Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 11/15: The Four Seasons, “Silence Is Golden”
Bethany Hall-Long is a too young to have been a fan of this tune when it came out in 1964 as the B-side to the No. 1 single “Rag Doll,” which like “Silence Is Golden” was a product of the Four Seasons’ hit songwriting team of Bob Crewe and Bod Gaudio. It didn’t get a […]
Song of the Day 11/14: Martha and the Vandellas, “Nowhere to Run”
So Bethany Hall-Long thinks she can brush her money troubles under the rug? Martha and the Vandellas have a message for her. Martha and the Vandellas took this Holland-Dozier-Holland banger – the percussion includes snow chains – to No. 8 on the Hot 100 in 1965. The song got one notable cover: On her 1971 […]
Song of the Day 11/13: Buffy Sainte Marie, “Universal Soldier”
Buffy Sainte-Marie has been in the news recently because a documentary has cast strong doubt on her claim to indigenous ancestry. She has long claimed she was born on a Cree reservation in western Canada before being adopted by the Massachusetts couple who raised her, but relatives have always denied this. The Cree nation, for […]
Song of the Day 11/12: The Pretenders, “Brass in Pocket”
Another entry on my Greatest Songs by Women ballot, this was the hit that ushered in the ’80s – in Great Britain, at least. It was the third single off the Pretenders’ debut album, released in fall 1979, and it hit No. 1 in UK when the new year began, making it the first No. […]
Song of the Day 11/11: Paul Simon, “Armistice Day”
We don’t call it that any more, of course. Armistice Day honors the end of the war that was going to end all wars. After the peace failed, so did the idea of honoring it. Instead we honor those who fought in all the wars we’ve engaged in since. Though it was released on his […]
Song of the Day 11/10: Jefferson Airplane, “White Rabbit”
Grace Slick faded relatively young, but back in the ’60s she was among the most important female artists in rock, the face of the San Francisco sound that turned made psychedelia the soundtrack to the Summer of Love. Slick joined the Jefferson Airplane in 1966, when singer Signe Anderson quit after the birth of her […]
Song of the Day 11/9: Janis Joplin, “Mercedes Benz”
Several Janis Joplin songs will make WXPN’s Greatest Songs by Women Countdown next month. This, the last one she ever recorded, got my vote. Joplin recorded the tune in one take on Oct. 1, 1970, three days before she died. She wrote it two months earlier in a bar in Port Chester, N.Y., by riffing […]
Song of the Day 11/8: Kristin Hersh, “Me and My Charms”
I engaged in lots of strategic voting when I filled out my list of the 10 greatest songs by women for WXPN. I didn’t agonize over which Joni Mitchell song to include, because I figure she’ll have 20 entries among the 885-song countdown. She doesn’t need my help. And while the rules allow any song […]
Song of the Day 11/7: Wayne County and the Electric Chairs, “Out of Control”
In honor of Trump’s meltdown on the stand in his fraud trial yesterday. Wayne County, who became Jayne County more than 40 years ago, was involved with Andy Warhol in the New York avant-garde scene and formed a proto-punk band in the early ’70s that influenced David Bowie and the glam rock trend. Her penchant […]
Song of the Day 11/6: The Sugarcubes, “Birthday (Ammæli)”
Here’s one from my WXPN list of Greatest Songs by Women. The not-yet-mononomous Bjôrk Guðmundsdóttir fronted the Icelandic avant-rock sextet the Sugarcubes when she wrote the lyrics to the song that broke the band, and Icelandic music in general, to a world audience in 1987. Of the enigmatic lyrics she said, “It was only an […]
Song of the Day 11/5: The Beatles, “Now and Then”
Forty-six years ago John Lennon sat down at his piano, turned on his tape recorder and played a song he was working on that wasn’t quite complete. Last week, after decades of musical massaging, “Now and Then” finally got an official release as the final Beatles song. It’s incorrect to call it a “new” Beatles […]
‘XPN’s Top Songs By Female Artists: Nathan Arizona’s Ballot
“Based on some combination of ‘accomplishment,’ impact, historical significance and what I like.”-Nathan Arizona 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.
Song of the Day 11/3: Kate Bush, “Hounds of Love”
El Somnambulo posted yesterday about WXPN’s year-end countdown being devoted to female artists this year. So is this year’s class at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, being inducted tonight in Brooklyn. There are three, count ’em, three women among the seven honorees: Missy Elliott, Sheryl Crow and Kate Bush. Elliott and Crow are […]
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