losing streak is done," indeed.




Catherine Elcik is running her first marathon to raise money for a scholarship fund for Grub Street, Inc, an independent writing center in Boston, MA. Sponsor the run (and quite frankly, her second wind) at www.firstgiving.com/runforgrub.

Musical Hallucinations

Jogging up the ridiculously pitched road that leads up to the water tower in Winthrop today, my legs started to slow, and my mind started to wander. A few of the rhetorical questions that occurred to me as I inched up:

• Can I actually call what I'm doing jogging if my arms are moving more definitively then my shuffling feet?

• Did I really think challenging myself to tackle what passes as Winthrop's Everest was a smart move on a day I'm doing five miles in the baking sun?

• Do you need to be eyeball deep in lactic acid before you can actually start to hear "I can't go on forever on this steep incline" where Elvis sings "we can't go on together with suspicious minds"?

• How have I never noticed how much the lyrics to "Suspicious Minds" sound like a rock 'n roll argument against running uphill on purpose?

And as I crested the hill at a slug slow pace and "Suspicious Minds" gave way to a Boris McCutcheon song called "Standing So Still":

• Is my iPod laughing at me?

• No, seriously. Is it??

Catherine Elcik is running her first marathon to raise money for a scholarship fund for Grub Street, Inc, and independent writing center in Boston, MA. Sponsor the run at www.firstgiving.com/runforgrub.

Breathing Space: S-l-o-w Running Songs

Normally, I power up my runs by listening to songs from my bounce-n-go playlist, but now that my training runs are starting to grow longer, I'm seriously starting to question the wisdom of my decision to go all bubblegum beat all the time. In fact, for every additional mile added to my long, Friday run, I become more certain that any playlist worth its bites should offer the runner pockets of peace, a quick break, a bit of breathing space.

And while an audiophile friend of mine once told me that including sleepy music on a running playlist made about as much sense as popping quaaludes before going to the gym, I say any song with a clear beat can be turned into a potentially powerful running ally. Particularly if you love the song. Particularly if it gives you a lift.

Here are the top ten breathing space songs on my list with a disclaimer: my playlist may be too hard wired to my tics to be much use to you on your run, but hopefully you'll like the music and think about a tune or two that moves you in every way a runner can move. And if you've never considered using breathing spaces in your playlist, maybe you'll start today. Note: Click on the purple to go hear the songs.

1. All My Days by Alexi Murdoch—Alexi Murdoch is the heir apparent to Nick Drake (if you don't know either of these names, stop reading and listen to 'All My Days' before you go any further. Now that you're back, scroll down this post to listen to "Time Has Told Me." There, now don't you feel like your day is so much better than those combined nine minutes and twenty-four seconds have any right to make it?) Call me a sucker who falls for handsome men holding guitars, but I can't help it. Breathy and wounded tenors make me feel—and here's the technical term for it—all floaty. And in the middle of a long run when you'll take a lift anyway it comes, floaty works.

2. The Beauty of the Rain by Dar Williams—When you get right down to it, the message of this song is pretty much, stop being a jerk, you jerk. But Dar (can I call her Dar?) says it with a melody that hallows the message and a chorus about falling rain that's so lovely I end up feeling like the jerk for trying to boil the song down at all. Another floater of a song.

3. Just Breathe by Pearl Jam—Grief can make you forgot to be thankful you ever loved hard enough to make losing hurt so much. The lilt of the guitar and the opening verse of "Just Breathe" remind me to be grateful that I've known so many fierce attachments in this life:

"Yes, I understand that every life must end, aw-huh.
As we sit alone, I know someday we must go, aw huh.
Oh I'm a lucky man to count on both hands the ones I love
Some folks just have one, yeah, others they've got none, oh, oh
Stay with me.
Let's just breathe."

