Alby's Latest Posts
Song of the Day 11/4: Journey, “Don’t Stop Believin”
David Chase, creator of “The Sopranos,” has at last cleared up any confusion about the series’ controversial final scene, which aired more than 14 years ago. Though he once sort of admitted that the screen went dark because Tony had been whacked, this was the first time he affirmed that this song playing on the […]
The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
This essay, by Italian economist Carlo Cipolla, has been around since 1976, but it remains fundamental to the understanding of human society and its defining characteristic, stupidity. Everyone should read it, because everyone is stupid about something some of the time, even though most of our problems are caused by the incalculably large number of […]
Song of the Day 11/3: Five Man Electrical Band, “Signs”
Before I left America, I noticed that most stores, and virtually every restaurant, had a “help wanted” sign in the window. The situation is so dire, some internet wag noted, that long-haired freaky people can now apply. I spend about an hour a day walking around Paris, and so far I’ve seen one (1) “help […]
Song of the Day 11/2: The Reds, Pinks and Purples, “Last Summer in a Rented Room”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona Glenn Donaldson works hard to craft the blend of guitar jangle and atmospheric dream pop that makes his band, the Reds, Pinks and Purples, sound so good. But the San Francisco musician works hard other places, too. Like Alcatraz prison, where he’s employed by the national parks conservancy. Like most […]
Song of the Day 11/1: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, “Mr. Blue Sky”
h/t Jason330 When the latest performance by the Muppet house band debuted Oct. 23 in a YouTube streaming event called “Dear Earth,” devoted to celebrating the only planet known to harbor human life, Jason330 was all over it. He loves this tune — and so, apparently, do most people of his generation. When an outfit […]
Song of the Day 10/31: The Strangeloves, “I Want Candy”
Happy Halloween. Were you expecting “Monster Mash”? There’s a good reason this song is built around the “Bo Diddley beat” — it started out as a cover of “Bo Diddley,” Diddley’s eponymous song, until producer Bert Berns and the three guys who became the Strangeloves decided to write new lyrics. The Strangeloves were advertised as […]
Song of the Day 10/30: Lorde, “Royals”
I’ll wrap up my songs-inspired-by-photos week with a connection nobody saw coming. When Lorde’s 2013 song made her the youngest person to ever have a No. 1 single, most people probably thought the New Zealand native was referring to actual royalty. Not so. She was thinking about Kansas City Royals Hall of Famer George Brett. […]
Song of the Day 10/29: Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit”
The photograph that inspired the song Time magazine named the No. 1 song of the 20th century was taken on Aug. 7, 1930. The lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana, was photographed by local studio photographer Lawrence Beitler, who printed and sold thousands of copies over the next 10 days. One […]
Song of the Day 10/28: The Beatles, “A Day in the Life”
“A Day in the Life” wasn’t directly inspired by this photograph of Tara Browne’s Lotus, which appeared in London newspapers on Dec. 19, 1966, the day after the Guinness brewery heir crashed into a truck at high speed. At the end of the first verse John Lennon sings that he saw the photograph, but the […]
Song of the Day 10/27: Lucinda Williams, “2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten”
This is my favorite song on Lucinda Williams’ masterpiece, 1998’s “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.” When I learned that most of the lyrics were inspired by photos in a book called “Juke Joint,” a collection of photographs Birney Imes took in the 1980s of roadhouses in the Mississippi Delta, I bought the book. Some […]
Song of the Day 10/26: Paul Simon, “René and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After the War”
Plenty of songs were inspired by photographs — I might steal an idea from El Somnambulo and do a theme week of them — but this one is special. It pairs one of Paul Simon’s sweetly melancholy jazz-flavored melodies with lyrics that echo the surrealism of Rene Magritte’s paintings. It sprang from a photograph of […]
Song of the Day 10/24: Glen Campbell, “Wichita Lineman”
This song contains a not-quite-rhyming couplet that many people consider, in the words of British author Dylan Jones, “one of the most exquisite romantic couplets in the history of song.” Jones has written an entire book about what he calls “the world’s greatest unfinished song.” Jimmy Webb wrote it at the direction of Glen Campbell, […]
Song of the Day 10/22: The Guess Who, “Undun”
Randy Bachman wrote a lot of classic rock hits for the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, most of them on a guitar he bought when he was 19 years old with money he made mowing lawns, a 1957 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins model in western orange with black DeArmond pickups. It was stolen in 1976, […]
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