Yesterday I made my best friend another of my occasional compilations of selections from my CD library. I'm calling this one Playlist IX: Torch. Although only a few of the tracks qualify as torch songs in the traditional sense, they all have to do, in one way or another, with the great torch themes of loss and unrequited love. Because I'm strapped for content, the track list follows (and you should know, of course, that in selecting the songs I wasn't aiming for comprehensiveness).
Playlist IX: Torch
1. "You Should Be Loved," Side Show: Original Broadway Cast Recording
2. "How Do I Get over You?" Candi Staton
3. "Still I Long for Your Kiss," Lucinda Williams
4. "Walk on By," Dionne Warwick
5. "Trav'lin' Light," Tony Bennett [on second thought, Bennett's a bit too cheery to sell sad songs convincingly; go find Billie Holiday's version instead]
6. "Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most," Bob Dorough
7. "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," Dreamgirls: Original Broadway Cast Album [speaking of which, I was glad to see that Sidetrack has gone back to showing the Jennifer Holliday version during Musical Mondays (for those of you who don't live in Chicago, there's a gay bar here that shows clips from Broadway and Hollywood musicals every Monday night); someone told me that the last time the bar showed the Jennifer Hudson version, the crowd erupted in protest]
8. "Some Dark Holler," Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Dwight Yoakam [I realize that including this one is a bit of a stretch, even within my widened parameters; the bluegrassy style and train motif probably propel it right past the torch niche with its immobile despair; but I like the song so it stays]
9. "I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine," Beth Orton
10. "My Man," Barbra Streisand [Streisand's recording of this song for the Funny Girl soundtrack found its way onto an earlier mix; this version is from her 2006 concert album]
11. "River," Madeleine Peyroux [Joni Mitchell's depressing-as-all-hell Christmas carol, sung by Peyroux with an assist from kd lang]
12. "Losing My Mind," Mandy Patinkin
13. "Somewhere along the Way," Nat King Cole
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