"That's the POLL of the law...." a poll of Painful by Yo La Tengo

about ten years ago, for my birthday, my ex got us tickets to a very small room thing where they would play some tunes in between being interviewed by some dude from the new yorker. when they took questions from the crowd, my ex stood up and extremely embarrassingly noted that we were there for my birthday and requested that they either play 'happy birthday' or 'i heard you looking' for me. they chose the latter, thank god. it wasn't a full-on rager like some versions i've seen, but it was still great

Good work your ex! I heard you looking is a pretty great birthday song.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

"Sudden Organ" was my #2, it does not belong at the end.

Inspired by the YLT lyrics thread, I looked up the lyrics to "Motel 6" where someone had posted the last 2 lines of this verse:

In the passing lane on 1 and 9
Stuck in sad, car stuck in drive
Oh well, your heart is broken
Well, you can have what's left of mine

I had never known (or heard correctly) the first line of this verse!

Just a theory but here goes:
Where Highway 1 (famously known as Pacific Coast Highway or PCH) & Highway 9 intersect in Santa Cruz, there is a tangled maze of exits/entrances and lanes (including a passing lane) and also, motels (there's not currently a Motel 6 there, but not to say there has never been one there as these properties tend to change hands often).

https://i.imgur.com/50VZcCt.png

One wrong move and you could be faced with getting on a mountainous highway with nary an exit for several miles so I can imagine this could be a source of stress for a touring band rolling through town, possibly looking for their accommodations very late at night after a gig in SF (90 minutes away).

Interesting to note: they opened a show in Santa Cruz with that very song in 2009:

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/yo-la-tengo/2009/rio-theatre-santa-cruz-ca-73d7e605.html

I've cracked the code!

https://yolatengo.bandcamp.com/releases they quietly released a new album of drones over the course of this week

they should have kept it for themselves...