Parentheses: Stay (I Missed You)

Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories: Stay (I Missed You)

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Some music fans are lucky enough to grow up in households where music is prevalent and important, and others have to find it on their own. For me, I was a casual music listener, but mostly just heard whatever was on the radio until I had an epiphany in 1996. This epiphany came in the form of a hit single on the radio called "Stay (I Missed You)". As for the theme, the song in question lost it's parentheses for the album, but the single was definitely called this, as was it on the Reality Bites soundtrack, where it was first heard.

Cliche almost now, but at the time the song grabbed me and wouldn't let me go. I was in high school and music was just "fun" to me and didn't get much deeper than that. But then I heard a song by a girl, and I related to it, it felt conversational, confessional, and enlightening. I bought Lisa Loeb's debut album shortly after that and didn't listen to anything else for nearly 6 months. It led me to buy soundtracks and compilations that led me to other bands that were equally enlightening. It was a side of music I didn't know existed, and it led to sides of me I hadn't known how to express before.

Obviously, others felt similarly about the song, as it became the first song to hit #1 by an unsigned artist. Since then Lisa hasn't made an album that hit quite like that first one did, but we can never really replace the feeling of a first love.

This and That: Notes and Daisies

Liz and Lisa: Notes and Daisies

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I'm sharing a rarity with our readers tonight. This track is off the self-titled demo tape put out by Lisa Loeb and Elizabeth Mitchell when they were roommates at Brown University in the late 80's and working as a folk duo called Liz & Lisa. I think I should get double word points for also having the artist name match the theme, I mean, hey, if this were musical Scattergories that'd be the rules!

I can't tell you how much I love the early work of Lisa Loeb. Her album "Tails" was a huge thing for me when it came out, and it's the album that got me to be more than a casual music listener. The Liz & Lisa tapes remain some of my favorite of her work though. They have all the charm of "Tails" (in fact, a number of the songs from Tails started as Liz & Lisa songs, and Liz sings back-up on Tails as well), but also have the intimacy of folk music and sharing the vocal reins with Elizabeth Mitchell is also a nice treat. Many people have heard of Lisa, but not as many know Liz. She's going by Elizabeth these days, but Liz Mitchell was part of the band Ida before she started releasing children's folk albums as a solo artist a few years ago, the first of which she made with Lisa.

This song features Liz on vocals, but Lisa is easily heard in harmonies. The picture above came up repeatedly in searches for daisies in the search engine, and I love the TV show "Pushing Daisies", from which the photo is a promotional shot, so I thought "why not?!". But then the more I got to thinking about it the more I thought "well, you know, Pushing Daisies started out with musical numbers in each episode, and this song does seem like something I can imagine Olive Snook singing to Ned, her boss, and the man she has a crush on", so yeah, it does sort of fit too since the song is about telling someone the way you feel about them. Two great things that go great together...this and that, indeed.

Winter Wonderland: Snow Day

Lisa Loeb: Snow Day

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When I think "snow day", I think of that feeling I got as a child when the weather was bleak outside and I sat on my parents bed watching the school closings across the bottom of the screen waiting to see my school's name and then bouncing with joy when it was canceled. But alas, that is not the feeling that Lisa Loeb is talking about in her song "Snow Day", in fact, it's quite the opposite.

This song is from Lisa's first (and best) album, Tails. It's an album known for its famous single "Stay (I Missed You)" that was featured in the 90's hit movie Reality Bites. This song speaks of the seasonal depression many of us feel. Lisa wrote this song before she made it big, living in the East Village in New York and dealing with the loneliness of the cold and bleak New York winters. The song, though it deals with depression, is also hopeful and imagines there being someone there to rescue us from our winter blahs. Perhaps it is someone to greet us with a steaming cup of cocoa after being out in the cold, or someone there to curl up with and watch a movie when the weather is too awful to go out. The song reminds us that even when we're sad and it looks like everything is stacked against us that things can and will get better.

Days Of The Week - Waiting For Wednesday

Lisa Loeb: Waiting For Wednesday

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Lisa Loeb seems to elicit extreme feelings. I've had people stress, "I hate Lisa Loeb!" and other people exclaim, "Lisa Loeb? I love her!" with equal enthusiasm. I must admit leaning towards the latter because... well, honestly... I've had a crush on her ever since the video for "Stay" first graced my eyeballs.
For a long time, "Stay" was the only thing I could name as hers. I didn't (and still don't) keep up on popular radio, so ended up missing out on follow-up singles.
A few years back, though, a friend borrowed me the debut Lisa Loeb release, Tails, which became a semi-permanant resident in my cd player all of that summer. About a week after said friend finally got her disc back, I went through withdrawal. I bussed across town to Cheapo and bought my own damn copy. As soon as I got home and got the plastic off the disc (and those damned sticky-tape encumbrances which seal the case once more - seriously, what is the reasoning? To force a few more seconds of...anticipation?) I pressed play, turned up loud, and mainlined the aural insulin. It may come off as sacharine, to some, but deep listening provides a measure of tart, which counter-balances the sweet.

"Waiting For Wednesday" was the fourth single from Tails, and it reached #83 on the U.S. Hot Singles chart.