Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 3/13: Laufey, “Misty”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona Some veteran jazz fans don’t listen to Laufey because they think she’s not a jazz singer. Gen Z listens to her because they think she is. To be fair, veteran jazz fans might not know enough about the young Icelander to make a judgment. Not if they think TikTok is […]
Song of the Day 3/12: Dean Martin, “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head”
The absurd story about Donald Trump giving his bootlicking cabinet Florsheim dress shoes that they’re all afraid to not wear has a perfect follow-up: The company that makes them is suing his administration for a refund of his arbitrarily imposed tariffs. After the Supreme Court ruled the tariffs illegal, Thomas Florsheim Jr., CEO of Weyco, […]
Song of the Day 3/11: Franz Ferdinand, “Take Me Out”
It seems the Trump administration isn’t alone in pissing off musicians by using their music without asking for permission. The ironically named Israeli Defense Forces set social media video of their unprovoked attack on Iran to “Take Me Out,” the 2003 breakthrough hit for the Scottish band Franz Ferdinand. Frontman Alex Kapranos expressed their displeasure. […]
Song of the Day 3/10: Travis, “New Shoes”
If you had asked me whether this story was real or something that ran in the Onion, I’d have guessed the Onion, but no, it’s real. It seems Donald Trump is in the habit of giving his aides a rather odd gift: $145 Florsheim men’s dress shoes. I’ll quote the Raw Story report, and tell […]
Song of the Day 3/9: Country Joe and the Fish, “The Fish Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag”
With talk of committing ground troops to Trump’s War on Iran, it would be a good time to break out this iconic Vietnam-era protest song, even if Joseph Allen “Country Joe” McDonald hadn’t died Saturday to bring it renewed attention. People too young to remember San Francisco’s psychedelic era and the protests over the Vietnam […]
Song of the Day 3/8: Psychedelic Furs, “Pretty in Pink”
Hey, Millennials, wanna feel old? The classic John Hughes Brat Pack movie, “Pretty in Pink,” was the No. 1 box office film 40 years ago last week. You’re welcome. As everyone knows, the Psychedelic Furs song was the inspiration for the film. And as any fan of the song knows, Hughes totally misinterpreted it. Psy […]
Song of the Day 3/6: The Prisonaires, “Just Walkin’ in the Rain”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona In 1953 a young doo-wop group entered Sam Phillips’ Sun Records studio in Memphis to make its first recording. They were hardly the only young black men looking to escape a tough life through music and maybe find a little fame. But these guys arrived in leg irons. Guards with […]
Song of the Day 3/5: James and Bobby Purify, “I’m Your Puppet”
Among their many desperate justifications for starting a war on Iran, Trump and Marco Rubio have slipped in the one that’s almost certainly true: Netanyahu made them do it. “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that […]
Song of the Day 3/4: Nazareth, “Shot Me Down”
The downing of three American combat jets in the early hours of the War on Iran were blamed on friendly fire from Kuwaiti air defenses. It now appears that it wasn’t ground-based missiles that brought them down but a Kuwaiti fighter pilot who mistook the American planes for Irani attackers. I’m sure the lack of […]
Song of the Day 3/3: Radiohead, “Let Down”
Lots of artists have protested the use of their music by the Trump regime, but the British band Radiohead put their objection more bluntly than most after “Let Down,” a track from their seminal 1997 LP “OK Computer,” turned up in an ICE video. “We demand that the amateurs in control of the ICE social […]
Song of the Day 3/2: Neil Sedaka, “Bad Blood”
Singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka, who died last week at age 86, had two separate eras of chart-topping success in his nearly seven-decade career. Yet his name is probably unfamiliar to anyone born after, say, 1980, because all his hits came earlier. Sedaka almost became a concert pianist. He won a scholarship to Julliard’s youth program when […]
Song of the Day 3/1: Canadian Resistance Army, “Not Your 51st State”
H/t Al Jackson, who sent me the link to the most recent AI creation of DesertFlyingFox, the creator behind the Greenland Defense Front video. This time around the anti-American forces include beavers, moose, grizzlies and an air force of Canada geese, all fueled by – what else? – Tim Horton’s.
Song of the Day 2/27: Johnny Nash, “I Can See Clearly Now”
Dedicated to El Somnambulo, for reasons he’ll understand. Johnny Nash started singing as a teenager in Houston and released his debut single in 1956. In the first 16 years of his career he had exactly two Top 40 hits, and one of them just squeaked in at No. 39. He was way ahead of the […]
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