Alby's Latest Posts
Song of the Day 4/15: Johnny Paycheck, “Me and the I.R.S.”
It’s too bad Johnny Paycheck didn’t live long enough to see what Trump and Musk have done to the Internal Revenue Service: A projected $500 billion will go uncollected because they gutted the agency. Audits? You have a better chance of hitting the lottery. Ol’ Johnny had his problems with the taxman, declaring bankruptcy when […]
Song of the Day 4/14: Chicago, “An Hour in the Shower”
You probably didn’t notice this last week, what with the destruction of the world economy and all, but Donald Trump renewed his war on water efficiency standards. He took time out of his busy schedule of making shit up as he goes along to issue an executive order on the important issue of “Maintaining Acceptable […]
Song of the Day 4/13: Kraftwerk, “Computer Love”
OK, from now on the tariff on Chinese goods is … eleventy jillion percent! Oh, wait, hold on a sec … um, except for smartphones and computers and stuff like that. We didn’t mean computers! That’s so crazy that you thought we meant computers! We love computers! So does Kraftwerk. If that wasn’t clear from […]
Song of the Day 4/11: T’Pau, “China in Your Hand”
Master negotiator Donald Trump claims he lured China into this trade war, which I suppose makes him a master baiter, and I’m not above pointing it out. He thinks he’s got America’s biggest trading partner right where he wants them. He also bankrupted multiple casinos and called it “winning,” so don’t bet your 401k on […]
Song of the Day 4/10: 10cc, “The Wall Street Shuffle”
Credit where it’s due: Turns out that all sorts of scandals pale to insignificance when you threaten to destroy the global economy, and if you time everything right there’s money in it, too. If you know anybody who works in the financial services industry – this being Delaware you likely do – have pity on […]
Song of the Day 4/9: Duran Duran, “Hungry Like the Wolf”
Government-funded science research might be a thing of the past, but private enterprise is there to pick up the slack. Why just this week, the sciencey entrepreneurs at something called Colossal Biosciences announced they have de-extincted a species, namely the dire wolf, which most people never heard of until they appeared as scary monsters in […]
Song of the Day 4/8: Willie Nelson, “Whiskey River”
As nations around the world play tit-for-tat with Trump’s tariffs, one American export seemed to bear the brunt of international ire: Bourbon. Kentucky whiskey was removed from shelves to great fanfare, and governments threatened retaliatory tariffs. Things looked dire for the distilling industry. It turns out “he’s crazy enough to do it” is a viable […]
Song of the Day 4/7: Ohio Players, “Love Rollercoaster”
I was all set to go with “Free Fallin’,” but the stock markets fluctuated wildly this morning, so the Ohio Players it is. “Love Rollercoaster” became their second No. 1 hit in January 1976. An urban myth arose about the song. At the 2:32 mark you can hear a high-pitched scream, supposedly the sound of […]
Song of the Day 4/6: Steely Dan, “Home at Last”
This song from the 1979 album “Aja” is unique in Steely Dan’s catalog: It’s the only one with solos by both Donald Fagen, on synthesizer, and Walter Becker on guitar. So it might be the only time they trusted themselves and each other simultaneously. Lyrically about an interstate Ulysses, “Home at Last” is revered by […]
Song of the Day 4/4: Randy Newman, “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country”
Randy Newman wrote an advance obit for the USA a while back that seems as if it were written to run today (h/t Lawyers, Guns & Money). It first appeared as an op-ed in the New York Times in January 2007, in response to President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address. It was […]
Song of the Day 4/3: R.E.M., “Man on the Moon”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona In a post-Andy Kaufman world, it was perfectly natural for R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe to question the moon landing in “Man on the Moon.” The song is (sort of) about Kaufman, whose comedy was all about confusion between reality and fiction. You could see how that worked in the 1999 movie […]
Song of the Day 4/2: Killing Joke, “Pandemonium”
I’ll be traveling today, so I’ll be spared whatever freakout ensues from whatever bilious bullshit Trump spews. I am, however, assuming pandemonium as the baseline outcome. Killing Joke’s 40-year career has been better appreciated in Great Britain, where all but one of their 14 LPs reached the charts, than in America, where only one eked […]
Song of the Day 4/1: The Rolling Stones, “Fool to Cry”
Stock markets have been wobbly in anticipation of tomorrow’s Trump dumbfuckery. Crying or not, there are enough fools running American industry to cover not just today but every day of the year. “Fool to Cry” was the only single the Stones released from their 1976 “Black and Blue” album, which they made after Mick Taylor […]
Recent Comments