Alby's Latest Posts
Song of the Day 5/31: “Taps”
The 24 notes of this bugle call might be America’s most recognizable tune. Veterans are most familiar with it from its daily sounding at 2100 hours, or lights out — its original use when a Union Brigadier General Daniel Butterfield adapted it for his brigade in 1862 from an earlier bugle call known as “Scott’s […]
Song of the Day 5/30: B.J. Thomas, “[Hey Won’t You Play] Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song”
Pop, county and gospel singer Billy Joe Thomas died yesterday at age 78, three months after being diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. Though he’s most famous for his pop hits “Hooked on a Feeling” (No. 5, 1968) and “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” (No. 1, 1969), Thomas started out as a country singer […]
DL Open Thread Sunday, May 30, 2021
Another day, another reason to worry that Chris Coons is going to fuck us up like the no-so-secret Republican he is. David Dayen the American Prospect reports that Coons is trying to force his pick to run the U.S. Patent Office on the White House. Why can’t we have nice things? Delaware is a bigger […]
Song of the Day 5/28: Joni Mitchell, “Both Sides, Now”
I’m going to guess this is Chris Coons’ favorite song. He’s looked at the issues from both sides now, and still somehow he really doesn’t know Republicans at all. Before Judy Collins recorded it in 1967 — actually, before it was released as a single in 1968 and reached No. 8 — Joni Mitchell was […]
Song of the Day 5/27: Everclear, “Santa Monica”
I’ve been on a bit of a ’90s kick lately — I’m more and more convinced that decade was rock music’s last hurrah — and this tune has gotten lodged in my head, so an [[[EARWORM ALERT!]]] is in order. By late 1995, when this song from “Sparkle and Fade” broke out on Alternative Rock […]
Bipartisanship Is a Mug’s Game
The seeds of our current obstructionist Republican Party were sown during the Clinton administration, when Bill Clinton signed a Republican “welfare reform” bill and, in the Republican view, stole all the credit for it. The lesson Republicans learned motivates them to this day: If a good thing happens with Democrats in charge, Democrats win, no […]
DL Open Thread Thursday, May 27, 2021
Whenever someone has suggested that the Covid-19 virus might have escaped from a Chinese lab, authorities have been quick to bat it down (see what I did there?) That’s probably been good geopolitics, but not good detective work. It turns out that the U.S. intel staff at the Wuhan Institute of Virology got sick with […]
Song of the Day 5/26: Bobby McFerrin, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”
I wanted to follow up yesterday’s examination of “We Built This City” with another tune that turns up high on most lists of Worst Songs Ever, so I offer this wildly popular No. 1 hit from 1988, the first and still the only a cappella song to top the charts. Nobody has ever been able […]
Song of the Day 5/25: Starship, “We Built This City”
There is a widely held misconception about this song. It is not the “worst song” of all time. It’s the most hated song of all time. It might sound like a semantic difference, but it’s not. The worst songs aren’t catchy ditties that go to No. 1 and are named “worst ever” 20 years after […]
Song of the Day 5/24: Pink Floyd w/ Stephane Grappelli, “Wish You Were Here”
I’m not much of a Pink Floyd fan — I probably haven’t listened to “Dark Side of the Moon” all the way through in 40 years — but you don’t have to be to know this song, a staple of classic-rock radio since its 1975 release. But, not being much of a fan, I wasn’t […]
Song of the Day 5/23: Frank Zappa, “Montana”
As if the story of the Hockessin woman who dognapped her neighbor’s 6-month-old Pyredoodle and dumped it on a New Jersey roadside wasn’t weird enough, the victim said this incident prompted her and her family to move to Montana. Frank Zappa had the exact same idea nearly 50 years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smZA9Jv3qH0 The backing vocals were […]
DL Open Thread Sunday, May 23, 2021
Quote of the Day: Maybe it’s just because of lingering cartoon stereotypes about German efficiency, but I always assumed Nazis would be, like, unusually competent, y’know? Having lived through the last five years, I understand now, of course they’re gonna be the mouth-breathingest fuckups on the planet, that’s why they need all the lying and […]
Song of the Day 5/21: Pink Floyd, “Have a Cigar”
This one’s for El Somnambulo, who’s a bit miffed that guys who smoke expensive cigars will pay a lower tax rate than people who smoke El Ropos. Contra Sigmund Freud, sometimes a cigar is not a cigar. For Roger Waters, it represented the greed of the music industry, which isn’t surprising, as almost everything represented […]
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