Alby's Latest Posts
Song of the Day 6/16: Harry Richman, “I Love a Parade”
You know who doesn’t love a parade? Donald Trump. After going to all the trouble and expense of making it the centerpiece of a big, beautiful birthday celebration, he sulked through the whole thing. You can hardly blame him – it was a dull, low-energy affair that looked like it bored even the participants. For […]
Song of the Day 6/14: Elton John, “The King Must Die”
Political assassination has a long history in human affairs. Bernie Taupin wrote the lyric in 1969, the year after the MLK and RFK murders (John always wrote to Taupin’s lyrics, often paring them down from the original). The political climate obviously put to mind Shakespeare’s “MacBeth” and “Julius Caesar.” It was the closing track on […]
Song of the Day 6/13: Brian Wilson, “Caroline, No”
Brian Wilson’s musical genius was not matched by a way with words – he almost always co-wrote with a lyricist. For “Pet Sounds” he wanted to move beyond the teen-oriented tunes he composed with Mike Love, so he chose a new writing partner, a 26-year-old ad-jingle writer named Tony Asher. Stories of how they met […]
Song of the Day 6/12: Brian Wilson, “Melt Away”
I won’t rhapsodize about Brian Wilson’s talent – he always maintained it wasn’t genius, it was hard work – because the entire music world has already done that. Even his cousin, collaborator and frequent nemesis Mike Love, chimed in, with a tribute more eloquent than any of his lyrics. He called Brian’s oeuvre “a hundred […]
Song of the Day 6/11: Sly and the Family Stone, “Family Affair”
Sly Stone, who died Monday at 82, didn’t invent funk music – that honor goes to James Brown – but he’s the first one who took it beyond the dance floor. Starting with “Dance to the Music” in 1967, Sly and the Family Stone released a string of hit singles that changed the course of […]
Song of the Day 6/10: Tom Lehrer, “Send the Marines”
Of course Donald Trump sent the marines to Los Angeles. What’s left of his mind was formed by the same John Wayne films Tom Lehrer cited when he wrote this back in 1965, after LBJ used them to intervene in the Dominican civil war. Of course, that was when we only used them in foreign […]
Song of the Day 6/9: Garland Jeffreys, “Wild in the Streets”
Thanks to the Trump administration’s desire to declare marshal martial law and its constant need to change the subject from its latest fuck-up, the excitable homunculi in charge are treating localized vandalism in Los Angeles as if it were the Watts Riots. We should have learned from protests in Portland a few years back that […]
Song of the Day 6/7: Rilo Kiley, “Breakin’ Up”
The media is intent on milking this Trump-Musk feud for all it’s worth – schadenfreude might bring in as many clicks as rage does, or at least they hope so. Trump helpfully called reporters, even ones he doesn’t like, to dunk on Elon. Which they dutifully reported. Rilo Kiley released this song on their 2007 […]
Song of the Day 6/6: Neil Sedaka, “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do”
I’m not convinced it’s permanent, but the Trump-Musk breakup looks real – it’s apparently costing both of them money, and I can’t imagine they’d take kayfabe that far. I can imagine it getting uglier, though, given Trump’s uncharacteristic restraint so far and Musk’s invocation of the Epstein Files. Everyone knows breaking up is hard to […]
Song of the Day 6/5: Heart, “Barracuda”
Lots of rock musicians have careers that read like soap operas, but few bands have had more bad luck than Heart. Ann and Nancy Wilson had to overcome industry misogyny, record company lawsuits and broken love affairs – and that was just in Heart’s first few years together in the ’70s. The band has broken […]
Song of the Day 6/4: The Edgar Winter Group, “Frankenstein”
Among the credits I left out of Rick Derringer’s CV the other day was his production of this 1973 No. 1 hit for the Edgar Winter Group, one of the great instrumentals of the classic rock era. Derringer edited a much longer studio jam down to under 5 minutes the way they had to do […]
Song of the Day 6/3: Marcus Hummon, “Rosanna”
I notice that when politicians and pundits talk about immigration, it’s usually as an abstract concept – immigration, as opposed to immigrants. That makes it much easier to ignore the fact that most of the people whose lives are being destroyed by have done nothing to deserve it. And it’s been going on for a […]
Song of the Day 6/2: Rick Derringer, “Real American”
When he died last week at age 77, the obituaries for Rick Derringer all mentioned the two songs he was best known for: “Hang On Sloopy,” a No. 1 hit for his band the McCoys, recorded when he was 17 and still went by his birth name, Zehringer; and “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo,” the […]
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