Music Diary, Vol. -35

For the rationale behind this mad effort, explanations here. The full series of Music Diary posts are here. The full playlist is above, also here.

Week of May 8-14, 2023

LYRICS: Hoagy Carmichael, "Skylark"

SONG: The wild time signature antics are just a part of what gives this great Margo Guryan deep cut its obsessive appeal. A plea to a thoughtless lover, its gently insistent vocal bobs and weaves atop the stormy waves of a Bacharach fever dream.

ALBUM: Revisiting one of my favorite records of the past few years: Queen of Jeans’ breathtakingly ambitious yet bracingly straightahead guitar power pop masterpiece, where classic songcraft imbued with deep feeling meets perfect arrangements.

LYRICS: The Rolling Stones, "Loving Cup"

SONG: How much different would my childhood have been if this sexy Dusty Springfield jam had been the canonical theme for "Six Million Dollar Man," I'll never know.

ALBUM: This record of 1970s-era Canadian school elementary school kids singing and playing the hits of their and my childhood (Bay City Rollers! Wings! Fleetwood Mac!) remains a found-art gem, a bracingly odd, immersive artifact of borrowed nostalgia.

LYRICS: Grateful Dead, "Scarlet Begonias"

SONG: If, like me, you sometimes crave that signature Vivaldi string sound but are sick of the familiar tunes, might I suggest his E Minor Concerto for Violin, Strings, and Harpsichord. This closing movement slaps.

ALBUM: What a joy to discover the sweet, lovely, slightly cracked music of Connie Converse, a singer-songwriter who accompanied herself on guitar in the 1950s, before that was a thing. Like Elizabeth Cotten or Jackson C. Frank, she was a true original.

LYRICS: Simon & Garfunkel, "Bleecker Street"

SONG: One of the spare parts Richard Berry took to create the Frankenstein monster that became "Louie Louie" was the irresistible I-IV-V-IV vamp of this René Touzet cut from 1955, which deserves to be a classic in its own right.

ALBUM: Hard to pick just one record by the great and prolific Neko Case, but today feels like a good day to spin her sweeping, soaring, heartful 2006 breakthrough.

LYRICS: Yebba, "Boomerang"

SONG: This gorgeous Joe Jackson deep cut is now almost as old as the post-WWII comity it looks back to wistfully. Its queasy anticipation of the Cold War’s end feels as prophetic as ever, but what cinches this one for me is the heart-bursting chords.

ALBUM: I cherish many R.E.M. albums but apart from MURMUR this is the only other one of theirs that feels like it hangs together as one statement, or at least as a statement I fully resonate with.

LYRICS: Lord Huron, "I Lied"

SONG: This Maria McKee cover of a Linda Thompson classic, one of the most abject pleas for love I’ve ever heard, rends the heart.

ALBUM: This Vieux Farka Touré and Kruangbin record, in which they cover some of Touré’s dad’s songs, is an inspired gathering of like-minded musicians, and very easy to love.

LYRICS: Bob Dylan, "When the Deal Goes Down"

SONG: I don’t share the Monroe Brothers’ apocalyptic eschatology, as memorably expressed in this infernally catchy tune. On the other hand, with the advance of climate change…

ALBUM: On a fresh relisten, the beauty and terror of this final Mozart work hit me hard—beatific moments aside, it is the sound of souls in purgatorial torment. The return of the Kyrie tritone drop in the final movement is as wrenching as ever.