Hot, Black, and Strong: A Coffee Playlist

Hey, Meh contributor @JasonToon here. There are a lot of reasons you might buy this ton o’ silicone fun by BlueSky Gear. Maybe you’re tired of carrying around an uncollapsible water bottle. Maybe you’ve always wanted a spork that looks like it was designed by Joan Miró. Maybe you feel guilty for generating so much disposable dinnerware waste when you go camping. That crying Indian, man. Gets me every time.

Personally, there is one reason and one reason only I would buy it: coffee. I’m sure the collapsible one-cup coffee brewer doesn’t brew up to Milanese cafe standards. But by java, if you’re stuck up shit creek without a French press, it’ll do the job.

So, since there aren’t many songs about camping or silicone, for this week’s playlist I took my cue from my raging addiction (coffee, I mean, not videos where old people beat up their teenage harassers). Brew up a pot and put on these coffee jamz (also compiled in a YouTube playlist). Now your ears aren’t the only orifice that can enjoy coffee!

Mike Pedicin - “Burnt Toast and Black Coffee” (1961)
Wake up! This monstrous r&b stomper will get your system moving like a double espresso.

Tom T. Hall - “Don’t Forget the Coffee Billy Joe” (1972)
Although the chorus does include the line “Mama needs her medicine”, ol’ Tom T.'s not talking about coffee, but actual medicine. Missed opportunity if you ask me.

Stereo Venus - “Coffee and Honey” (2012)
Drowsy, sunny, lovely: the sound of a really good morning.

Max Woiski - “Nescafe Calypso” (1959)
Just when you think you’ve got this pseudo-Caribbean coffee jingle pegged, in come the harsh Teutonic vocals.

Sarah Vaughan - “Black Coffee” (1949)
Many others recorded this soulful standard after Vaughan’s original hit version, but nobody ever topped it.

Tony Alvon & the Belairs - “Sexy Coffee Pot” (1969)
If you’re wondering what exactly a sexy coffee pot might look like, Tony Alvon & the Belairs don’t offer much insight on this instrumental. But with a groove this mighty, who cares?

The Descendents - “Kids on Coffee” (1986)
The ultimate straight-edge spazz-out declares “thanks to modern chemistry sleep is now optional!”

The Ink Spots - “Java Jive” (1940)
If you only know this as a cutesy college a cappella standard, pour yourself a cup of the real stuff.

Christine Pilzer - “Café Crème” (1967)
I don’t know what the French lyrics are saying but I love that continental-a-go-go flavor: dissolve two cubes of psychedelic fuzz in one cup of Paris cafe music and drink while hot.

Arnim & Hamilton - “Walkin’ Midnight Coffee Break” (1970)
Meanwhile, over in Texas, this psych-folk duo also found that a cup of mud was the perfect spike for their lysergic ramblings in the dark.

Frank Sinatra - “The Coffee Song” (1960)
The silliest song ever written about Brazilian coffee overproduction: “You can’t get cherry soda 'cause they’ve got to fill that quota… they put coffee in the coffee in Brazil.”

Blur - “Coffee and TV” (1999)
No “coffee achievers” here: in Blur’s slacker anti-anthem, coffee is what grows cold in your hand while you sit on the couch, hour after hour.

Jim Ed Brown - “Coffee Cup” (1970)
You can only cry in your beer so long. Jim Ed Brown mixes up the lonesome country formula, complete with a musical quote from a Maxwell House ad campaign.

The Leiber-Stoller Orchestra - “Cafe Espresso” (1962)
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the songwriting and production team behind everything from “Yakety Yak” and “Kansas City” to “Jailhouse Rock” and “There Goes My Baby”, put their own names on this brisk but atmospheric instrumental. More coffeeshops should play this kind of thing instead of, like, Edie Brickell or whatever.

And that oughtta carry you through to the dregs of your second cup on even the laziest Sunday morning. Until next week, new coffee generation, hold on tight to your dreams.

Our weekend playlist archive is good to the last needle-drop:

• Slow Platinum: Albums That Took Years to Sell a Million
• Half-Hour Energy: An Action Video Soundtrack
• Pour This in Your Ear: A Wine Playlist
• The Thirsty Sound of Desert Rock
• Weekend playlist archive