Music Diary, Vol. -86

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 May 16-22, 2022

LYRICS: Matt North, "Hollywood Forever"

SONG: “We could dance, dance, dance through the fire.” Written in 1992 but not recorded to Bowie’s satisfaction until 2003, this transfixing jazz dirge looks back at ’70s excess and ahead to the somber majesty of Black Star. In other words, a career-spanning masterwork.

LYRICS: Kendrick Lamar, "Duckworth"

SONG: Among its many felicities, the Merchant Ivory film of Howards End introduced me to the music of Australian-born savant Percy Grainger, both in peppery mode (“Mock Morris”) and in the more contemplative sound of this profound, crystalline reverie.

LYRICS: Hoagy Carmichael (w/ Jane Brown Thompson), "I Get Along Without You Very Well"

SONG: Imagine Fleet Foxes, yet more guileless and tuneful, and with a dash of retro soul, and you have the inimitable song stylings of Unnar Gísli Sigurmundsson, aka Júníus Meyvant. This gorgeous confection is just the tip of the Iceland.

LYRICS: Talking Heads, "Nothing But Flowers"

SONG: “I’m going overboard with a capital O.” I cherish Hoagy Carmichael in his familiar mode of deceptively effortless folksy jazz brilliance, which is maybe why this manic, offbeat, weirdly seductive waltz from 1952 always startles and delights me.

LYRICS: Bob Neuwirth, "Annabelle Lee"

SONG: Tonight I’m seeing my favorite currently working band, Philly’s own Queen of Jeans, at Elsewhere in Brooklyn. When you love a band this much, it’s hard to pick a representative track, but I’ll go with this surging, yearning quasi-power ballad.

LYRICS: Ella Fitzgerald (Cole Porter), "Miss Otis Regrets"

SONG: I love all the spiky stuff on the Bowie Baal record, of course, but the keeper track for me is this lovely reverie, a signature Brecht mix of cold-eyed anti-sentimentality and simple beauty that I find more moving than a dozen love ballads.

LYRICS: Bobbie Gentry, "Fancy"

SONG: An underrated element of Do the Right Thing’s greatness: It’s crammed with music, not just a great album’s worth of hip-hop and pop but also Bill Lee’s gorgeous, old-fashioned Americana score.