Monthly Archives: August 2010

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Song of the Day #763: ‘I Feel A Change Comin’ On’ – Bob Dylan

Many of Bob Dylan’s albums are noteworthy for the atmosphere they evoke. The Basement Tapes sounds like it truly was recorded by a group huddled together in a basement (which it was, in part, but that’s not really important). Oh Mercy evokes the gothic New Orleans streets outside the studio. Blonde On Blonde has always sounded to me like the music of a shanty fishing town.

Together Through Life is one of the best examples of Dylan’s work creating an atmosphere. In this case, it’s the sound of a dive bar on the U.S.-Mexico border. The instrumentation (particularly David Hidalgo’s accordion), Dylan’s hard-luck vocals and the songs themselves all paint that place vividly in my mind.

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Song of the Day #762: ‘This Dream Of You’ – Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan’s 33rd studio album, and currently his most recent collection of original songs, was 2009’s Together Through Life. After the five year span between Love and Theft and Modern Times, a wait of less than three years for this CD was welcome. And the album came as a surprise, announced in the media just a month or two before its release.

Together Through Life can be viewed as the completion of a trilogy that began with Love and Theft, as the three albums share a producer (Dylan himself, under his Jack Frost pseudonym) and a general vibe and attitude. Time Out Of Mind, his other brilliant release of the past dozen years, stands apart from these three though it marked his creative resurgence.

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Song of the Day #761: ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ – Gene Kelly

Setting aside modern examples such as Moulin Rouge and Grease (although is it fair to call Grease modern anymore?), I own only one musical on DVD. And that’s Singin’ in the Rain.

It’s not that I don’t like musicals (despite my brother-in-law’s claims), it’s just that I’ve never spent the time to watch all of those old classics.

As a young man working in a video store, I took advantage of the free rentals to catch up on a lot of comedies and dramas of yesteryear, but never the musicals. I’m the guy who’s never seen The Sound of Music.

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Song of the Day #760: ‘Summer Nights’ – The Cast of Grease

I’m jumping back to the movies for my fourth show tune of the week (technically, Grease started as a stage musical, but the film is the version I know and love). I was going to cheat even further and post the title song today, but that felt like too much of a stretch.

Grease is one of the great movies of my youth, a film I know by heart after countless viewings on TV, VHS and DVD. It’s also one of the most amusing examples of actors who are practically middle-aged playing high-schoolers. I mean, seriously… Cha-Cha DiGregorio could have been in her 50s. Of course, when I saw this movie as a young boy, I just figured that’s what high school kids looked like.

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Song of the Day #759: ‘On My Own’ – Frances Ruffelle

Les Miserables was the first musical cast recording I ever owned. The soundtrack was given to me by my girlfriend in our senior year of high school. She was a musical theater type herself — the lead actress in all of our school plays — and I suppose she wanted me to better appreciate her world.

I never became much of a drama kid — backstage work and a bit part in The Man Who Came to Dinner pretty much covered it — but I did wear out my cassette of Les Miserables (recorded by the London cast, a very important distinction according to my girlfriend).

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