4. Mercy of the Fallen by Dar Williams—This song came to me at a time in my life when I had the anti-Midas touch—everything my fingers tapped turned to shit; every choice I made was a mistake. The lyrics invoke us to follow our north stars, promise the mercy of the fallen, and swear we—all of us—have guiding stars inside us. In this cynical age, a buoying song like this isn't for everyone, but it definitely played like it was written for me, and it buoys me still.

5. P. S. You Rock My World by the Eels—My husband put this song on a mix CD he made for me when we were dating. The song wound up on our must-play list at our wedding, but by the time it came up in the rotation, we happened to be ministering to wedding guests at different tables. We didn't stop and go dance—that would have been rude!—but we caught each other's eyes and smiled. Or I should say I smiled because Mike's more of a smirker. But I knew what he meant. How can you I run anything but strong with the kind of man in my corner who reminds me how "a happy man takes a walk"?

6. Strangers in a Car by Marc Cohn—I can't quite put my finger on what it is about this song that draws me in, but there's a longing in the rising piano and the story of a girl taking the kind of risks I was never brave enough to take myself. And yet for all the song's longing, the way it swells in me feels like a reminder to be bold. That and a reminder of how lucky I am to have never been shot in the head. Unlike the singer of this song.

7. Summer Highland Falls by Billy Joel—I'll admit these aren't the most uplifting lyrics in the world. But the piano sure wants to be hopeful. And though I could create an involved explanation about why I find a song that ends with the narrator standing on the ledge of his life uplifting, the real reason I love listening to this song while I run is because the piano's so beautiful, that the only lyric I ever seem to catch is the word "euphoria." So in my warped brain, then, this melancholy little song's about runner's high. Did I give the disclaimers about all interpretations being the product of my overactive imagination? No? Then consider yourself so disclaimed.

8. Time Has Told Me by Nick Drake—Being part of a couple that has a "song" always seemed a little giggling school girl for me, but when the perfect song found Mike and me—not a good song, not a great song, but the absolutely perfect song for us—we didn't fight it. When "Time Has Told Me" clicks on during a run, it can actually feel like Mike is taking over for my feet for a spell. You don't axe a song like that from your playlist—I don't care how slow it is.

9. Unwanted Guest by Alastair Moock—This song's an anthem for everyone who's battled depression—sometimes again and again—and come out the other end, safely. The bounce of the guitar carries me in a way that makes me remember driving on country back roads as a teen, all the windows down, the cassette deck blaring "I Am a Rock." Except that "Unwanted Guest" is more musical, more lyrical, and more hopeful than "I Am a Rock" ever was. The contest wasn't even close.

10. The Weary Kind by Ryan Bingham—Because even though we've all known plenty of those weary kind days, somehow a crackling alt-country voice singing about it can make them feel that much less weary. Even going uphill.


Catherine Elcik is running her first marathon to raise money for a scholarship fund for Grub Street, Inc, and independent writing center in Boston, MA. Sponsor the run at www.firstgiving.com/runforgrub.

Crap People Don't Tell You About Running: #3

So I tripped and fell again yesterday—if you look closely, you can see evidence of my scraped up hands in the sweaty and seriously unflattering photo at right (yes, I sometimes rest my sunglasses atop my baseball cap; no, my hands aren't actually bigger than my head).

This time it was Lady Sovereign's Love Me or Hate Me playing in my ear when I fell, and mere seconds before my tumble, I was wondering if the fact that today's play list included Eminem and Lady Sovereign back-to-back meant I had somehow been catapulted from nerdy to hip.

A trip, a dive, a roll and the answer was a very clear "no."

But while hipper seems desperately out of the reach of graceless, old me, faster is a word I can get behind. I ran my 3 mile run in 29:44, a time that included precious seconds wasted on

• tripping,
• rolling on to the sidewalk,
  
• getting back up,
  
• brushing off the dust,
  
• taking a moment to thank the gods of running (Marathon?) that I'd managed to avoid the pile of dog shit close to where I rolled into the grass, and obsessively checking my body to make sure I had in fact avoided the dog shit—I had.

