twofer tuesday (on a thursday) #1: vashti bunyan's "diamond day" & pavement's "spit on a stranger"
"Diamond Day" - Vashti Bunyan (download) (buy)
from Just Another Diamond Day (1970)
"Spit on a Stranger" - Pavement (download) (buy)
from Terror Twilight (1999)
Vashti Bunyan, at least pre-rediscovery, seems exactly the type of obscurantist reference point tailor made for Stephen Malkmus. Whether or not he had her 1970 single "Diamond Day" anywhere near his bedheaded skull when he wrote "Spit on a Stranger," the lead cut from 1999's Terror Twilight, I've got no idea. Either way, given the autumn-burnt originality of "Stranger," it's not to accuse the Pavement leader of anything, except maybe getting a melody stuck in his head, and repurposing it for contemporary circulation.