Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 5/16: Louis Prima, “I Wanna Be Like You”
The sad spectacle of Trump’s gaggle of suckups convening outside his trial in New York – in matching outfits, no less – made me think of this tune from Disney’s 1967 animated “Jungle Book.” The Disney people had to pitch the idea to Prima, who responded, “You want to make a monkey out of me? […]
Song of the Day 5/15: David Sanborn, “Hideaway”
Alto saxophonist David Sanborn’s music is usually categorized as smooth jazz, much to his chagrin. Sanborn, who died Sunday at age 78, released 25 albums leading his own band, incorporating rock, R&B and gospel into with the jazz, but no matter, you’ll find them filed under Jazz, Smooth. They don’t even care that Sanborn’s playing […]
Song of the Day 5/13: Baby Lasagna, “Rim Tim Tagi Dim”
Eurovision, the international song contest, rarely makes the news in America, but it’s a big deal in Europe, a sort of a musical Olympics that pits one musical act from each of two dozen or so participating countries, most of them European. They’ve been holding it since 1956, and it’s grown into a live TV […]
Song of the Day 5/12: Pixies, “Where Is My Mind?”
This is a question two presidential candidates who aren’t Joe Biden should be asking themselves. They could use this tune as a soundtrack. Black Francis said the song was inspired by a scuba dive in the Caribbean, but movies have been using it for years to signal a character’s inability to recognize reality. It was […]
Song of the Day 5/10: Redd Kross, “Candy Coloured Catastrophe”
El Somnambulo left this one off his list of his favorite new tunes of April, maybe because he didn’t get a chance to hear it – it dropped April 29. Or maybe because he’s not a big fan of Redd Kross, formed as a punk band in Hawthorne, Calif., in the late ’70s by brothers […]
Song of the Day 5/9: Harold Arlen, “Stormy Weather”
Contentious cross-examination of porn star Stormy Daniels made this an inevitable tabloid headline. I started humming this Harold Arlen standard, now 91 years old, as soon as I read it. Arlen composed a lot of tunes that made the Great American Songbook – “Let’s Fall in Love,” “That Old Black Magic,” “One for My Baby […]
Song of the Day 7/8: Graham Parker and the Rumour, “Mercury Poisoning”
H/t El Somnambulo It must be something in the water, nanoplastics or something, because suddenly politicians are saying shit that nobody looking for votes should ever say. First it was the Dogslayer, now it’s RFK Jr. saying a worm ate part of his brain … and, oh yes, also, he had mercury poisoning. I say […]
Song of the Day 5/7: “Weird Al” Yankovic, “Fat”
You can tell Donnie Two Scoops is on Ozempic (or Wegovy, they’re the same thing, just different doses) because he’s taken to mocking people for being fat. At a fundraiser in Texas for Rep. Ronny Jackson, the erstwhile White House doctor who lied about Trump’s weight, Trump said Tester “looks pregnant to me. … He […]
Song of the Day 5/6: Talking Heads, “Psycho Killer”
Kristi Noem’s dog murder-career suicide exposed her inhumanity, but as this writer pointed out, to really understand what a sicko she is, consider the poor billy goat who caught her attention on her way back from the Gravel Pit of Doom. He got offed, too, and not on the first shot. Though Noem justified the […]
Song of the Day 5/4: Bill Murray (as Nick Winters), “Star Wars”
Nowadays, after nine feature-length films and spinoff series galore, it’s hard to remember what a big deal the original Star Wars was when it came out in 1977. That was so long ago in the Lucasverse that “Star Wars” was the film’s full name. “Saturday Night Live” was in its third season in 1978, and […]
Song of the Day 5/3: David Bromberg, “Dehlia”
David Bromberg, who’s called Wilmington home for the past 22 years, announced that he’s moving to New York City – for a quieter life. Bromberg relocated from Chicago to Wilmington in 2002, during a long hiatus in his recording career. He only learned about the city because his manager took a job running the Grand […]
Song of the Day 5/1: John Lennon, “Working Class Hero”
It’s International Workers’ Day in 160 countries, but not the United States, where every day is Industrialists’ Day. Get back to work. John Lennon recorded more than 100 takes of this song for his first solo album in 1970. Two different takes were spliced together for the final cut. You can hear the change at […]
DL Open Thread Wednesday, May 1, 2024
I’m not going to bother with a Trump trial wrap-up, because if you consume news you can’t avoid the media’s information avalanche. I can’t tell who’s winning, but it’s pretty clear the loser is the American justice system: The judge fined Trump the maximum amount for nine violations of his gag order: $9,000, or $1,000 […]
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