Given that daydreaming while distracted by music may just turn me into the first runner in history to develop callouses on her palms as a direct result of marathon training, you'd think I might consider the relative health merits of running in silence, but no way. I'd sooner be the wacko in Winthrop who runs in a crash helmet than give up my tunes.

But I would like to pose a sponsorship challenge—I hereby found the consolation contribution. If you want to be a consolation contributor, just visit my sponsorship page and donate $10 for every fall I take. We're starting at $20, but I feel I should warn you that there's no upper bound.

And so without further ado, today's crappy thing people don't tell you about running is this: Careless and clumsy runners will get to know road rash intimately. And often, apparently.



Catherine Elcik is running her first marathon to raise money for a scholarship fund for Grub Street, Inc, and independent writing center in Boston, MA. Sponsor the run at www.firstgiving.com/runforgrub.

Two down; Sixty-two to go!

I ran four miles at a slowish pace today—ten minutes and 11 seconds per—but given that I managed to stay upright for every step this time, I'm counting today's run as a win. Though a definite loser emerged from the playlist.

To keep my mind occupied as I do these training runs, I'm quite literally running through all of the 135 songs I've put on my marathon playlist since the beginning of the year. A semi-final round, of sorts.

Today, Billy Joel's "It's Still Rock 'N Roll to Me" got green lighted, but "The Longest Time" gets the boot. I may be a big believer in creating a mix that includes the break of a few slow songs that buoy me, but doo wop a capella was doing nothing for the speed of my feet today. Sorry, snap-happy Billy. You are today's weakest beat.

Catherine Elcik is running her first marathon to raise money for a scholarship fund for Grub Street, Inc, and independent writing center in Boston, MA. Sponsor the run at www.firstgiving.com/runforgrub.

Beat on the Brat

Run one of 63 today. Just three miles. Should have been easy. Should have been. But just before the halfway point, my rebel toe went and stubbed a corner of sidewalk that had been pushed into a cockeyed angle by an angry tree root elbowing for space.

For a millisecond my legs tried to convince my teetering center of gravity to err on the side of staying upright. But even as I let myself entertain the hope that I was gonna get off with inelegance—stuttering a few steps before rediscovering the rhythm of my stride—my self preservation kicked in as I realized it would be easier on my body to let myself fall (nothing causes as much injury as trying to prevent injury, I've heard). So I put my hands in front of me and did just that. Even remembered to roll into the fall to spread the shock.

From what I could gather, my spill was pretty spectacular—a Lexus slammed its brake in the road beside me as I went down, only speeding up again when I popped up, dusted off my scraped hands, and kept running. Once I turned the corner, I slowed my pace to take a quick inventory: Limbs still attached? Ankles feeling healthy? Embarrassment making my face burn even hotter than than my sweat-reddened face was already burning? Check. Check. And absolutely check.

Chagrin aside, I take full responsibility for the fall. No, seriously. I was asking for it. Moments before I went down—and how!—I was smirking at the utter foolishness of the song my playlist had just offered up for my running enjoyment: "Beat on the Brat." by The Ramones.

I felt a quick twinge of guilt—was bopping along to lyrics that demanded I beat on a brat with a baseball bat as bad as giggling at a tasteless joke? I don't know, but the song's too catchy for me to care.

So I started rationalizing.

What if the brat was my name for my inner critic? Yeah, that was it. Because beating on my brat of a critic is perfectly acceptable. And in the second just before I fell, I laughed, imaging writers everywhere doing the newest dance craze—The Baseball Bat. All you have to do is swing your arms like you've got a major league beef with that brat who's too dim to figure out he's overstayed his welcome. Which was right about the moment my brat decided to trip me.

Here's hoping the rest of my runs go off in a perfectly upright manner.





Catherine Elcik is running her first marathon to raise money for a scholarship fund for Grub Street, Inc, and independent writing center in Boston, MA. Sponsor the run at www.firstgiving.com/runforgrub.