Choose Your Own Adventure: How was Valentine's?

 So how was your Valentine's Day?

It's Wednesday, which would usually mean a post from Mr. Juke Box Hero, but a busy week combined with lavishing his lady with thoughtful Valentine's Day courtesies has put him out of commission until tomorrow.

Instead, in recognition of the likelihood that we all celebrated (or pointedly ignored) yesterday's Hallmark holiday in ways that may require some musical soothing the morning after, here are a few videos to set the mood for today. Choose your own adventure!

How did you spend Valentine's Day?
a) With my beloved! It was beautiful and perfect!
b) With my beloved! It was somewhat less than beautiful and perfect.
c) On an awkward date.
d) Alone, because I chose to be alone, goddammit.
e) Alone, with a tub of ice cream.
f) Alone, with a bottle of vodka.

Barenaked Ladies: "The King of Bedside Manor"

There's a reason we sing in the shower. Take a standard bathroom and throw in a pair of musician friends that have known each other most their lives (and happen to have written a few really huge hits, even know they're Canadian) but who peaked in the nineties -- and you've got the Barenaked Ladies Bathroom Sessions.

The Barenaked Ladies are famous for their fun on-stage persona, so the chance to get up close and personal with Ed and Steve and their personalities is more than enough to convince me to watch the 10+ videos they made casually in Ed's bathroom in 2007. What sold me on this particular song was the inclusion of so many cameo covers -- Van Morrison and Styx are not the first related bands that might come to mind, but somehow it works.

The song is from their very first album, released in 1992, and though I applaud the pun in the title, it's not really the band's best song. (With 12 full-length albums, there's a lot of material to choose from.) But the cameo covers, tight harmonies, the forceful voices of Ed & Steve and their inability to get through the whole thing without cracking up are what make this video one of my favorites.

The rest of the Bathroom Sessions are so good that I'm giving you a bonus video, just because it's Wednesday. (Don't worry, it's brief.) When they're having fun like this, who wouldn't want to hang out with these guys? Enjoy.

"The King of Bedside Manor," performed by Ed Robertson & Steven Page.
Original on the Barenaked Ladies' "Gordon" (1992).

"If I Had $1,000,000," performed by Ed Robertson & Steven Page.
Original on the Barenaked Ladies' "Gordon" (1992).

(Get it?)

Swell Season: "Into the Mystic"

Singer-songwriters Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová stepped into the spotlight after starring together in the 2006 indie musical Once, for which they took home an Oscar for "Falling Slowly." Together they make up the band The Swell Season. Hansard has also fronted Irish rock band The Frames for more than 20 years.

I didn't know any of that when I found this video, which is a cover of Van Morrison's 1970 classic "Into the Mystic." (A cover of this song is also on the Once soundtrack.) It's the harmonies that sold me, as well as the willingness to bend the long notes in the chorus. In less capable hands that could have been disastrous, but listening to Hansard and Irglová I just want to throw up my feet, sip a glass of wine and sink into the music.

Fun fact: If you get surgery in Britain, your doctor may serenade your anesthetized self with this song, along with Vivaldi and The Police -- at least according to the BBC. Enjoy.

"Into the Mystic," performed by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová.
Original by Van Morrison, off the album "Moondance" (1970).