Music Diary, Vol. -44

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 March 6-12, 2023

LYRICS: Frank Sinatra (Cahn/Van Heusen), "Only the Lonely"

SONG: Dave Van Ronk singing Brecht and Weill is as great a match as you might imagine. The album this track is from, Let No One Deceive You, is alas not on any streaming service but is very much worth seeking out.

ALBUM: Back in the '90s the Texas band Café Noir put out 2 records that met at the intersection of Western swing and gypsy jazz, then traveled on to all kinds of unexpected places. This collection and the follow-up, THE WALTZ KING, are essential.

LYRICS: Tom Waits, "The Fall of Troy"

SONG: That the Amazon rescue dog ad is using this sweet, wistful classic from Disney's ROBIN HOOD neither particularly bothers nor pleases me, but it does give me an excuse to revisit the lush original.

ALBUM: The sidelong genius of alt-country godfather Gram Parsons never landed as hard with me as on this great live album from 1973, from his tour in support of GP. Intimate, bracing, sweet—it's a keeper.

LYRICS: T. Rex, "Rip Off"

SONG: My late great piano teacher knew me well: She knew I loved French composers and big, loud tunes, so when she gave me this Debussy romp as a recital showpiece when I was in junior high, I couldn’t have been more on board.

ALBUM: To my ears this Can classic from 1972 sounds like a collision at the crossroads of prog and punk. However you classify it, I can't really sit still when it's on.

LYRICS: Little River Band, "Reminiscing"

SONG: If there’s a sadder or more gorgeous showtune written in the last 30 years, I don’t know it.

ALBUM: The 1996 studio cast album is how I was introduced to this Flaherty/Ahrens classic before seeing its epochal U.S. premiere in L.A., and it’s still the version I turn to most often (not least for the delicious cut song “The Show Biz”).

LYRICS: Squeeze, "Labelled With Love"

SONG: We may come to Thundercat for the speed-freak jams but we stay for gems like this, a sad, complicit ballad that’s virtuosic in its own way. It sounds a bit like he took the standard “I Remember You” and stretched it like taffy. It’s mesmerizing.

ALBUM: Among other things, this great 1999 record by XTC demonstrates that an orchestral palette—or what Andy Partridge called an “orch-oustic” sound—can actually intensify the intimacy and immediacy of pop.

LYRICS: Guy Clark, "L.A. Freeway"

SONG: This is the one track from the FIDDLER movie album that wrings tears from me every time (in a score not short on moving moments). Topol’s cracking voice is the sound of fresh grief from a weary soul surprised by love after it’s too late.

ALBUM: I cherish all of Gaby Moreno’s records (last year’s Alegoria is great) but I’m obsessed with the range of this 2011 joint, in which she variously evokes Edith Piaf, Mavis Staples, and Chavela Vargas, but with a spirit that is all her own.

LYRICS: Los Lobos, "River of Fools"

SONG: If you only know Blind Willie McTell as a character from a Dylan tune, treat yourself to the man himself, here joyfully testifying with Curley Weaver.

ALBUM: A great piece teaches you how to listen to it, and that’s definitely true of this Górecki masterwork. Another quality of some great pieces: They sound like they were always there somehow; also true of this monumental, prayerful symphony.