Monthly Archives: September 2009

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Song of the Day #424: ‘Fiona’ – Lyle Lovett

ensenadaAnd so it came to pass that, in 1986, Lyle Lovett released his finest album, The Road to Ensenada. Lovett’s early albums are so uniformly excellent that it’s difficult to single one out as number one, but Ensenada blends some of his best songs with perfect performances and production and it’s also his most successful marriage yet of the heartfelt and the humorous.

On the heartfelt side, you have several songs inspired by his divorce from Julia Roberts, just a year or so after their unlikely marriage. I remember I was living at home when Lovett and Roberts married and my mother told me the news one morning when I was half asleep. When I made my way downstairs, I had to ask her if I’d dreamed that conversation. It was that bizarre a concept.

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Song of the Day #423: ‘If I Fell’ – The Beatles

beatlesfellI’m sticking with A Hard Day’s Night for my second tune this Beatles Weekend, highlighting one of my favorite songs on that album, and in the band’s entire catalog — ‘If I Fell.’

This is actually the second time I’ve featured ‘If I Fell’ on this blog. The first was back in April, when I chose Evan Rachel Wood’s version from the film Across the Universe as my 277th Song of the Day. I believe this song joins Ben Folds Five’s ‘Emaline’ (a live version and a cover) as the only songs to appear in two different Song of the Day posts.

I’ll go ahead and link up a third version of the song because I know Amy will if I don’t. 🙂 Here’s American Idol contestant Jason Castro’s version with the added benefit of clips from one of television’s very best shows, Friday Night Lights.

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Song of the Day #422: ‘I Should Have Known Better’ – The Beatles

beat_poolThere’s a pretty clear divide between The Beatles early, poppy stuff and their later more experimental music. Rubber Soul is where that split started to happen, and Revolver saw the transformation completed. Those are two of my favorite Beatles albums (I imagine they’re two of everybody’s). They showed the world that this wasn’t just a pop band but a serious artistic force.

Still, when I rank all of the band’s albums in order, it’s inevitably A Hard Day’s Night — one of those early, uncomplicated albums — that rises to the top. It lacks the ahead-of-its-time production techniques of later albums, the mind-bending lyrics, the complex song construction, but it makes up for all that in unparalleled pop songcraft.

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Song of the Day #421: ‘Creeps Like Me’ – Lyle Lovett

iloveeverybodyI Love Everybody was the first Lyle Lovett album that felt like a bit of a let-down. I think that’s because, following the tightly focused and emotional Large Band and Joshua Judges Ruth, this album felt a little too sloppy and a little too much like a lark.

Made up of 18 songs written in the early 80s before he landed his first record deal, I Love Everybody largely abandons the jazz and gospel influences of those previous albums in favor of a simple country style. And at the time of its release, I saw that as a negative.

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Song of the Day #420: ‘Since the Last Time’ – Lyle Lovett

joshuajudgesAnd His Large Band was the album that introduced me to Lyle Lovett, but Joshua Judges Ruth was the first of his albums released after I was already a fan. I find that those are usually important albums in an artist’s discography… two milestones that help shape my fandom.

For instance, if Lovett’s first new album had been a letdown, would my admiration for him have waned? I know I’ve been let down by the first new release of many an artist over the years. In Lovett’s case, no need to worry. Joshua Judges Ruth is as strong, if not stronger, than Large Band.

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