Music Diary, Vol. 67

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 April 14-20, 2025

LYRICS: Jensen McRae, "Machines"

SONG: Van Dyke Parks's sensational medley of tunes from the overlooked Kurt Weill/Paul Green musical Johnny Johnson is among the more faithful on the Hal Willner compilation Lost in the Stars, and was a direct gateway to JJ becoming one of my fave Weill scores.

ALBUM: I unconditionally adore this now-20-year-old McCartney record, not only because it’s his most straightforwardly Beatles-ish but because that association seems to have raised the bar for him all around; it contains some of his best work from any era.

LYRICS: Hank Williams (Anglin/Wright), "Little Paper Boy"

SONG: I know that M.I.A. has gone MAGA but I’ll be damned if the skittering drum pattern that opens this indelible early jam doesn’t pop unbidden into my head about once a week, and it’s hardly unwelcome. The whole thing still slaps, truth be told. Whaddaya gonna do?

ALBUM: An irresistible grab bag of folk-funk surrealism, this Beck record never fails to make me smile.

LYRICS: The Beach Boys, "Disney Girls (1957)" 

SONG: Is this a love song? A breakup send-off? A vow? A warning? In the large-souled, incantatory world of Big Thief, it is deliciously difficult to say. No one else makes music about the painful, necessary, beautiful, scary entwining of humans like they do.

ALBUM: Giving Miley Cyrus's last record a fresh listen and really digging its mix of grit and sheen, dance-pop surfaces and searching textures. If it had a rep as more of a bummer than a summer record, that mix feels right now.

LYRICS: Bruce Springsteen, "Atlantic City"

SONG: Some songs just grab your attention and don’t let go, even after they’re over. That’s definitely the case with the fuzz-guitar jam that is the title track of Chrissy Zebby Tembo’s new record. Zamrock or glam rock? Either way, it’s a bop.

ALBUM: The Respighi Sonata is lovely but I must confess that when I had this on LP, I only ever really played Side 2, i.e., the Debussy. Upon relistening, I still find Heifetz’s dry-eyed, searing take on this music brilliantly clarifying and deeply moving.

LYRICS: Fiona Apple, "Fast as You Can"

SONG: I think folk music gets a bad rap as a relatively simple lyric-delivery system, but one thing this beguiling, two-toned Bridget St. John track reminds me: Just a voice and guitar can paint a scene and tell a story *musically* as vividly as any orchestra.

ALBUM: Released just a year before his untimely death at 39, this Junior Parker record is matter-of-factly soulful throughout. I admit I came for his disarmingly low-key Beatles covers and was not disappointed. Turn off your mind, relax, and groove downstream.

LYRICS: Tom Waits, "Pony"

SONG: Haven’t listened to this sinuous Joan as Police Woman track for a long time, but it all snaps back into focus: the call-and-response chorus, the Aimee Mann-ish bridge, the solid but surprising piano chords, the strange afterglow. Just great.

ALBUM: Julien Baker & Torres’s new record is deftly made and eminently replayable. Its indie-singer-songwriter-goes-country sound inevitably reminds me of Eleni Mandell’s similar 2003 effort, which I mean as high praise.

LYRICS: Truro Cathedral Choir (Ireland/Crossman), “My Song Is Love Unknown”

SONG: I’ve heard it over the years as a bit of bemusing pop culture trivia—that this light, beguiling Soeur Sourire ode to the founder of the Dominicans was No. 1 on U.S. pop charts in late 1963—but it also happens to be a disarmingly lovely and utterly sincere.

ALBUM: What other record for Easter Sunday than Mahler’s 2nd, aka Resurrection, as convincing and miraculous a conjuring of the eternal as I’ve heard.