Music Dairy, Vol. 89

For the rationale behind this mad effort, the initial post is here. The full series of Music Diary posts are here. The full playlist is above, and also here.

Week of Sept. 15-21, 2025

LYRICS: Billy Bragg, "Honey, I'm a Big Boy Now"

SONG: I’ve got a huge soft spot for this late (2010) tune by Elvis Costello—a disarmingly cute old-timey rag that gets nearly baroque in its form and concludes with a whistle solo. A long way from “Pump It Up,” sure, but I for one am impressed at the grace with which he’s gone the distance.

ALBUM: I’ve loved so much of the music she’s made since, but Kimbra’s 2011 debut still stands out for its wide range, vocally and otherwise, from Björk-adjacent incantations to sugary pop. The high points are giddy highs and the deep cuts are especially deep.

LYRICS: Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty (L.E. White and Lola Jean Dillon), “You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly”

SONG: Though Elvis Costello wrote and recorded it in English in 1978, this impassioned 6/8 soul ballad was clearly written to be sung in Spanish by a woman who hadn’t even been born then, Marisol Hernández (stage name La Marisoul), who burns it to the ground in this 2021 rendition.

ALBUM: Though it was a major Bowie gateway for me, the live Ziggy Stardust record isn’t one I return to often, with its hollow-sounding arena bombast. This live 1972 bootleg, recorded in Santa Monica, is the perfect antidote: loud but intimate, young and fierce.

LYRICS: Kimbra, “The Build Up”

SONGS (I accidentally did two lol): This R.E.M. cover of a signature Richard & Linda Thompson tune turns it into a sweet, downhome jam, with exceptionally warm harmony singing between Michael Stipe and Mike Mills. The guitar solo is a letdown compared to Thompson’s, but otherwise a worthy effort.

and

Can a piece of music laugh? I submit this sparkling piece by Louis Moreau Gottschalk as Exhibit A, technically in a minor key but unfailingly, shimmeringly sunny throughout, and made all sweeter here by Richard Burnett's rendition on a historic piano. #dailysong

ALBUM: Seeing Alabama Shakes at Forest Hills Stadium tonight, so I've spent today with their second record, now 10 years old. I'd remembered its smoky, swampy mood but forgotten its stunning range, from psychedelia to punk and all points between.

LYRICS: Alabama Shakes, “Miss You”

SONG: This new Thundercat/Remi Wolf track is as wild and delightful as you'd expect, with her vocals slicing and skating over and around his falsetto and the whole thing dancing crazily over his and Justin Brown's headlong wrong-foot groove. I'd like to hear a whole album of them together.

ALBUM: On this solid, eminently replayable 1991 record by Julie Miller, she often sounds to me like Sam Phillips trying to sound like Patti Smith doing Lucinda Williams tunes. After several listens, though, it's clear that Miller has her own distinctive voice.

LYRICS: St. Vincent, “New York”

SONG: I find this deep cut by Yusuf/Cat Stevens mildly heartbreaking yet also uplifting. He's mourning a missed opportunity, or possibly a breakup, but also transparently trying to will himself out of grief with the title conditional. And it all turns on a single surprising III chord (at :24).

ALBUM: Revisiting Judee Sill's 1971 debut, I'm struck anew by how much baroque pop filigree it includes alongside her unique blend of folk and country. Forget marching to a different drum—Judee heard and channeled the voices of whole choirs no one else heard.

LYRICS: Hem, “When I Was Drinking”

SONG: How many songs are crammed into this single track by The Band? Or is it really all just one song, rendered in various tempos and guises and points of view—a folk-blues Rashomon? However you slice it, there’s nothing like it.

ALBUM: I grew up thrilling to this Maurice Jarre soundtrack without ever seeing the film. I finally corrected that last night at a screening of a new 70mm print at the Paris Theater, and thrilled anew at its ideal partnership with the film’s stunning visuals.

LYRICS: Pete Seeger (Dick Blakeslee), “Passing Through”

SONG: Opened last week’s service at Greenpoint Church with this strong, simple gospel waltz, and found it impossible not to sound like Willie Nelson doing so—his serene, reedy baritone seems inscribed into the rising-falling melody somehow.

ALBUM: Little Richard only uncorks his full, glorious wail at a few moments on this otherwise lush, decorous gospel record from 1961. But the man is incapable of singing without conviction, the kind that instills it in others. I’d go to this church.