273 Seconds
September 4th, 2010In celebration of what would have been John Cage’s ninety-third birthday tomorrow, over at The Rest Is Noise Alex Ross has suggested making a playlist of all of your songs lasting four minutes and thirty-three seconds. This is, I believe, a capital idea. My list is considerably longer than his, but this is clearly because he hasn’t bothered loading all of his legendarily humongous CD collection into his iTunes – I mean, no Hoodoo Zephyr‽ Metaphysically impossible.
Here, then, is my 4′33″ playlist. Some interesting stuff. Best track title: American Idiot? Long, Long Journey? The World at Large? A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free? Anonymous Collective? Another Time, Another Place? Complexity Reducer?
John Adams: Day Chorus (from Death of Klinghoffer)
John Adams: Tourist Song (from Hoodoo Zephyr)
Add N To (X): Fyuz
Louis Armstrong: Long, Long Journey
Bela Bartok: Movement IV – Intermezzo interrotto (from Concerto for Orchestra)
Bat For Lashes: Glass
Beirut: Untitled (from The Joys of Losing Weight)
Ben Folds Five: Brick
Steve Beresford: Stationery Moves Me
Alban Berg: Movement V – Presto delirando (from Lyric Suite)
Alban Berg: Act I, Scene 4 – The Doctor’s Study (from Wozzeck)
Bettie Serveert: You’ve Changed
Johannes Brahms: I. Denn es gehet… (from Vier Ernste Gesange, op. 121)
Tim Buckley: Starsailor
Elliott Carter: Movement III – Andante espressivo (from String Quartet No. 2)
Elliott Carter: Movement V – Pavane (from Pocohontas Suite)
Elliott Carter: Careless Night (from In Sleep, In Thunder)
Emmanuel Chabrier: II – Danse villageoise (from Suite Pastorale)
The Chemical Brothers: Song to the Siren
Chromeo: Bonafied Lovin (Tough Guys)
Cub: Cast a Shadow
The Cure: Push
Luigi Dallapiccola: Scene Seconda (from Il Prigioniero)
Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse: Little Girl
Miles Davis: Two Bass HIt
Claude Debussy: II – La soiree dans Grenade (from Estampes)
Delorean: Complexity Reducer
Delorean: It’s All Ours
Dinosaur Jr.: Whatever’s Cool With Me
Dirty Projectors: The Softer Shell
Don Caballero: I Agree… No! I Disagree
Franco Donatoni: Francoise Variation III
Duran Duran: White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)
Eels: Trouble With Dreams
Efterklang: Illuminant
Evanescence: My Immortal
Morton Feldman: Projection IV
Fountains of Wayne: Sick Day
Fugees: No Woman, No Cry
Giovanni Gabrieli: Conzon Quarti Toni
Jan Garbarek: Snipp, Snapp, Snute
Kenny Garrett: Koranne Said
Philip Glass: The Ark (from Anima Mundi)
Heiner Goebbels: Wild Speculations (from The Man in the Elevator)
Green Day: American Idiot
Buddy Guy: Damn Right I’ve Got the Blues
Harvey Danger: Woolly Muffler
Jimi Hendrix: House Burning Down
Simeon Ten Holt: Section 165 (from Horizon)
Iron & Wine: Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car
Jimmy Eat World: If You Don’t, Don’t
Kronos Quartet/Willie Dixon: Spoonfull
Constant Lambert: Bacchanale (from Horoscope)
David Lang: International Business Machine
Led Zeppelin: Black Country Woman
Gyorgi Ligeti: Sostenuto, Molto Calmo (from String Quartet No. 2)
The Low Anthem: Charlie Darwin
Lykke Li: Little Bit
Ashley MacIsaac: Bonnie Anne Anderson
Steve Martland: Re-Mix
Marc Mellits: II. Terracotta Soup (from Brick)
Melvins: Going Blind
Charles Mingus: Strollin’
Modest Mouse: The World At Large
The Mountain Goats: Mole
The New Pornographers: Go Places
Joanna Newsom: Sprout and the Bean
Nine Inch Nails: Kinda I Want To
Per Norgard: II. F# Major (from Bach to the Future)
Okkervil River: John Allyn Smith Sails
Oval: Aero Deck
Owen Pallett: Peach, Plum Pear
Paloalto: Breath In
Paloalto: Home
Passion Pit: Cuddle Fuddle
Passion Pit: Better Things
Tristan Perich: Circle Left, Right
Phish: Dirt
Phish: Axilla I
Francis Poulenc: – II. Divertissement (from Sextuor)
Praxis: Skull Crack (We Are Not Sick Men)
Elvis Presley: I’ll Hold You In My Heart
Prince: Gett Off
Public Image Ltd.: Bad Baby
Quasi: It’s Hard To Turn Me On
Radio Tarifa: Sin Palabras
Ramones: Daytime Dilemma (Dangers of Love)
Maurice Ravel: Chanson Hebraique
Red House Painters: Drop
Redd Kross: Love Is Not Love
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: II. King Dodon on the Battlefield (from Le Coq d’Or)
Marcus Roberts: Before the Party Begins
The Rolling Stones: Gimmie Shelter
Ricardo Romaneiro: Equinox (Vernal)
The Russian Futurists: A Mind’s Dying Verse (You and the Wine)
Joseph Schwantner: Black Anemones
Alexander Scriabin: Andante (from Piano Sonata No. 1)
Paul Simon: The Cool, Cool River
Elliott Smith: In the Lost and Found (Honky Bach)
Elliott Smith: A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free
Snow Patrol: You’re All I Have
Dave Soldier: Nice Very Nice
Stars of the Lid: Another Ballad for Heavy Lids
Stereolab: Anonymous Collective
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Calmness (from Mixtur)
Styx: High Time
Sugarhill Gang: The Down Beat
Sun Ra: Space Loneliness
Superchunk: Cadmium
John Surman: On Hubbard’s Hill
Toru Takemitsu: III. Muir Woods (from In the Woods)
Talking Heads: Houses in Motion
Tan Dun: Desert Capriccio (from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
These New Puritans: 5
Tullycraft: Vacation in Christine, ND
U2: Miss Sarajevo
U2: Another Time, Another Place
Kid Thomas Valentine: Bucket’s Got A Hole In It
Varttina: Korppi
Caetano Veloso: Meu Rio
Vetiver: Idle Ties
Vibrasonic: Kingsley J.
Tom Waits: 16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought Six
Tom Waits: Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis
Tom Waits: Pony
Weezer: Across the Sea
Kanye West: Drive Slow
John Williams: The Spiders (from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)
Wu-Tang Clan: Clan In Da Front
Yellowcard: How I Go
Neil Young: Tired Eyes
Frank Zappa: 200 Years Old
Frank Zappa: Night School
Frank Zappa: Sharleena
Frank Zappa: The Girl in the Magnesium Dress
Jan Dismas Zelenka: Allegro (from Sonata No. 1)
John Zorn: Shidim
John Zorn: Tears of Morning
John Zorn: Ghosts of Thelemas





