The 2006 Cubs "Please Don't Dump Me" Mix CD

Let’s say I’m the Cubs, and you’re the woman I’ve been dating for a few months. And, admittedly, the last month especially was rocky. I was moody, and some of those days I didn’t shower and I smelled awful. But I’m trying to get it turned around. Shined my shoes, combed my hair, popped a life saver in my mouth, and bought flowers on the way over.



Plus, I made a mix CD last night while I was, let’s just say, enjoying a dram of whiskey or two.

What songs do I put? In what order? Here’s a shot at it. (Song clips when available linked via amazon.com, and open in a full other window. It's the best I could do without ripping someone's javascript, and I already feel like enough of a dork for even writing this.)

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1. “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira. Because at every bar or party I’ve heard it at, the women go crazy. It’s like their brains turn off. Mi casa Su casa. This is the song to make her forget she’s about to dump me for a minute because I’ve been grounding into so many double plays.
   
   
2. “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston. An obvious choice, sure, but so over-the-top bad as to be good; that’s the thinking, anyway. Plus it’s from the Bodyguard, and Kevin Costner made three great baseball movies. That’s like a hidden meaning. And by the time the Shakira song gets old and she’s skipping past the first track anyway, might as well get this one out of the way so within a few weeks the de facto starting track is number 3.
   
   OK, scratch that one. It was a joke. Really. I can’t actually make a CD with that track on it. It's too awful.
   
   
3. “This Is Us” by Mark Knopfler with Emmylou Harris. We all know that the Cubs appeal is nostalgia and fun in the sun, which is what this song is about. “Yeah, I’d had a little too much to drink, now / Too long in the sun / Having too much fun / You and me and our memories / This is us.” Appropos, no? Downright eerie? They’re not talking about the Cubs, but they might as well be.
   
   
4. “Your Love” by the Outfield. If you’ve ever seen the talent pool dance to this song at the Hangge Uppe near Rush and Division while sober, you know that maybe having a girlfriend isn’t such a bad thing. She’ll understand, because as awful as the women are, the dirty old men are even worse.
   
   
5. “The Boys are Back in Town” by Thin Lizzie. ‘Nuff said - the Cubs won two out of three against the Reds, which is better than they’ve been doing.
   
   
6. “Polyester Bride” by Liz Phair. “So I asked Henry, my bartending friend / if I should bother dating unfamous men. And Henry said,/ "You're lucky to even know me. You're lucky to be alive. / You're lucky to be drinking here for free, / 'cause I'm a sucker for your lucky, pretty eyes."” A girl who used to hang around Wicker Park selling her art to get by, peering right into the true way of the world, unafraid. Or maybe I’m over-dramatizing, but it’s a fantastic song.
   
   
7. “Wishlist” by Pearl Jam. We’re solidly into the realm of just picking good songs, lest she think we spend too much time thinking about every single song. That would be insane. I had to put a Pearl Jam song on, with the new album out, but not one of the new songs -- that would be a bandwagon fan thing to do.
   
   
8. “Goodnight and Go” by Imogen Heap. Now we’re just groovin.
   
   
9. “Maggie’s Farm” by Bob Dylan. Still groovin.
   
   
10. “Lou Reed” by the Little Willies. “And we can't say how much we've been sippin / But we swear to God / We saw Lou Reed cow tippin.” Just genius, especially for a team playing in Wrigleyville.
    
    
11. “10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)” by Tool. Off their new CD, this is quite possibly the coolest song to come out all year. I can’t think of any song that’s hit me like this since “There There” by Radiohead. Maybe the Tool song is heavy on religious imagery and symbolism, but the music is just staggering, and if you can think of the song as a narrative from the perspective of a character who’s something like an angel, it’s quite interesting. I couldn’t make a CD and not put this one on it.
    
    
12. “New Test Leper” by REM. To counterbalance the last song, one of Stipe’s most sincere moments from New Adventures in Hi Fi.. “Judge not lest ye be judged.”
    
    
13. “Hold On, Hold On” by Neko Case. My second favorite recent song. She just belts it out on this one, doesn’t she?
    
    
14. “Shuffle Your Feet” by the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Bringing it back into the matter at hand with a catchy lead song from a great album, wondering, “Who knows if I'll see you again.” This is one of those songs that sort of digs itself into your brain, and then when you hear it again, each time, you like it more than you did before.
    
    
15. “High Fidelity” by Elvis Costello. A catchy little number, and the song for which the movie is named. A total ultra-hip reference within a reference, a song about bad communication and longing, and she’ll get it. (It would have been iffy with “Alison,” the actual song mentioned in a top 5 list in the movie.) The guitar tones will segue nicely from the song before. Plus, it’s such a good song she won’t think that the last song was supposed to be charged with meaning.
    
    
16. “Snowin on Raton” by Townes Van Zandt. Right back into serious territory. Just an incredible song. I don’t know how else to describe it. Discovering the TVZ catalog has been one of the best things about moving to Austin.
    
    
17. “Better Days” by the Goo Goo Dolls. With the last song, you sort of have to suck it up and go sappy, I suppose. This has that Goo Goo Dolls energy, even if it’s not channeled as well as it was on “Long Way Down” or some of the Dizzy Up The Girl tracks.
    

So, that’s what I’d do if I were the Cubs, and I were a guy making a mix CD for a girl about to dump me. As for the real Cubs, a sweep would have been nice, and they certainly got the pitching for it from Zambrano tonight. But Dusty didn’t manage well and the lineup didn’t hit well, and so they couldn’t find an extra run. And that’s that.

(Maybe it’s a stupid idea for a column. But, once I started I decided to see it through and post it anyway. At least some of the songs are good, no?)