Song of the Day

Song of the Day (154): Working Class Hero – John Lennon

Paul McCartney leaves the Beatles and writes “Silly Love Song.” John Lennon spits out this song. The spare music makes the bitter voice more prominent, the lyrics mocking and biting, a comment on the illusions we sometimes live and the hollowness of the fame Lennon found. #Songoftheday #spreadinghappiness #johnLennon #workingclasshero #primalscream YouTube: https://youtu.be/iMewtlmkV6c?si=En3U3jEWtr2K0xPt Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/1yKQBy7olMIqRpziyAzf8c?si=d1f01c2ac9cb4fc9

Song of the Day (153): If We Make It Through December – Merle Haggard

Songs like this are why Merle Haggard earned the nickname “The Poet of the Working Man.” This song tells the story of a factory worker losing his job despite “working hard.” All the world is in the holiday mood, all the world is buying gifts, but December is cold and dark for the singer and […]

Song of the Day (152): Into My Arms – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

There are the heavy piano chords followed by a voice worn down to the singer’s essence: I don’t believe in an interventionist God But I know, darling, that you do But if I did, I would kneel down and ask him Not to intervene when it came to you Will not to touch a hair […]

Song of the Day (151): Peggy Sue – Buddy Holly

Recorded in 1957, Holly originally called this song “Cindy Lou,” changing the name at the request of his drummer, Jerry Allison, who asked that they name the song after his girlfriend Peggy Sue Gerron. Allison later married Peggy Sue. Holly knew a good thing when he heard it and went on to record a sequel, […]

Song of the Day (150): Fast Car – Tracy Chapman

What a powerful song. Chapman’s imagination creates a world we can believe and understand with vivid details that avoid the benign and the sentimental. And her understated performance has us leaning forward to hear, making the impact all the greater. It is like the orator who eschews shouting for a whisper. The song can break […]

Song of the Day (149): Walking in Memphis – Marc Cohen

Marc Cohen had turned 28 and found himself in a funk. Living in New York City, he made some money as a backup singer while his singer-songwriting career went nowhere. James Tayor had suggested he travel, that visiting other places could reawaken his spirit. Cohen took a trip to Memphis and it became transformative. Having […]

Song of the Day (148): Seven Year Ache – Roseanne Cash

A young Roseanne Cash released this song about longing, heartache, disillusionment and getting old. It rides along at the pace of a pop song, but has a bite to it that won’t let go. It is still my favorite song b her. #Songoftheday #spreadinghappiness #roseannecash #sevenyearache YouTube: https://youtu.be/xZAPO-zQSFQ?si=8KmX_ioZCwoY32bz Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/4CLijHDH7Bd287Pv52BRb1?si=d5b352020a854356

Song of the Day (147): Alice’s Restaurant – Arlo Guthrie

It’s Thanksgiving which means it is time to play “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” Arlo Guthrie’s 18 minute and 34 second shaggy dog story that starts with a littering incident on Thanksgiving Day, moves to a local trial with Sheriff Obie and winds up at the Whitehall Induction Center for eh Vietnam draft where the singer asks: […]

Song of the Day (146): Come Monday – Jimmy Buffett

This became Jimmy Buffet’s breakthrough song – coming three eyras before Margaritaville – and it literally saved him. He wrote it for is girlfriend (and later wife) while he holed up on a Howard Johnson motor lodge (remember those with the orange roof) in Marin County slipping into a deeper depression. His career seemed headed […]