Music Diary, Vol. -66

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

Week of Oct. 3-9, 2022

LYRICS: Steve Earle, "Ellis Unit One"

SONG: As much as I love the big, weird rackets Charles Ives could cook up, my fave piece by him is still this brief two-part art song, first breathlessly goofy then achingly elegiac, and here definitively performed by Jan DeGaetani and Gilbert Kalish.

LYRICS: The Zombies, "A Rose for Emily"

SONG: I loved Rosalía from her first flamenco record, Los Ángeles, but this aggressive, disorienting collage from her breakthrough record El Mal Querer is what told me she was for real.

LYRICS: Gene Autry (w/ Jimmy Long), "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine"

SONG: Janacek's Sinfonietta is among my favorite 20th-century pieces, so it's hard to single out a movement to share. But the third, ostensibly inspired by Brno's monastery, may have the greatest range, from lyrical strings to rambunctious winds.

LYRICS: Loretta Lynn, "You Ain't Woman Enough"

SONG: Plenty of bands have blended distorted guitars, spiky organs, and spaced-out vocals, but no one sounded quite like Opal in its heyday. I never used hard drugs but this music made me feel like I had.

LYRICS: Talking Heads, "The Democratic Circus"

SONG: My favorite R.E.M. deep cut is on the ebullient, jangly side. To my ears this is as good as or better than anything on Reckoning.

LYRICS: Paul McCartney (w/ Elvis Costello), "That Day Is Done"

SONG: The Queens Gambit is where I first heard this Gillian Hills gem, whose title phrase is meant to evoke the repetitive croak of a busy signal. That it's a prime exemplar of early '60s French pop, a fave subgenre of mine, is also a plus.

LYRICS: Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris (W.B. Stephens), "Farther Along"

SONG: George Harrison's spiritual songs weren't all meditative or plaintive. Some, like this banger from All Things Must Pass, were exuberantly maximalist pop singalongs. God is in the details but also in the large, ecstatic gestures.