there goes the neighborhood

I have to admit, most my experiences with neighbors have been either benign or horrible, not many have been the type to greet new residents with freshly baked cake, it's more along the lines of a reminder which trash cans are mine, to make sure to keep my garbage out of their bins. It's quite a difference from the childhood Welcome Wagon visits I remember my family receiving.

Nowadays, I'm happy if my neighbors are quiet enough to falcilate sleep. I don't think I'll ever get over the tramua of being sandwiched in a studio apartment between a group of Skinheads hellbent on slamdancing plaster off the wall boards and the endless late night, sleep-awakening group sing-a-longs to The Violent Femmes's Blister In The Sun that my surfer neighbors would be nice enough to drunkenly regale fellow building residents with.

Western society has become transient; very few people live in the community they were raised in. Some Sociologists postulate tagging is a result of the displaced claiming their territory, there's been a definite fallout of quality of life now that neighborhoods have become pit stops instead of a place to set your stakes and settle down in.

As fossil fuel becomes scarce, it's my hope the byproduct of less movement will be a return to the importance of community in our lives. Maybe if we start to know our fellow residents better, we might care more about our surroundings. Right now, for the sake of the neighborhood, let's settle for keeping the volume level at a dull roar as you listen to this collection of tunes about neighbors. Once they realize how thoughtful you are, they might just let you know the next time they see your car getting broken into.

"Good fences make good neighbors." - Robert Frost

"A good neighbor is a fellow who smiles at you over the back fence, but doesn't climb over it." - Arthur Baer

"Few of us could bear to have ourselves for neighbors." - Mignon McLaughlin

"Hedges between keep friendships green." - Proverb

"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live." - George Bernard Shaw

"Your next-door neighbor is not a man; he is an environment. He is the barking of a dog; he is the noise of a piano; he is a dispute about a party wall; he is drains that are worse than yours, or roses that are better than yours." - Gilbert K. Chesterton

"Love is blind - but not the neighbors" - Mexican Proverb

"Keeping up with the Joneses was a full-time job with my mother and father. It was not until many years later when I lived alone that I realized how much cheaper it was to drag the Joneses down to my level." - Quentin Crisp

"A neighborhood is where, when you go out of it, you get beat up." - Murray Kempton

"The supreme satisfaction is to be able to despise one's neighbor and this fact goes far to account for religious intolerance. It is evidently consoling to reflect that the people next door are headed for hell." - Aleister Crowley

"There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say." - Cyril Connolly

"In great cities men are brought together by the desire of gain. They are not in a state of co-operation, but of isolation, as to the making of fortunes; and for all the rest they are careless of neighbors. Christianity teaches us to love our neighbor as ourselves; modern society acknowledges no neighbor." - Benjamin Disraeli

"It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor." - Eric Hoffer

"Don't throw stones at your neighbors, if your own windows are glass." - Benjamin Franklin

"Love thy neighbor as thyself, but choose your neighborhood." - Louise Beal

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: Won't You Be My Neighbor?

The Rolling Stones: Neighbours - 5MB

The Chi-Lites: We Are Neighbors - 6MB

Manchester Orchestra: The Neighborhood Is Bleeding - 4MB

Modest Mouse: Paper Thin Walls - 4MB

Paul Simon: One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor - 6MB

Bob Dylan: Neighborhood Bully - 7MB

Lagwagon: Stokin' The Neighbors - 5MB

The Ohio Players: My Neighbors - 4MB

Del tha Funkee Homosapien: Neighborhood - 5MB

Lee Dorsey: Neighbors Daughter - 2MB

Gnarls Barkley: Neighbors - 5MB

Au Revoir Simone: Backyards Of Our Neighbors - 5MB

Howlin' Wolf: Neighbors - 3MB

Roebuck "Pops" Staples: (Peace To) The Neighborhood - 5MB

Through The Sparks: Falling Out Of Favor With The Neighbors - 5MB

The Temptations: Don't Let The Joneses Get You Down - 8MB

Rodney Dangerfield: My Neighborhood - 2MB

The Mitchell Trio: Your Friendly, Liberal, Neighborhood Ku-Klux-Klan - 5MB

The Arcade Fire: Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) - 7MB

Eels: Susan's Apartment - 5MB