Music Diary, Vol. -48

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 Feb. 6-12, 2023

LYRICS: Bleachers, "Stop Making This Hurt"

SONG: Yes, this Tom Waits track is ostensibly about driving, but it’s also a bit about aging, right? He was 23 when he recorded this but already sounds old as the hills. As for me, I’m exactly the age the song names and I don’t not feel it.

ALBUM: I think I would feel a deep, almost eerie affinity for this beautiful, bonkers Bobbie Gentry record even if it hadn’t come out on the actual day of my birth. It’s a Southern Gothic classic that hasn’t been equaled.

LYRICS: Talking Heads, "Naive Melody (This Must Be the Place)"

SONG: Was in the mood for some Patsy Cline yesterday and was grooving along contentedly to this swinging classic when I suddenly noticed the line “And a plane will bring me to you.” Goddammit.

ALBUM: Despite A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs' valiant effort, I'm still not all in on The Monkees, but I'm forever grateful that the show led me to Michael Nesmith's First National Band, who did first-rate showbiz country—something like latter-day Gene Autry.

LYRICS: Gwen Verdon (Coleman/Fields), "Charity's Soliloquy"

SONG: A track that answers the question, What would one of Ravel's most gorgeously dissonant creations sound like with a few subtle jazz accents? Pianist Giorgi Mikadze takes all the repeats and the Raphaël Pannier Quartet scurries impishly alongside him.

ALBUM: Chuffed that Madison Cunningham's great new record won a Grammy on Sunday night, even if "folk" isn't quite the category I'd put most of it in. Whatever the genre, it's an all killer no filler masterpiece.

LYRICS: Big Thief, "Paul"

SONG: Fiona Apple covering Elvis Costello, and in particular this jagged, fractious kiss-off, is just too perfect.

ALBUM: For better or worse, Maria McKee's weird, wonderful glam rock masterpiece Life Is Sweet is at last on the streaming services. If you only know her as Americana girl, adjust your expectations and prepare for a ride.

LYRICS: Dionne Warwick (Bacharach/David), "A House Is Not a Home"

SONG: Spent yesterday listening to Dionne sing Burt, of course, and today this is the earworm I’m waking up with. It’s one of a number of Bacharach/David tunes where the breezy sound belies a rather creepy, obsessive lyric—my kind of tune, I guess.

ALBUM: Bill Frisell's album-length cover of Painted From Memory, released just a year after the Bacharach/Costello original, draws out the songs' countless subtleties and shadings, and though mostly instrumental also has some choice vocals by EC and Cassandra Wilson.

LYRICS: Johnny Cash (Billy Edd Wheeler), "Blistered"

SONG: I love every note on the Violent Femmes' 1983 debut record, but if I had to nominate a favorite track, I might choose this bouncy, poppy jam, one of the only tunes on the record with a vocal harmony.

ALBUM: Debussy and Ravel didn't plan their respective and separately great string quartets to make a perfect two-sided LP, of course, but it turns out that they do. The Chilingarian rendition is the one I swear by.

LYRICS: Judee Sill, "When the Bridegroom Comes"

SONG: Here’s the thing about this great Iris DeMent song: It might seem to be shrugging away life’s biggest questions, but what I hear instead is the hardest spiritual practice of all, i.e., living with uncertainty without resorting to easy answers.

ALBUM: I don’t share their theology but I believe deeply in the Louvin Brothers’ blood harmony. That’s why, despite the outrageous album cover, I take this record seriously.