When McKinze and I celebrated our first Christmas together five years ago (5 years??? wow!), we put together a little mix CD of some of our favorite music from that year and handed it out as a gift to a few of our friends.
We called this collection Holiday Pants, based on the admittedly unusual term of affection we had and still have for each other: pants (or sometimes with a Spanish flair — pantalones; or French — pantalon; or most recently, of course, Georgian — sharvali).
At that time, in 2007, I was helping a friend by taking care of her house while she was in Germany, and she was helping me by providing a nice and affordable place to live. My new kitten, Lola, had only been in the “family” for a month. I was deeply entrenched in my job at The Englert Theatre. McKinze and I had been “seeing each other” for a few months. And mp3s were around, but not nearly as ubiquitous as they are now. CDs were still widely accepted as a ridicule-free method of transferring music.
Fast forward to 2011, and I’m posting this from the spare bedroom of my aunt and uncle’s house in Portland, Oregon. I’m nearing the end of a two-week vacation in America, which is halfway around the world from where I now live, in a little country called Georgia. I’m 3/4 of the way finished with my service in the Peace Corps. McKinze and I have been married for more than two years (and for 23 out of those 27 months we’ve been living in a bedroom in someone else’s house). And in terms of music, what’s a CD?
A lot changes in five years. Hell, a lot can change in one. Or even in a few minutes, which is the case with us while experiencing the songs in this year’s collection of music for our fifth annual Holiday Pants.
These songs may not be the best of 2011, or the hippest, or even all technically from 2011, but they were (and are) all important to me and to us in one way or another (although you can blame the commentary below on me). They were there in a time of change. Or they themselves had the power to change a mood, a thought, a direction…
Download them all below and, if you wish, listen to them in the Recommended Order For Maximum Effect. Enjoy.
1. Morning Thought – Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.
This whole album is a joy to listen to. This song fills the same role in my music sphere as MGMT’s “Time To Pretend” did a few years ago. Refreshing and endlessly listenable.
2. No Church in the Wild – Kanye West and Jay Z
Sunglasses and Advil… last night was mad real. Just a sick groove. Sneaky. Dark.
Preach.
3. White Limo – Foo Fighters
Maybe the best song on the incredibly over-sold new Foo album, because it doesn’t try to be what all the other songs are trying to be. Reminds me of being home last spring, driving on the gravel road out to the cabin.
4. Fletcher – Blitzen Trapper
Love these gravelly but wonderfully quirky and unexpected roots rock guys from right here in Portland. So many great songs on this album; this is one of at least two others than could easily go on this list.
5. Down In The Valley – The Head and the Heart
I first heard this song in the fall of 2010, and considered putting it on last year’s Holiday Pants but didn’t because, well, I just didn’t know if it was good enough… It didn’t help that I hate the name of the band. But here we are, a year later, and I’m still listening to it. Often. And often on marshutka rides to Tbilisi on sleepy early mornings. I am on my way, I am on my way. I am on my way back to where I started.
6. Godless Brother In Love – Iron & Wine
It was either this or “Tree By The River.” Both are beautiful songs by the guy who seemingly can only write beautiful songs. There are a couple of tunes in this year’s Holiday Pants that instantly take me back to where I was — physically and mentally — last early spring after my dad died. This is one of them.
7. Doors Unlocked and Open — Death Cab For Cutie
I fully expected to hate the new DCFC album and, as I joked before it was released, couldn’t wait to NOT listen to it. I was surprised to discover that it’s their best since Transatlanticism. This song is deliberate. Disciplined. For me, it represents turning the corner, coming back to Georgia in the summer.
8. Tear The Fences Down — Eulogies
This tune is just fun to be around. If you don’t like it after a couple of listens, you probably hate puppies and freedom, too.
9. Taken For A Fool — Strokes
My friends think the new Strokes album kinda sucks. This song proves them wrong (with or without air guitar). 
10. The New High – Truckfighters
This band is what the bastard lovechild of Queens of the Stone Age and Tool would sound like. It’s great for running, jumping and throwing in the 90+ degree heat in the middle of the stadium in Akhaltsikhe.
11. Codex — Radiohead
This is the other one.
12. Goshen – Beirut
Love this whole album. One of those cases where the singer truly steals the show.
13. October — Broken Bells
My favorite album of 2011 was from 2010. There are so many beautiful moments in these songs that just do not get old for me. This isn’t my favorite song on the album, but it’s the one that hooked me first and got me to keep coming back to eventually discover the other ones.
14. Ashes & Fire — Ryan Adams
There are maybe 3-4 songs on this album that are as good as anything he’s ever put out, and the rest are ehhhhhh. This is one of the three or four.
15. June Hymn — Decemberists
From another one of my favorite albums of the year. This one straddled the period right before we had to come back to America and right after we came back. I think you either love or hate Colin Meloy… if you don’t love him after this song, you’re not going to (and there may in fact be something wrong with you).
16. One Sunday Morning — Wilco
Why did I pick the longest, most repetitive, least musically interesting and arguably most boring song on the new Wilco album to round out this year’s Holiday Pants? I have no idea. Despite all those things, I just find myself longing to hear it anyway.
Happy Holidays, everyone. We hope you experience them with people important to you, in a way that you will not only enjoy now but will look back upon happily.
