Music Diary, Vol. -69

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

Week of Sept. 12-18, 2002

LYRICS: Kurt Robbins (Kendt/Warner), "Angora"

SONG: Yet another great tune introduced to me by the indispensable "History of Rock Music in 500 Songs" podcast: Johnny Otis's "Castin' My Spell," a novelty earworm with a Bo Diddley beat I would have played to death had I heard it when I was 10. I mean, a black cat, a cave bat...

LYRICS: Jimi Hendrix, "Castles Made of Sand"

SONG: Not my favorite Meat Puppets song (that would be "Two Rivers"), but the one I'm most likely to turn all the way up when I hear it. The alternating keen and chug of Curt Kirkwood's electric guitar is a journey in itself.

LYRICS: Dianne Reeves (Sondheim), "I Remember"

SONG: Richard Rodgers was one of the great melodists, though it might be truer to say he was two of the greatest melodists, so different did he sound when working with Hart vs. Hammerstein. This lush tune is one of the greats of the former collaboration.

LYRICS: Meat Puppets, "Up on the Sun"

SONG: It's hard to pick a favorite from Big Thief's latest record, but this percussive, sneakily joyful jam is one I keep coming back to.

LYRICS: Monty Python, "Galaxy Song"

SONG: This blistering new Madison Cunningham track sounds a bit like what would happen if Juana Molina and Thom Yorke had somehow contributed a song to The White Album.

LYRICS: Karen Dotrice & Matthew Garber (Richard & Robert Sherman), "The Perfect Nanny"

SONG: Not sure what it is about the two Sondheim songs Eleri Ward has done from Evening Primrose, but first "Take Me to the World," and now this perfect gem of a reverie, seem to me unimprovably sweet and sad and soul-filling.

LYRICS: Prince, "The Cross"

SONG: I first heard this soul-lifting jam by Purna Das Baul, a Bengali singer in a tradition that combines elements of Sufi and Sahaja, on a compilation my wife had called Devotion: Spiritual Music of the Indian Subcontinent. No music feels brighter.