Music Diary, Vol. -29

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 June 19-25, 2023

LYRICS: The Talking Heads, "The Good Thing"

SONG: I’ve always loved Tom Waits’s counterintuitive rendition of this showtune. But once I realized how much it sounds like Sweetums doing a solo number on “The Muppet Show,” I can’t unhear that…and now I maybe love it even more?

ALBUM: In September 1979, an all-inmate band from the Powhatan Correctional Center in Virginia were given just 5 hours to record this alternately festive and yearning collection of original R&B songs. It’s mind-blowingly good.

LYRICS: Alexis Smith (Sondheim), "Could I Leave You?"

SONG: I think because I’ve heard it for years I’ve become inured to how wild this Elvis Costello song is: smudgy minor-key verses ceding to manic major-key choruses, odd phrase lengths, jagged piano and bass. Not to mention the unsettling lyrics.

ALBUM: Spent most of yesterday cycling through the three LPs released so far by the quietly crafty L.A. songwriter Bedouine. I recommend them all but her 2017 debut may be the best intro to her slightly retro but sneakily fresh sound.

LYRICS: Kimbra, "Settle Down"

SONG: Most recordings of this Khatchaturian banger don’t nail the opening beat—an irresistible tattoo of a Georgian doli and snare—with the infectious, instantly sample-able clatter of conductor Lois Tjeknavorian’s. And that’s just the appetizer.

ALBUM: I’ve loved many records by the great Texas dance band Brave Combo but for me nothing tops the 1987 LP that introduced me to their eclectic, freewheeling mix of polka, zydeco, nortenas, horas, et al. YMMV but for me this is ear-to-ear-grin music.

LYRICS: Dove Cameron (C. Paul), "Kaput"

SONG: This incantatory track from the 1970 debut of Christine Perfect (aka McVie) isn’t just haunting—it feels haunted, specifically by “House of the Rising Sun.” And its promise of a return is repeated so insistently it starts to sound like a threat.

ALBUM: Not just one of the best albums of the Sixties but one of the most Sixties albums ever, this final statement by The Zombies holds together as a collection like few pop records I know. I always want to play it again as soon as it’s over.

LYRICS: Tom Waits & Crystal Gayle, "Picking Up After You"

SONG: A mod quartet signed to George Martin’s Parlophone in the mid-60s, The Action never really caught on or even made an LP, but a 1995 compilation of demos, ROLLED GOLD, showed what might have been. This twanging banger is the standout track. (thanks to Matt North for turning me onto this one)

ALBUM: Today feels like another Waxahatchee day. Released in March 2020, this wasn't just the album of that year for me. This curiously timeless collection is one thing that has kept me going ever since, and will surely do so for as long as I have ears to listen.

LYRICS: Zachary Levi (Bock & Harnick), "She Loves Me"

SONG: Hard to pick a single tune to honor the extraordinary legacy of the great Sheldon Harnick, so why not the one with the lyric that’s the least fussy and most truthful, and which I’m literally unable to hear without crying?

ALBUM: Been a long time since I spun the cast album of Bock and Harnick’s most New York score. It’s all a joy to revisit, especially the gritty, smoker’s-cough brass of those 1950s-era voices. Fave cuts: “I Love a Cop” and “Politics and Poker.”

LYRICS: Austin Pendleton (Bock & Harnick), "Miracle of Miracles"

SONG: In a score packed with favorite tunes, this simple prayer from FIDDLER is particularly dear. I’ve always heard it as the more religious companion to “Sunrise, Sunset,” even its flip side: One says, “Protect our children,” the other, “Let them go.”

ALBUM: For a time when I first came to New York, I had the great pleasure of singing with New York City Master Chorale, and was thus introduced to the subtle, gorgeous choral art of Morton Lauridsen, whose music is the aural equivalent of light through clouds.