Category Archives: song of the day

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Song of the Day #4,100: ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’ – Lana Del Rey

Continuing my countdown of the songs on Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell.

8. ‘Venice Bitch’ – One of the first singles released, a full year ago, ‘Venice Bitch’ clocks in at nearly 10 minutes, with most of that running time devoted to a swirling, ethereal electric guitar part. When I wrote about this song back in February, I predicted that I would likely skip the back half during future listens. Interestingly, I never have… it has such a glorious vibe I can’t help but see it through every time. As Del Rey told her label when they balked at releasing such a long song as a single, “end of summer some people just wanna drive around for 10 minutes and get lost in electric guitar.”

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Song of the Day #4,099: ‘hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but i have it’ – Lana Del Rey

Continuing my countdown of the songs on Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell.

11. ‘The Next Best American Record’ – Re-listening to this song in order to write something here, I’m thinking it might be my favorite on the album. That’s how good this record is — a song outside of my top ten is in the conversation for the top spot. This one was reworked from a demo slated for her previous album, but wound up here in a new form.

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Song of the Day #4,098: ‘Fuck it I love you’ – Lana Del Rey

I’m going to keep the countdown momentum going for one more week, this time tackling the new Lana Del Rey album, titled Norman Fucking Rockwell.

I’ve been anticipating this album for a year, since the first two singles were released last summer. Since then, Del Rey has trickled out several more tracks, building anticipation, before finally dropping the album a few weeks ago.

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Song of the Day #4,097: ‘Hiroshima (Japanese Version)’ – Ben Folds

Ben Folds wrote a song called ‘Hiroshima’ for his 2008 album Way To Normal. The lyrics describe a time he was performing in Japan and fell off the stage, suffering a semi-serious head injury. He continued playing as blood poured down his face.

Apparently he later returned to Japan and performed that song in Japanese, which is the version presented here. It appeared on an alternate version of Way To Normal called Stems and Seeds, which included different mixes of the original album’s tracks plus other odds and ends.

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Song of the Day #4,096: ‘Stay Up Late’ – Talking Heads

Here’s a fun track from Talking Heads 1985 album Little Creatures, the band’s most commercially successful effort. After the exploration of world music on 1980’s Remain in Light and 1983’s Speaking in Tongues, found its influences back in America.

Pop, funk and country sounds dominate a song cycle about relationships and Americana. Songs ‘And She Was,’ ‘The Lady Don’t Mind’ and ‘Road to Nowhere’ found modest success on the charts.

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