Monthly Archives: February 2010

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Song of the Day #569: ‘Boots of Spanish Leather’ – Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan’s third album, and his first to contain only original material, was 1964’s The Times They Are A-Changin’. It’s fascinating to consider that Dylan’s reputation as a protest singer and the artistic face of the civil rights era is based almost entirely on the songs he cut for this album.

Yes, ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ and ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’ appeared on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, but the rest of that album was a more good-humored and intimate affair. The Times They Are A-Changin’, by contrast, was folk singer medicine. Aside from the title track, which memorably warned of the coming revolution, declaring that “your sons and your daughters are beyond your command,” you have protest songs about specific injustices done to Medgar Evers, Hattie Carroll and others.

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Song of the Day #568: ‘Everyone’s In Love With You’ – David Byrne

In 2001, David Byrne released his fifth solo record, Look Into the Eyeball. It was a bit of a letdown following the heights of Feelings but it’s a solid collection nonetheless.

If Byrne tries something new on every album, on this one it was his liberal use of a string section on most of the tracks. Today’s SOTD is one of the few exceptions. But although it isn’t representative of the album as a whole, I chose it because it marks a departure for Byrne in another way… it’s a song about a recognizably human couple.

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Song of the Day #567: ‘Dance On Vaseline’ – David Byrne

David Byrne’s 1997 release Feelings was his best album since Rei Momo and stands as perhaps his best solo work to date.

After the more subdued David Byrne, he opened the creative floodgates on Feelings, blending his signature African and South American rhythms with synthesizers and hip-hop beats.

The result is one of his funkiest albums, and the first to my knowledge that spawned a club remix (of today’s SOTD).

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Miranda Lambert – Revolution

I first heard of Miranda Lambert when her 2009 album Revolution was released last summer. The write-ups in Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly raved about the album, calling it the best country record of the year and one of the best overall, and remarked that Lambert had knocked one out of the park in her first outing since the acclaimed Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

Such was my bias against country music at the time that I didn’t even think about picking up the album. Compare that to, say, the praise heaped on Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III, which prompted me to buy that album despite my general disinterest in rap music. (I didn’t like Wayne’s album much at all, incidentally, so maybe that was a lesson learned).

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Song of the Day #566: ‘Sad Song’ – David Byrne

On his third solo album, 1994’s David Byrne, Byrne retreated from the world music flavorings of his previous releases in favor of a more spare, somber sound.

Many artists choose to self-title an album when it contains their most personal work, a glimpse into their inner workings. Byrne isn’t going down that road here. The lyrics are his typical opaque explorations of the human condition, following his usual obsessions with the minutiae and ugly-beautiful details of life.

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