Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 3/18: Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)”
For all the similarities between the music markets in the U.S. and Britain, some acts just never cross over. For every David Bowie, embraced as a taste-setter in America, there’s a Steve Harley – someone who scored lots of hits in the UK but never made a dent on this side of the pond. If […]
Song of the Day 3/17: Thin Lizzy, “Whiskey in the Jar”
Popular Irish songs might sound ancient, but many aren’t very old. “The Fields of Atheny,” for example, is about the potato famine, but it was written in the 1970s. “Ragland Road,” the poem, dates to 1946, but it was set to music in 1971. Every war and rebellion in Irish history, and there are a […]
Song of the Day 3/16: The Ink Spots, “We Three (My Echo, My Shadow and Me)”
A theme song for the gubernatorial race. No editorial comment intended. The Ink Spots, among the country’s most popular vocal groups in the 1930s and ’40s, had tremendous influence on the generation of musicians who started doo-wop and rock ‘n’ roll. They formed in the early ’30s, but soared in popularity after high tenor Bill […]
Song of the Day 3/15: The Ides of March, “Vehicle”
An old anecdote tells of the student who went to see “Hamlet” and complained, “It’s just a bunch of cliches strung together.” Indeed, absent the Bard, would anyone refer to today as the Ides of March? This much is certain: Without him, this 1970 hit would be by the Shon-Dels. That was the name a […]
Song of the Day 3/14: Kate Bush, “Pi”
Pi Day, so called because in American notation it looks like the first three digits of the mathematical constant (in Europe today is 14/3), is a bona fide holiday, designated by Congress in 2009 in hope of spurring interest in math and science (don’t tell MAGAts, they’ll try to get it repealed). It didn’t exactly […]
Song of the Day 3/13: David Allan Coe, “Take This Job and Shove It”
Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado is among the 23 Republican House members who announced they would not seek reelection this year, but yesterday he went them one better: He’s not even going to stick around until the end of the month. He’s leaving at the end of next week. Buck entered office as a Tea […]
Song of the Day 3/12: Raspberries, “Go All the Way”
Eric Carmen, the frontman of seminal early ’70s power pop band the Raspberries, died over the weekend at age 74. He gained greater fame in the ’80s after he left for a solo career, and in recent years some infamy for outspoken right-wing political stances, but his concept of a band that combined Beatles melodies, […]
Song of the Day 3/11: Roxy Music, “Virginia Plain”
People are still talking about Alabama Sen. Katie Britt’s disastrous State of the Union response, which seems to test the theory that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I seem to remember Bobby Jindal had already disproved it back in 2009, when he was considered the GOP’s young, fresh, not-a-white-male face. All most people […]
Song of the Day 3/10: The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet
You can discover anything on the internet, just about. That’s why the online world’s inability to discover the name of this song or the musicians who recorded it makes it The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet. This much is known with 99% certainty: The synth-pop tune was recorded in 1984 by a young teen […]
Song of the Day 3/7: The Beatles, “Doctor Robert”
Dr. Feelgood the Candy Man, better known as former White House doctor Ronny Jackson, has been demoted by the Navy from retired admiral to retired captain for running a pill mill out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. during the Trump administration. The Pentagon inspector general found he drank and took drugs while on duty and created […]
Song of the Day 3/6: Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, “I’m Broke”
This song is what the meeting between Donald Trump and Elon Musk at Mar-a-Lago must have sounded like. Guitarist and singer Black Joe Lewis was a hot item back in 2009, when he broke out at Austin’s SXSW festival and released the album “Tell ‘Em What Your Name Is!” which included this track. He’s released […]
DL Open Thread Wednesday, March 6, 2024
Trump and Biden both won most of the Super Tuesday delegates, but with enough hiccups to give the media something to talk about. Trump lost Vermont to Nikki Haley and picked up only about 75% of the GOP votes cast, while Biden lost American Samoa to some nobody from Baltimore. As a barometer, Samoa leaves […]
Song of the Day 3/5: Melbourne Ska Orchestra, “Get Smart”
Feeling down? I find that there’s nothing like a little ska revival music to brighten my mood. Today’s exhibit A: the Melbourne Ska Orchestra, an Aussie outfit that shows how well the genre takes to a big-band treatment. The band has been around for more than 20 years, and is part of a global ska […]
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