Music Diary, Vol. -60

The rationale behind this mad project is here. The full playlist is above, also here.

Week of Nov. 14-20, 2022

LYRICS: Bo Diddley, "Who Do You Love?"

SONG: No one will ever convince me that this anguished, soul-bruising McCartney ballad is not addressed to his late co-writer and bandmate. Though it's as close as he's ever come to bitterness in song, as it's McCartney it is still piercingly gorgeous.

LYRICS: The Yardbirds (Samwell-Smith/Relf/McCarty), "Shapes of Things"

SONG: Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche may have better songs, but the exuberant chorus of this thrumming banger from 2011 is the one that keeps popping into my head unbidden. It's always welcome.

LYRICS: Margo Price, "All American Made"

SONG: Among its many other felicities, the Style Council album My Ever Changing Moods (aka Cafe Bleu) is where I first heard the heart-catching voice of Tracey Thorn, in this dreamy bit of wistful faux-jazz. My 15-year-old self wanted to live in this song.

LYRICS: Dawn Upshaw (Sondheim), "What More Do I Need?"

SONG: Maybe it was annoying at the time, in the immediate wake of the Beatles, to have so many bands directly inspired by them. I for one am grateful for the great Welsh quartet Badfinger, who in 1971 picked up the “Day Tripper” baton and ran with it.

LYRICS: John Lennon, "Beautiful Boy"

SONG: They’re best known for the great quasi-calypso rock ballad “Love Is Strange,” written by Bo Diddley under a pseudonym, but spare a moment for this barn burner by Mickey & Sylvia, whose smoking main riff out-Diddleys Diddley.

LYRICS: Judy Garland (Blane/Martin), "Love"

SONG: My fave Police cut has long been this smoldering Bo-Diddley-meets-Johnny-Marr track from Regatta de Blanc, not least for the prickly pizzicato Andy Summers employs on the chorus, an effect he wouldn’t return to till “King of Pain.”

LYRICS: Bob Dylan, "I Believe in You"

SONG: One of Dylan's great Christian ballads is about staying true to oneself despite persecution, which is why its definitive version is this 1992 rehearsal by Sinéad O'Connor, who later that night was booed off the MSG stage at a Dylan tribute.