Posts by Alby

This song was released in the U.S. 50 years ago -- Jan. 12, 1970 -- and it kicked off the tragic career of the recently renamed Welsh band The Iveys,…

Peter Gabriel's anti-war song was released on his third self-titled album, an effort rejected by his record company as "commercial suicide." Atlantic rued the decision when Gabriel took the album…

Though Barry McGuire's anguished version is the one that hit No. 1 on the charts, it was the Turtles who first recorded the song by P.F. Sloan ("Secret Agent Man")…

Perhaps the most beautiful and poignant composition of Brian Wilson's late period was the lead single to his self-titled 1988 album, recorded near the end of his relationship with disgraced…

Sorry for being so obvious, but back in the days of the draft most people didn't need so much convincing that war was a racket. Of course, back then it…

For many years after its 1966 release, this song was one of the most difficult Beatles songs to find. Though recorded during the sessions for "Revolver," it didn't appear on…

The Mummers Parade is in trouble again, this time because two members of the Froggy Carr comic brigade wore blackface during their march. This has elicited, yet again, calls from…

The obituaries mostly said "Neil Innes of Monty Python" died Dec. 29, age 75, but that shortchanges one of the best comedy-music composers since Spike Jones. Before he worked with…

This track, which appeared on the band's strong debut album, was one of the signature songs of the power pop/new wave boom of the late '70s. Its title was borrowed…

As a poem, "Auld Lang Syne" dates to 1788, when Robert Burns sent it to the Scots Musical Museum with a note that read, ""The following song, an old song,…