Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 6/15: Rod Stewart, “Handbags and Gladrags”
Old-timers bitching about the feckless younger generation has been a constant throughout human history, and it always seems to find an eager audience. Consider this song, written in 1967 by Mike D’Abo, then the lead singer of British band Manfred Mann, chastising a teenage girl for skipping school and shopping for trendy styles. For those […]
Song of the Day 6/14: Frank and Nancy Sinatra, “Somethin’ Stupid”
Republicans are always saying something stupid, but it’s rarely “I love you.” When this song surged up the charts in 1967 the lyrics puzzled me — how could the singer spoil it all by saying “I love you”? Hey, I was 11, there were lots of things I didn’t know yet. At the time, nobody […]
Song of the Day 6/13: Dave Matthews Band, “Busted Stuff”
Unless I’m missing some nuance, MAGAt Nation is threatening to bust stuff up just because their hero is being called to account for his lawbreaking. Yes, nothing says “we’re the party of law and order” better than calling for people to break the law in support of an even bigger lawbreaker. This song first surfaced […]
Song of the Day 6/12: AC/DC, “Highway to Hell”
Yesterday’s I-95 fire and overpass collapse in Northeast Philadelphia quickly acquired a soundtrack. Somebody posted to social media a drive-by of the fire a few minutes before the collapse, black smoke billowing before they come upon the flames. I don’t think this was actually on their car radio, but some things are just too right […]
Song of the Day 6/10: Billy Joel, “An Innocent Man”
I didn’t believe it when Billy Joel sang it, and I don’t believe it when Donald Trump says it. Joel intended it as a tribute to the Drifters, and it became the title song his 1983 LP, a set of tunes inspired by the music of his youth. As the album’s third single it reached […]
Song of the Day 6/9: Greta Van Fleet, “Black Smoke Rising”
We’re still under a bad-air advisory, but forecasters say the smoke from the Quebec wildfires should start to dissipate by later today. Greta Van Fleet is the band, composed of four brothers from Michigan, that broke out in 2017 and immediately became controversial because they sound so much like Led Zeppelin. This was the title […]
Song of the Day 6/8: Astrud Gilberto, “The Girl from Ipanema”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona Turns out the Girl From Ipanema was also a Girl From Philadelphia. After Astrud Gilberto died there on Tuesday, many were surprised to hear that for the past several decades she had quietly made her home in Philly after moving there with her second husband around 1980 (they divorced a […]
Song of the Day 6/7: Klaatu, “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft”
I don’t know if you saw this, but a whistleblower with a high security clearance says there’s a secret government program that has retrieved wreckage of non-human origin. This isn’t some anonymous source — he’s a highly respected intelligence agent who has gone public with this. Though mainstream media has been suspiciously slow to pick […]
Song of the Day 6/6: The Beatles*, “Grow Old With Me”
The asterisk is because this isn’t really the Beatles. People who worry about the AI menace have been too busy fretting about job losses and armageddon to notice it much, but the technology that allows for deep fakes is about to disrupt the music industry, too. One of the demos of this John Lennon song, […]
Song of the Day 6/5: Max Frost and the Troopers, “Shape of Things to Come”
Cynthia Weil, the lyricist who with her composer husband Barry Mann wrote some of the hits that made the Brill Building famous, died last week at age 82. Their biggest hit, the one that made the headline in obituaries, is “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” but it tops a long list of tunes by artists […]
Song of the Day 6/4: Guster, “Demons”
In the modern Republican Party, the measure of success is the ability to attract media attention, which is why Lauren Witzke is the leader of Delaware’s cackle of hyenas. She landed a mention in the Philadelphia Inquirer last week by tweeting out a graphic that shows the term “pride month” morphing into just its middle […]
Song of the Day 6/3: Rufus Thomas, “Do the Funky Chicken”
Being a Republican must be exhausting. You have to be on high alert at all times, sensitive to every threat to Our American Way of Life, plus you have to keep an updated list of who’s on your team and who’s working for its triple enemies Satan, socialism and Soros. It’s not easy keeping track […]
Song of the Day 6/2: Oasis, “Falling Down”
Joe Biden tripped and fell on stage at the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony yesterday, thereby demonstrating, according to the wingnutosphere, his absolute unfitness for the office of the presidency. This has proved particularly vexing to some in the GOP, who claim they were bamboozled in debt-ceiling negotiations by a guy they simultaneously claim can’t […]
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