Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 6/19: The Rascals, “People Got to Be Free”
How does an old white guy celebrate Juneteenth? I’m going with blue-eyed soul from some of its early practitioners, the Rascals. The sentiment sounds hokey today — they don’t play this one much even on oldies radio — but it was widespread in 1968, when this song spent five weeks at No. 1 on the […]
Song of the Day 6/17: Mungo Jerry, “In the Summertime”
Some people insist summer starts with the equinox on June 21. Bollocks. June, July and August constitute “the summer,” and the people prove it every year by swarming the country’s beaches from Memorial Day to Labor Day. They take Mungo Jerry’s advice — they have a drink, have a drive and go out and see […]
Song of the Day 6/16: Pat Benatar, “Hell Is for Children”
We all realize that Republicans live in a heavily insulated bubble, but I don’t think we can grasp how weird it is in there. Every once in a while, though, one of them says something that shows they live in a very different world. Today’s example comes from Ted Cruz, who told some wingjob talk […]
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 […]
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