the waiting is the hardest part

Hiya. Ms. L. is in the process of moving, and the new (and paid for, for once) 'net connection happens on Saturday.

All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray.

The new tournament is upon us. Behold!

There will be no commentary right now, as I'm still absorbing these songs. Speaking of these songs, you can download all 16 of them in a .zip file (50MB or so) here.

We'll keep voting open until next Sunday at 7, so people will have time to find us again. You can vote by leaving a comment, or you can email me.

From the Northeast Regional, at the sandbox beneath Brian Wilson’s piano, Los Angeles, CA

#16 For What It’s Worth, Buffalo Springfield
vs.
#17 Everybody’s Talkin’, Harry Nilsson

#9 California Dreamin’, The Mamas & the Papas
vs.
#24 I’m Still in Love With You, Alton Ellis

#21 She’s Not There, The Zombies
vs.
#12 Give Him a Great Big Kiss, The Shangri-Las

#13 Pressure Drop, The Maytals
vs.
#20 A Minha Menina, Os Mutantes

#14 It’s Gonna Rain, Steve Reich
vs.
#19 Stand By Your Man, Tammy Wynette

#11 Crying, Roy Orbison
vs.
#22 Here I Go Again, Archie Bell & the Drells

#10 Subterranean Homesick Blues, Bob Dylan
vs.
#23, Egyptian Shumba, The Tammys

#15 Friday on My Mind, The Easybeats
vs.
#18 Ode to Billie Joe, Bobbie Gentry

It's new! It's the 1960s! I'm still saying it's new.

So, one Tuesday night, during pub trivia, I asked if Greg had seen the Pitchfork list of the 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s.

"Not yet," he said. "Can we make a tournament out of it?"

Why yes... yes we can. Sure, they ranked everything, but why not put these songs through a little competition?

We will have songs from the British invasion, from Brazil, from France, from garages across the world. Patsy Cline vs. noise manipulators. Ode to Billy Joe vs. I Wanna Be Your Dog. Neil Diamond vs. Lou Reed. Also, I'm working on having all the songs we're covering (that's all but the bottom 8 on the list) available as zipped You Send It files.

If you want to see the entire bracketing, you can look at the Google spreadsheet. It's big, so I'll be splitting the sheets down in the near future.

Look for the first update middle of this week.