Songs You Should Know- "Somebody is Waiting For Me", Juliana Hatfield

Tortilla Chips and Milk has been around for about four months and I just realized that I've only had one Juliana Hatfield-centric post. Well the drought ends here, right now, mofo's. I think I first came across the wonder that is Juliana when I was flipping through an issue of SASSY magazine that my sister had lying around. I vaguely remember that it was article about indie rockers sharing an apartment. Her roommate at the time was Evan Dando of the Lemonheads and I think it had a recipe in it or some shit like that. I just recall thinking at the time that she was gorgeous. Follow that with 120 minutes showing the video for "Everybody Loves Me but You" and a celebricrush was born.

I had my first opportunity to see Juliana Hatfield live when I was studying in London. She was sandwiched on a bill with the Posies and Teenage Fanclub. The Posies I was familiar with only because of the single "Dream all Day". Meanwhile, Teenage Fanclub was the indie act du jour and were touring supporting their album "Bandwagonesque", which Spin Magazine named album of that particular year, beating out Nirvana's "Nevermind". Let that soak in for a sec...

Now there is nothing better for me than seeing a concert in a medium-sized, converted theater with general admission and an inclined floor. This let me get pretty close to the stage which was key. Now the Posies set was memorable for one particular reason. They had performed "Dream All Day" in the middle of their set, which was probably the only Posies song the majority of the crowd knew, me included. Maybe two songs after, some jerkoff in the crowd starts singing the chorus to "Dream All Day" in the middle of one of their other songs. To this day it's still the worst burn I've seen at a concert.

During Juliana's set, two things stood out, she sounded nervous at times and she could really play the hell out of a guitar. My admiration was cemented when she sang the song "Nirvana" where the combination of her little-girl voice and the lyrics "makes me wanna go fuck shit up" was overwhelming and inspired life-long fandom.

Depending on who you ask she's most well known for either "My Sister" or "Spin the Bottle", but she's released some excellent work as she's drifted further and further from the mainstream. Her 2000 album "Beautiful Creature" stands out especially. The single I'm choosing from that album is the perfect showcase of why I love her as an artist. The song is such a mix of optimism and melancholy that's just amazingly genuine. Factor in that it's sung by, pound for pound, the most attractive woman in the universe and you've got a song that suckas got's ta know. Here's "Somebody is Waiting for Me"

Tags: Juliana Hatfield, Music, Songs You Should Know