Posts by Alby

George Harrison's ode to Great Britain's 95% marginal tax rate always gets a workout this time of year. The lead-off track on "Revolver" embellishes George's bitter lyrics (written after someone…

Everybody wants a new national anthem, but only Albert Brooks recognized that the most democratic way to find one would be to hold open auditions. From the 1973 album "Comedy…

You think you know the original, but you don't. I keep running across old songs that would need very little retrofitting to apply to Donald Trump. Today's example: Jello Biafra's…

If you doubt that hip-hop has permeated virtually all of American music, look no further than the controversy over "Old Town Road." The song started as a viral video in…

I'm not sure which one I had, but it knocked me on my ass the last few days. New Orleans ivory tickler Huey Smith scraped the bottom of the charts…

I think this is a good representation of how Donald Trump's brain works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLrnkK2YEcE Nothing in this song is actually original -- it's assembled from hundreds of samples with nothing…

This one's for Nancy: A plaintive ballad about overdevelopment from mid-'80s British band the Housemartins. The group frequently addressed social issues because singer and lyricist Paul Heaton didn't like writing…

Yeah, I'm snarking on Joe Biden -- with an opening line like "Can't keep my hands to myself no matter how hard I'm trying to," how could I not? --…