Music Diary, Vol. -72

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

Week of Aug. 22-28, 2022

LYRICS: Eugene Chadbourne, "Governments Love Anti-War Songs"

SONG: I literally can't get this gorgeous Lord Huron song out of my head, and I'm fine with that. I love everything about it, but seeing them live last week I realized my favorite part is the 3-note "oh" over the B-flat chord in bar 8 of the verse.

LYRICS: The Pogues, "Boys From the County Hell"

SONG: Mychael Danna's Monsoon Wedding movie theme is a banger (was my ringtone for a while), but the Sukhwinder Singh track that plays over the film's opening credits is the kind of joyous downpour that makes me want to stand up and pump my fist.

LYRICS: Allan Sherman, "Here's to the Crabgrass"

SONG: Years after the Duke Ellington/Cheryl West Twelfth Night musical Play On! flopped on Broadway, I caught it at Pasadena Playhouse and loved it. This smiling song-and-dance, performed to perfection by Natalie Venetia Belcon, was a sweet high point.

LYRICS: The Police, "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around"

SONG: The first 45 record I owned, purchased at Disneyland and played to a nub on my Fisher Price record player; it wasn't until decades later that I realized it was written by mad cartoon-music genius Carl Stalling, which only made me love it more.

LYRICS: Roddy McDowall (Lerner & Loewe), "The Seven Deadly Virtues"

SONG: This delightful instrumental from Jeanine Tesori's 1998 Twelfth Night score showcases both her searing harmonic gifts and her restless rhythmic invention.

LYRICS: The Beach Boys, "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times"

SONG: One of my favorite Hendrix tunes gets a lovely, sleepy acoustic cover from an unlikely source, Brazilian singer Céu, who even makes the transition in and out of the bridge work more smoothly than the original.

LYRICS: Ron Sexsmith, "God Loves Everyone"

SONG: I always assumed the gospel banger that opens Peter, Paul & Mary's first record was a cover, a la Rev. Gary Davis's "If I Had My Way." Nope: It's by Noel Stookey, which makes it an early exemplar of that anomalous hybrid: the folk original.