Arts and Entertainment

As yesterday's Graham Parker song illustrated, something about minor chords and a reggae beat seemed to put '70s and '80s rockers in an apocalyptic mood. When Eric Bazilian and Rob…

There ain't no answers in me. This was one of Graham Parker's signature tunes when he burst onto the British music scene in the brief period in 1976 between the…

The idiom is so old its origins are uncertain, but for centuries now going to the dogs has meant going downhill, if not to outright ruin. Now it's America's turn.…

Back in March, Song of the Day featured a tune dubbed the Most Mysterious Song on the Internet. Known only from a tape made from a radio broadcast back in…

Quincy Jones scored almost three dozen films, including "In the Heat of the Night," "The Italian Job" and "The Color Purple." The first of them came years after he wrote…

The late, great Quincy Jones was arguably overqualified to produce this No. 1 hit for 16-year-old Lesley Gore in 1963. He had already led his own 18-piece jazz band on…

Something that fits the mood of the day, because the middle section contains hope as well as grief. Chopin composed the funeral march two years before the rest of his…

The odds are against it, but thanks to the quirks of the Electoral College, if all the toss-up states break just the right way, the presidential race could come down…

WXPN's David Dye is so impatient for the election to be over he devoted an entire show yesterday to songs about waiting. I had completely forgotten about this one, which…

Two Monica Beard mailers landed in my mailbox yesterday. At first glance they seemed like duplicates, because both showed her against a pink background on the front, with a list…

Another song that sadly hasn't lost any relevance over the past 54 years. In early 1970 Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong took a hard look at the wreckage of the…

Camille Saint-Saëns was one of the most famous and prolific composers of his day, and his serious works are part of the classical canon, but he's best known to the…