Music Diary, Vol. -89

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 April 25-May 1, 2022

LYRICS: Billie Holiday (Rodgers & Hart), "I Didn't Know What Time It Was"

SONG: If you asked me to name my favorite Beatles deep cut, it would definitely be this rollicking yet somehow foreboding George Harrison joint, with a nervy piano groove only a guitarist could come up with.

LYRICS: Joni Mitchell, "Coyote"

SONG: One of k.d. lang's early signature covers was her harrowing take on the little remembered 1962 pop hit "Johnny Get Angry," in which she made explicit the violent misogyny the song seems to endorse, then hit a high C.

LYRICS: Hank Williams, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"

SONG: I’m not sure why this exquisite Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan/Eddie Vedder/Ry Cooder tune fit so well as the theme song for a great film about the death penalty set in Louisiana, all I know is that it’s 5 1/2 minutes of divine grace turned into music.

LYRICS: Elvis Costello, "Poor Fractured Atlas"

SONG: I knew I liked Jay Som the first time I heard her, but it was the lush throwback jazz/pop of this tune that made me love her (esp. the chord at 1:58).

LYRICS: John McMartin (Sondheim), "The Road You Didn't Take"

SONG: Is Street Legal Dylan’s most underrated record? I belatedly fell under its odd spell a few years back, and this long, sweet, waltzing grab bag of a song is one of the album’s high points for me.

LYRICS: Madison Cunningham, "Beauty Into Clichés"

SONG: Watch your back, both Loudon and Rufus Wainwright: This delicate, cutting waltz by the great Madison Cunningham is a perfect cocktail of amused chagrin at the City of Angels, preternaturally wise and achingly tuneful to boot.

LYRICS: R.E.M., "Begin the Begin"

SONG: The penultimate tune in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition has always sounded to me like a swashbuckling adventure theme, though that probably has a lot to do with Ravel’s maximalist orchestration.