Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 11/7: Bob Camp (as Stinky Wizzleteats), “Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy”
If ecstatic Democrats are going to gather in crowds to cheer Joe Biden — amid a pandemic, please remember — I wish they would all sing and dance to appropriately gleeful but simpleminded music. This tune, for example. The song first appeared in the sixth episode of the first season of “Ren and Stimpy,” the […]
Song of the Day 11/6: Chumbawumba, “Drip, Drip, Drip”
Those mail-in ballots just keep trickling in. It must feel like water torture to Twitler. This song was on the same album that made Chumbawumba a one-hit wonder, “Tubthumping,” released in 1997. That eponymous single hit No. 6 in the Hot 100, a major feat by then for any rock track, and drove the LP’s […]
Song of the Day 11/5: Stephen Bishop, “On and On”
How long will the vote counting last? It just goes on and on… Try to relax with a little yacht rock. Back in 1976, when the mellow music of Southern California was known, oxymoronically, as soft rock, Stephen Bishop released his debut album, “Careless,” and what would remain his biggest hit. “On and On” climbed […]
Song of the Day 11/4: Alice Cooper, “Elected”
This one is for all the people who were elected yesterday, a list that does not yet include a president. Though the song appeared Alice Cooper’s 1973’s “Billion Dollar Babies” LP, it was released as a single the autumn before, in time for the 1972 presidential election. It didn’t make much of a dent in […]
Song of the Day 11/3: The Chambers Brothers, “Time Has Come Today”
How much more cowbell could a song have? None. None more cowbell. The Chambers Brothers were unlikely pioneers of what became known as psychedelic soul, first recording this trippy classic in 1966. Just a year earlier they had performed at the Newport Folk Festival, at the invitation of Pete Seeger himself — as a gospel […]
Song of the Day 11/2: Rare Earth, “Get Ready”
Rare Earth earned its footnote in rock history as Motown’s first successful white act, but naturally the band, founded in Detroit in 1961 as the Sunliners, scored its first and biggest hit with a song of impeccable soul pedigree. Written by Smokey Robinson, “Get Ready” was recorded by the Temptations in 1966, when it reached […]
Song of the Day 11/1: Lindsey Buckingham, “Countdown”
The first time he left Rock’s Longest Running Soap Opera, in 1987, it took Lindsey Buckingham five years to put together a solo album. “Out of the Cradle” was actually his third solo album, but he had still been in Fleetwood Mac when he did the first two, and what was supposed to be his […]
‘Bulo’s Fave Tunes For October 2020
My kind of month–music that starts out interesting, and ends up fascinating. Plus songs for this dire season. A national treasure. A great song: Fuckin’ Portland Cops:
Song of the Day 10/31: Al Kooper and Stephen Stills, “Season of the Witch”
Donovan wrote and recorded this song in 1966, after guitarist John Renbourn of Pentangle showed him how to play a D9 chord at a house party. People who were there say the IrishScottish folkie then spent seven hours playing around with it, and “Season of the Witch” was written soon after. It was considered one […]
Song of the Day 10/30: The Traveling Wilburys, “End of the Line”
This one’s for the Trump administration and the entire Republican Party, which is indeed facing the end of the line. The Traveling Wilburys were rock history’s most peculiar supergroup — five middle-aged singer-songwriters, all but Tom Petty past their commercial peaks, combining their writing and singing talents just for the fun of it. The project […]
Song of the Day 10/29: Blind Faith, “Can’t Find My Way Home”
This one’s for all the poor saps at Trump’s Omaha rally the other night who got stranded miles from shelter in freezing temperatures when their buses didn’t show up. Apparently, whoever’s writing this Reality Show From Hell is overly fond of ham-handed metaphors. That’s the version that’s spawned a hundred covers, but it’s not the […]
Song of the Day 10/28: The Moody Blues, “Go Now”
As the days until the election dwindle, I find this tune going through my head — the “since you gotta go, you better go now” part, not the “I don’t want to see you go” part. This was the first big hit for the Moody Blues in their first incarnation, with Denny Laine fronting the […]
Song of the Day 10/27: Fleetwood Mac, “Dreams”
These are strange times in America, and not just because one of our political parties has gone full fascist. We live in a country where a 42-year-old song can re-enter the pop charts just because an Idaho warehouse worker posted a video of himself lip-synching the song and drinking cran-raspberry juice as he skateboarded down […]
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