Music Diary, Vol. -53

The rationale behind this mad project is here. The full playlist is above, also here.

Week of Jan. 2-8, 2023

LYRICS: Jake Thackray, "The Blacksmith and the Toffee Maker"

SONG: One vastly overlooked 1971 album: Paul Pena's self-titled debut. I highly recommend it; you can find it on Spotify. Not on Spotify: His follow-up, New Train, which includes the original version of the blues-rock megahit he handed to Steve Miller.

LYRICS: Tom Waits, "Pony"

SONG: Another great record that's criminally absent from streaming services: The 1996 compilation Shots in the Dark, which featured indie surf and lounge bands doing Mancini covers. Among many faves, this sleek Four Piece Suit jam is tops with me.

LYRICS: Barbra Streisand (Billy Barnes), "I Stayed Too Long at the Fair"

SONG: Bowie didn't address class head-on very often—one reason this sweet, overlooked early jam stands out. Another reason: the glistening 12-string guitar part, with its unmistakable Bo Diddley beat and yearning chords. It's not hard to picture him busking with this.

LYRICS: Dawn Upshaw (Blitzstein), "I Wish It So"

SONG: Do you think Ella Fitzgerald knew this song was about weed when she covered it? She was famously no stranger to the drug (cf. "When I Get Low I Get High"), so I like to think this, ahem, smoking version is infused with a puff or two.

LYRICS: The Everly Brothers, "The Price of Love"

SONG: Just discovered the great Rosinha de Valença, and she's already one of my favorite guitarists. Check out this amazing track, which opens her must-listen 1971 album Um Violão em Primeiro Plano, and which sounds a bit like a flamenco solo colliding with a funk revue.

LYRICS: Billy Joel, "All for Leyna"

SONG: The angelic harmonies of the McGarrigle sisters are only the top note of this beguiling, quasi-reggae Francophone satire of life in urban Montréal, which concludes with the deadpan: "Don't think we're not Christians, on Sunday we walk our dog."

LYRICS: Leonard Cohen, "If It Be Your Will"

SONG: As his then-partner Sam Phillips would later do with her classic “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us,” T-Bone Burnett nested a breakup song inside a spiritual (or vice versa?) with this under-sung standard, which I’ve made a staple at Greenpoint Reformed Church.