Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 6/21: Bill Lloyd, “The Fix Is In”
This one’s for Aileen Cannon, the unqualified federal judge who’s slow-walking Donald Trump’s stolen documents trial and refused colleagues’ calls to recuse herself. You can figure out why. Bill Lloyd is a veteran Nashville singer and songwriter, best known as half of Foster & Lloyd. The songwriting duo recorded three albums and landed several singles […]
Song of the Day 6/20: The Power Station, “Some Like It Hot”
This one’s for commenter Jarvis, who thinks people need to turn off the air conditioning because it’s not that hot out there. The Power Station, a super group formed by Duran Duran bassist John Taylor and guitarist Andy Taylor during the band’s hiatus in 1984, debuted with this single in 1985. It was a hit […]
Song of the Day 6/19: The Treniers, “Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)”
Baseball’s greatest all-around player, Willie Mays, died yesterday at age 93. He retired 50 years ago, so unless you’re a Boomer you never saw him play, and it might be difficult to understand what all the fuss was about. Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947, but when Mays won the Rookie of the […]
Song of the Day 6/18: Arrow, “Hot Hot Hot”
The heat dome that had monkeys falling dead from the trees in Mexico is headed our way. Delaware is expected to dodge the worst of it – places in the upper Midwest and Northeast could see temperatures 25 degrees above normal – but highs are predicted to hit 90 and above most days for the […]
Song of the Day 6/15: Françoise Hardy, “Tous les Garçons et les Filles”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona Singer Françoise Hardy might have been the coolest person in a cool era, the pre-hippie 1960s. Pretty and waif-like, perfect shoulder-length hair, soulful eyes, legs meant for a miniskirt, demure, French. Hardy, whose death this week at 80 sparked a lot of happy recollections, was the most important of the […]
Song of the Day 6/14: James Cagney, “You’re a Grand Old Flag”
It’s Martha Ann Alito’s favorite holiday, so here’s George M. Cohan’s tribute to Old Glory, as delivered by James Cagney in his Oscar-winning turn as Cohan in the 1942 film “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” You seldom hear the tune, written in 1906 for Cohan’s musical “George Washington, Jr.,” these days unless you listen to military band […]
Song of the Day 6/12: The Unusual Suspect, “We Didn’t Start the Fire”
This YouTuber’s shtick is editing together movie clips to substitute them for the real vocals in popular songs. It looks like a lot of work, and most of the results are amusing mainly for the films the editor chooses to sample, because it’s not hard to find examples of the words in, say, Rick Astley’s […]
Song of the Day 6/11: Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets, “I Went to a Party”
Nick Lowe has been playing and touring with surf-rock revivalists Los Straitjackets for a decade now, and he’s finally done an album with them. “Indoor Safari” is set for release in September, and a leadoff single was released yesterday. I know new music is El Somnambulo’s beat, but I figure he won’t mind a band […]
Song of the Day 6/10: Imagine Dragons, “Sharks”
Donald Trump’s fear of sharks is well-documented, but I think it’s confined to the oceanic sort. That’s not the kind of shark Imagine Dragons sang about in this 2022 single, a No. 12 hit on Billboard’s rock chart, but the video’s casino scenes make me wonder if it’s about him anyway.
Song of the Day 6/9: The Sundays, “Summertime”
Americans insist on regarding “summer” as the period between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox. That’s the astronomical definition of summer, but it’s not the only one. The length of the astronomical seasons varies, so meteorologists break the year into three-month segments. For record-keeping purposes, summer consists of June, July and August, which pretty […]
Song of the Day 6/7: Chuck Wood, “Seven Days Too Long”
I like soul music on Fridays as much as the next guy, but sometimes I get tired of the same old songs. So I turn to Northern Soul, the British movement born in the ’70s that kept alive obscure ’60s singles that never made the charts in the U.S. when they were released. A lot […]
Song of the Day 6/6: Jim Radford, “The Shores of Normandy”
Certain minds think alike. Mike Dinsmore posted this in the Open Thread while I was writing it up. It’s worth hearing twice. Jim Radford was a British folksinger and peace activist who was just 15 when he served as a cabin boy aboard a tugboat that took part in the D-Day flotilla 80 years ago […]
Song of the Day 6/4: Cyndi Lauper, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”
Cyndi Lauper announced her tour this fall will be her last. The now-70-year-old singer released the girl power anthem that defined her career in 1983 with a video that became an MTV landmark thanks to her sassy attitude and quirky thrift-shop wardrobe, a look Madonna swiped for her role in “Desperately Seeking Susan.” The video […]
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