Music Diary, Vol. 65

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

Week of March 31-April 6, 2025

LYRICS: Emmylou Harris (Leonard Cohen), "Ballad of a Runaway Horse"

SONG: Not the best or my favorite The Mamas & The Papas tune, but I do marvel at the absolutely bonkers chord changes, vocal leaps, and tempo changes in this wild, rinky-rink ragtime jam. Imagine someone feeding acid tabs into a player piano.

ALBUM: Fans of Maggie Rogers, Lizzy McAlpine, boygenius, et al., make room in your heart for another crafty folk-pop tunesmith, Jensen McRae, whose smashing 2022 debut positions her in the front ranks of the current crop of Laurel Canyon/Lilith Fair inheritors.

LYRICS: The Bee Gees, "Stayin' Alive"

SONG: This joyous L’Trimm ode to pumping up the volume is truly one of the great jams of the 1980s, possibly the century.

ALBUM: Celebrating April Fools by putting on repeat one of the most delightfully annoying records I've ever heard. The lyrics of "Stupid Horse" in particular always make me laugh, but it's the gleeful sonic aggression throughout that's the real draw.

LYRICS: Elvis Costello, "Almost Ideal Eyes"

SONG: I never know what random earworm will pop into my head. This morning it was this sprightly tune from the great Edgar Meyer/Jerry Douglas/Vishwa Mohan Bhatt record Bourbon and Rosewater. Dobro and vina never sounded so sweet together.

ALBUM: Spent the last week revisiting Alabama Shakes's knockout second record, which raises the emotional stakes while deepening the grooves of their rich, textured rock-soul sound.

LYRICS: Marlene Dietrich, "Such Trying Times"

SONG: Hard to put into words how much this Emmylou cover of a Hillman/Parsons standard moves me. The vocal harmonies express such yearning and the lyrics such defiant sadness—it’s full-on weepy country with a real sting of despair, yet it lifts my spirits every time.

ALBUM: Like the film it was made for, this Jon Brion soundtrack is a ride: alternately lush, prickly, quaint, and edgy, from the old-school swell of string orchestra to the clatter of oddball percussion and the honey drip of Hawaiian guitar.

LYRICS: Big & Rich, "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy"

SONG: This epic jam sold me on Aerosmith before I was even two digits old. As great as the body of the song is, for me it’s all about the hazy talk-box-and-vibraslap intro—and the face-melting final breakdown.

ALBUM: America has long been a muse for Elvis Costello, both musically and thematically. On this 2004 record, made in Oxford, Miss., at the height (depth) of the Bush years, he sounds as besotted, implicated, and heartbroken by this forsaken republic as ever.

LYRICS: Teresa Stratas (Brecht/Weill), "Nanna's Lied"

SONG: Seeing Threepenny at BAM tonight, prepping by listening to the definitive German recording from 1958, on which this exquisitely seductive tango (and the Hawaiian guitar at the end) unlocked the whole show, and Weill, for me.

ALBUM: The key to Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings’ retro style was their recreation of a ’60s studio sound. The key to Durand Jones & The Indications, imo, is the way this record captures the sound of a smoking live band.

LYRICS: Larry Norman, "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?"

SONG: One joy of leading my church band is discovering old hymns as full of sealed-in freshness and resonance as time capsules. That’s definitely the case with this sweet Scottish number from the 1840s, written by George Matheson and Albert Peace.

ALBUM: I hear the clear influence of Orff and Stravinsky (esp. Les Noces) in this wildly beautiful Messiaen mini-cantata, but its odd mix of manic intensity and beatific joy is uniquely, unmistakably Messiaen.