Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 10/15: Madness, “Michael Caine”
Iconic British actor Michael Caine announced yesterday on BBC Radio that, at 90 years old, he’s retiring. “I keep saying I’m going to retire. Well, I am now. I’ve figured, I’ve had a picture where I’ve played the lead and it’s got incredible reviews. The only parts I’m likely to get now are old men.” […]
Song of the Day 10/14: Joni Mitchell, “Banquet”
For Paul and El Som, by request. The original arrangement on “For the Roses” features Joni on piano, but this full band concert performance from her film 1983 film “Refuge of the Roads” brings the song to greater life. The music starts at 1:46, but the old film footage preceding and punctuating it puts the […]
Song of the Day 10/13: Cyndi Lauper, “Money Changes Everything”
What makes so many politicians succumb to the lure of lucre? I think Cyndi Lauper summed it up. Actually, a guy named Tom Gray, who led an Atlanta new wave band in the late ’70s, summed it up first on an indie label in 1978, and did it so well that it got the Brains […]
Song of the Day 10/11: Talking Heads, “Life During Wartime”
The Talking Heads concert film “Stop Making Sense” is getting as much critical acclaim in its recent rerelease as it did when it opened in theaters back in 1984, maybe because the band’s sense of apocalyptic absurdity fits our present reality so well. Enjoy it while you can. As this New Yorker piece makes clear, […]
Song of the Day 10/10: U2, “Pride (In the Name of Love)”
Did Hamas deliberately single out the Tribe of Nova trance music festival, where they massacred at least 260 people and took an unknown number hostage? It wouldn’t be the first time terrorists have struck a music audience – the attack on an Eagles of Death Metal concert in Paris’ Bataclan killed 90 people and wounded […]
Song of the Day 10/7: Fred Neil, “Dolphins”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona Fred Neil wrote a sad, beautiful and enduring song called “The Dolphins” as a Greenwich Village folk singer in the mid-1960s. “I’ve been searching for the dolphins in the sea,” he sang plaintively. He doesn’t find them. Neil, who suffered from stage fright, soon dropped out of the music business […]
Song of the Day 10/6: The Sex Pistols, “Pretty Vacant”
They would never admit it, even to themselves, but the Freedom Caucus apparently is in favor of anarchy in the U.S. House, which makes the Sex Pistols the perfect soundtrack for their exercise in nihilism. According to original bassist Glen Matlock, who wrote the song, “‘Pretty Vacant’ is a primal scream kind of thing: We […]
Song of the Day 10/5: The Kinks, “Situation Vacant”
With a tip o’ the sombrero to El Som. Yoohoo, anybody home? House Republicans are demonstrating that maybe men do too think about the Roman Empire too much, and no that good comes of it. One online reviewer called this tune “a classic Ray Davies character piece in which ambition leads to misery.” That sounds […]
Song of the Day 10/4: Buffalo Springfield, “On the Way Home”
Buffalo Springfield had broken up by the time their third and final album, “Last Time Around,” was released in 1968. The LP was assembled from previously recorded material to fulfill the band’s contract commitment. Neil Young’s “On the Way Home” was one of the earliest, recorded in late 1967, after the return of Young, who […]
Song of the Day 10/3: The Ramones, “Why Is It Always This Way?”
Elon Musk’s fascist leanings are obvious at this point, and Russian state TV put a fine point on it yesterday by bragging that “Elon Musk really is our agent.” That got me thinking about “Rocket to Russia,” the Ramones’ third album. Unfortunately for the band that essentially invented punk rock, it came out just as […]
Song of the Day 10/2: The Traveling Wilburys, “Not Alone Any More”
Rock has had a lot of so-called supergroups, but I think the superest of them all is an easy choice. The Traveling Wilburys featured Beatle George Harrison, Nobel Prizewinner Bob Dylan and Hall of Famers Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, all of whom were in awe of their fifth member, Roy Orbison. Orbison’s career started […]
‘Bulo’s Fave Tunes: September 2023
Fewer songs this month. Sky-high quality, though, one of my favorite batches of the year. A Pops Staples original. Dedicated to Jason: MY kind of band. Surrealist noir is MY kind of music: Italian disco vibe. Video’s a hoot as well. Made me laugh: Perhaps the best American roots artist you’ve never heard of. I […]
Song of the Day 9/30: “Flipper” Theme
Former Republican poll watcher Scott Hall pled guilty to five criminal counts and must testify against co-defendants, notably former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, his contact in the plot. He’s the first of 19 defendants in the case to flip. I’m guessing he won’t be the last. For those too young to remember it, “Flipper” was […]
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