Music Diary, Vol. -77

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 July 18-24, 2022

LYRICS: George Jones, "The Grand Tour"

SONG: The Italian crooner Claudio Villa is worth exploring beyond his indelible tracks on the Big Night soundtrack. This beguiling ode to Mexico has a country-rock guitar ostinato and an otherworldly falsetto, like a railroad train guided by an angel.

LYRICS: Al Bowlly & Lew Stone & His Band (Kern/Fields), "You Couldn't Be Cuter"

SONG:  If you don’t know Erika Wennerstrom’s great American rock band Heartless Bastards, this straightahead post-breakup banger is a great intro. I hear the faintest ghost of Squeeze’s “Up the Junction” in its main melody, but it goes its own cussed way.

LYRICS: Peggy Lee (Matt Dennis/Les Clark), "Show Me the Way to Get Out of This World"

SONG: A cousin bequeathed the Jan and Dean LP Ride the Wild Surf to me at an impressionable age, and while most of it’s as disposable as you’d expect, the contorted harmonies and eerie descant of this ode to Waimea Bay are haunting in the best way.

LYRICS: Beyoncé, "Daddy Lessons"

SONG: I owe Dennis Potter for so many essential musical discoveries, and the debt keeps accruing: I only just noticed this sultry, unsettling instrumental from Black British bandleader Reginald Foresythe on the Pennies From Heaven soundtrack album.

LYRICS: The Chips, "Rubber Biscuit" 

SONG: I love everything about Logan Ledger’s Orbison-esque retro sound, but what sets this lovely tune apart is the melody’s habit of lingering on yearny dominant-7th and major 6th chords, and the synesthesic chill of one odd chord in the chorus.

LYRICS: Eden Ahbez, "Nature Boy" 

SONG: This infectious Stravinsky romp, written in 1925 but not premiered till 1946, sounds a bit like a “Petrushka” outtake. Most renditions take it preposterously slow but this jazz band rendition led by Robert Craft rips through it winningly.

LYRICS: Bob Dylan, "Every Grain of Sand" 

SONG: Native American and Christian spirituality meet, or at least run on parallel tracks, in this under-loved Robbie Robertson/U2 track from 1987, which appropriately enough sounds a bit like a Joshua Tree outtake with a dash of Band grit.