Music Diary, Vol. -70

The rationale behind this mad project is here. The full playlist (minus a certain bit of never-recorded juvenalia) is above, also here.

Week of Sept. 5-11, 2022

LYRICS: Bob Dylan, "Romance in Durango"

SONG: I just learned that "Blue on Blue," the gorgeous B-side of Bobby Vinton's "Blue Velvet" single (not the original B-side, but included on the later reissue I bought), was written by Bacharach and David. Of course! No one does lush melancholia like them.

LYRICS: Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, "The Tears of a Clown"

SONG: Yes, Sara Bareilles's "Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road" cover really is as mind-bending a musical journey as everyone says it is. I've somewhat slept on both her catalog and Sir Elton's, but this makes me reconsider both.

LYRICS: Today is moving day / It'll be a moving display / Of the things we've left behind / And the things we'll find in our way (This is the beginning of a song I started when I was 12 or 13, not long after my family moved from Scottsdale to Phoenix. Today I and my family move from one part of Forest Hills, Queens, to another, and it came to my mind, Gershwin-y tune and all)

SONG: I know many others who prefer "Hammond Song" from the Roches' first record, but I'm more haunted by the album's sad-sack closer, a broken-down waltz that's another Maggie Roche classic about disappointment and a half-failed escape.

LYRICS: Dirty Projectors, "See What She Seeing"

SONG: The Kate Bush resurgence is my excuse to plug my favorite of hers, this simmering, surging 1989 track, which was apparently her best U.S. chart performer before Max pushed play on her Walkman.

LYRICS: The Beatles, "Her Majesty"

SONG: This quasi-nu metal bop was a crowd favorite when I used to play L.A. clubs with my band Millhouse. A reference to "new twenties" dates this to the late '90s; the Lerner & Loewe/Roddy McDowall call-out dates it to my childhood.

LYRICS: Paul Simon, "Darling Lorraine"

SONG: I've loved this gorgeous Madison Cunningham tune since I first heard her play it live in a virtual concert in March 2021 (and again at (le) poisson rouge a year ago), and now it's the brillliant, bittersweet opening track on her great, just-released album Revealer.

LYRICS: Madison Cunningham, "Not in Control"

SONG: Goodbye Babylon, a huge boxed set of rediscovered and remastered vintage gospel 78s, has afforded me many hours of listening pleasure, as well as plenty of options for my gig leading music at Greenpoint Reformed Church. This yearning country waltz by the Blue Sky Boys has always been a special fave.