Music Diary, Vol. -40

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 3-9, 2023

LYRICS: Bobbie Gentry, "Refractions"

SONG: Seldom has a writer used form with such devastating effect as Jackson P. Frank did in this folk classic; listen for the rising-falling repetition of every second line, giving way at last to the final cadence. It gets under your skin.

ALBUM: With Mitch Hedberg, it's about the cadence and the vibe as much as the jokes, though the jokes are great too.

LYRICS: Meat Puppets, "Plateau"

SONG: The fox has lost his cubs! This whirling, accordion-fueled banger from the Bulgarian State Television Female Choir poignantly conveys the urgency of its title concern.

ALBUM: This pre-grunge-era Thin White Rope record hit me at the right time (college) but I don’t think mere nostalgia is why I always return to it happily. Its captivating grit and symphonic sweep put me in mind of Sonic Youth, only more fun.

LYRICS: Flight of the Conchords, "Carol Brown"

SONG: Can’t get enough of this gently coiled midtempo folk rocker from The Bowerbirds, which builds to a stately, plaintive concluding wish for more. That’s how the song makes me feel too.

ALBUM: Argerich and Abbado's take on the Ravel piano concertos—one ebulliently jazzy, the other brooding and dramatic—is the version I swear by.

LYRICS: Velvet Underground, "Black Angel's Death Song"

SONG: I was so blown away by “Zebra” that I think I underestimated the rest of the songs on Beach House’s TEEN DREAM, including this hot-and-cold, major-minor pop exultation.

ALBUM: I’ve long been a sucker for the ragtimey strum and ping of the tenor banjo, so this Harry Reser collection is a trove of delicious ear candy—or as its title suggests, like a box of caramel corn with a prize in it, though every track is a prize.

LYRICS: The Buoys, "Timothy"

SONG: This France Gall tune from 1969, which seems to analogize a lover’s disregard to environmental depletion, starts out in a moody minor key, then at the chorus (about :37) has one of the most beautifully disorienting harmonic turns I’ve ever heard.

ALBUM: I confess I haven’t been 100 percent sold on boygenius, but liked them well enough to check out their new full-length—which, I’m happy to say, fully delivers on the promise of their inspired supergroup fusion. It’s a keeper.

LYRICS: PJ Harvey, "The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore"

SONG: It's been used in loads of films and TV shows, but the first place I heard this forbidding-but-fun Prokofiev banger was in the end credits of a PBS doc about Gen. MacArthur I watched with my dad as a kid. Arpeggios have seldom sounded so badass.

ALBUM: The Beatles' most underrated record is indeed a grab bag of covers they don't quite feel anymore, downbeat originals, and of course some world-beating singles. But I find I'm often in the mood for its weird mix of the routine and the unsettled.

LYRICS: Tom Waits, "You Can Never Hold Back Spring"

SONG: Today at Greenpoint Reformed Church I’ll sing my own rendition of this, my favorite hymn, whose lyrics date from 1664 but whose inspired tune was apparently composed over lunch (and on the back of a menu!) by John Ireland in 1925. As the saying goes, God is in the desserts.

ALBUM: Poulenc's religious music, like all his music, is rooted in the joy and drama of the present earthly moment, from which it blossoms into seemingly infinite branches and colors. Turn it up loud.