Download of the Week #1

I’m carrying an empty basket down an isle of Stop & Shop, shopping for one and for one day, I plan to pay in cash thus completing the triumvirate of bachelor shopping. I take pleasure in this in the waning days of my single years. Elvis Costello’s “Green Shirt” starts playing over the stores intercom. “Ah, great song” I say semi audibly and then quickly check to see if anyone heard me. Is this happening? Have I slipped down to the next level of uncool? Is my hip veneer being peeled away? I’m grooving to tunes in the grocery store. I must confess it isn’t the first time. I fear, someday soon, I’ll be found in the cold cereal isle, holding up a Bic lighter and swaying to “How Soon is Now?”.

Songs in television commercials have also become more attractive. Having burned through the Sinatra and Beatles catalogs, marketers have modernized the soundtrack of selling. I’m not just talking about the safe and lame Lenny Kravitz or Dave Matthews. Little pockets of hip, or at least what this aging body perceives as hip, are selling us our soap suds.

This brings me to my suggested download of the week. Remember the commercial where the chick frosts the window of the subway car with the cool breath provided by the icy flavor of her chewing gum, and scratches her phone number for the group of horny degenerates she leaves behind. I always dug the music in this snippet and with a little googling was pleasantly surprised to find that this tune was provided by our local friends Papas Fritas.

The song is “Way You Walk” off the Buildings and Grounds LP. It has a solid grove providing foundation for the great pop melodic interplay between the male and female vocals, the signature of the Papas Fritas sound.

iTunes seems to be a little schizophrenic in it’s recognition of Papas Fritas. One day it will have three albums for download and the next day it has never heard of them. Maybe it’s because I haven’t updated my iTunes software in a month and am now 27 revisions behind. But the little extra effort in tracking down this tune will be rewarded.

Now if only I can track down the song in the WalMart commercial where the chick sings, “Here we are, with the sun, smiling on us…….”